I can't help but find this a remarkable book in many ways. The characters really live for me, and several are quite complex--certainly not simple to evaluate as good or evil. And I loved the world Card created of the Songhouse. This is a place where even common communications are made by song. I fell in love with Orson Scott Card's writing after discovering his Ender books. The theme of those books is tolerance, and trying to understand the "Other." And the theme of this one is love--of all kinds. The children brought to be trained to the Songhouse are orphans; when the young and gifted Ansset, who this novel is centered upon, is brought there, another child comforts him with the house's "Love Song" which is repeated at key moments:
“I will never hurt you.
I will always help you.
If you are hungry
I'll give you my food.
If you are frightened
I am your friend.
I love you now.
And love does not end.”
Including by the way, love between two men, and I don't mean platonic. Especially given this book was published in 1978, the novel is incredibly liberal and accepting in outlook. And yes, you might know that Orson Scott Card is now infamous for public statements against same sex marriage so vehement it's hard to believe it's just a matter of conviction, rather than bigotry. I know some reviewing this novel can see only hostility in its depiction of a relationship between two men--but I suspect they read this book in light of Card's remarks, and read into it what they were expecting. I only know that when I read this for the first time as a teen, that's far from what I took from it. And it's notable that those reviewers expressing anti-gay sentiments are angry at Card for his depiction, not happy with it. I found a remark of Card's over a decade after the book's publication defending the novel where he claimed:
What the novel offers is a treatment of characters who share, between them, a forbidden act that took place because of hunger on one side, compassion on the other, and genuine love and friendship on both parts. I was not trying to show that homosexuality was "beautiful" or "natural" -- in fact, sex of any kind is likely to be "beautiful" only to the participants, and it is hard to make a case for the naturalness of such an obviously counter-evolutionary trend as same-sex mating. Those issues were irrelevant. The friendship between [them] was the beautiful and natural thing, even if it eventually led them on a mutually self-destructive path.
The relationship isn't the central focus of the book. I wouldn't belabor the issue so much in this review, except that Card's views on homosexuality (expressed in ways much more extreme than in the quote above) so shocked me because it seemed so contrary to the spirit of what I had read by him and knowing those views now taint how I read his books. So rereading this--trying to decide whether or not to keep this book on my shelf or not has only deepened my bewilderment. How can he believe that, but write this? Maybe it's because in the end, Card is too good a writer to write caricatures--that his subconscious can counter even strongly held and expressed views as they're typed on the page. Just as Shakespeare may give us a Shylock that while reinforcing anti-Semitic stereotypes, at the same time has him cry, "Hath not a Jew eyes" demanding us to recognize his common humanity. I only know that I still can't reread Songmaster and remain unmoved. So despite feeling a bit embarrassed to admit Card still sings to me, it's true--the man's a bard.
