Re: Orson Card and autism

September 7, 2006

>

> I was reading one of his books and came across this:

> " Right now, to be candid, it seems to be almost malicious on the

> part of nature, as if there were some law that the price for the

> unleasing of human intellect is either autism or giantism. "

Would that be Ender's Game? I haven't read that one.

I had to look up his bio when you said he might be an aspie but I

couldn't find anything specific. He impresses me with his moral

messages and I've included a short bio of him here.

Kim

Born in Richland, Washington, Card grew up in California, Arizona,

and Utah. He lived in Brazil for two years as an unpaid missionary

for the Mormon Church. He received degrees from Brigham Young

University (1975) and the University of Utah (1981). He currently

lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. He and his wife, e, are

the parents of five children: Geoffrey, , , Zina

Margaret, and Louisa (named for Chaucer, Bronte and Dickinson,

Dickens, , and Alcott, respectively). A devout Mormon, he

believes that all fiction has a strong moral message. He believes

that the message should be positive; nevertheless, his choice of

subject matter and the amount of violence in his books have led to

some raised eyebrows in the Mormon church. Card's characters are

usually put in a position of having to make difficult and interesting

moral choices. Card believes that it is the character's interaction

with other people which makes him interesting. Family is also a

central theme in his work.

September 7, 2006

I've spoken with Mr. Card by phone — though we didn't talk about AS,

he definitely gives me the impression of someone who has AS and a very

high intellect.

Also, much of the plot of his horror-fantasy novel LOST BOYS (*not*

the better-known book with that title by someone else) involves a

brilliant kid who suffers mightily at his new school because his

third-grade teacher:

/a/ insists on marking certain right answers as " wrong " (giving a

red " x " for the correct plural of " octopus " for instance, because the

teacher doesn't know the correct plural but thinks she does &

therefore hasn't bothered to check the dictionary, and considers it

rude and wrong that the boy's father finally asks her to do so.)

and

/b/ allows the other students to publicly destroy some of this

boy's classwork because [says the teacher] " any normally intelligent

person would have understood that when an assignment calls for a

'depiction of undersea life' the word 'depiction' means 'poster' and

therefore cannot mean 'full-scale 3-D diorama' " — *after* the other

kids destroy this kid's classwork, this teacher changes the kid's

grade to zero because (as she gleefully points out) after the

destruction, the kid has no " depiction " whatsoever left to grade.

When I phoned Mr. Card, I asked if these came from real incidents

(because they sounded a lot like things that happened to me in

school). He said that, /a/ yes, exactly these things (and many more

like them) had happened to one of his sons, and /b/ both he and his

son had the impression (made very clear in the novel) that this

teacher and many other local students/parents felt offended by someone

who dared to do things " too competently. "

This bit about the social fear of others doing things " too

competently " also appears throughout Orson Card's non-horror

fantasy-fiction " Alvin Maker " series: set in a world where every

individual has a particular inborn and mostly-involuntary magical

power (such as knowing the future, or making plants grow better, or

whatever) but most countries have made it illegal to use these powers.

In one of the books (I can't remember which one) a boy in England (one

of the countries that have made magic illegal) has a job making

barrels in his father's woodworking shop. The boy's magic power

applies to woodworking: any barrel he makes will look absolutely

perfect, will never leak, etc., unless the boy actively strives NOT to

use his power — so Dad (who strongly supports the anti-magic laws and

beliefs) beats the boy whenever the boy makes a barrel that looks " too

good, " that works " too well, " that leaks " too little, " that in any way

comes out " too much " better than the average of Dad's barrels.

The boy eventually (after many years of punishment!) teaches

himself how to hold back his power so he can make barrels that don't

work *suspiciously* too well but work just enough of a tiny bit

better-than-average to get Dad's barrel shop a good reputation without

getting Dad suspicious or angry — unfortunately, when the boy grows up

and moves to the New World (and makes a home in a state which has no

laws against magic), he has a really, really hard time using all of

his power after all those years of having trained himself not to.

This reminded me of the struggles that someone may have if all his/her

life s/he has gotten punished for some intellectual

trait/aptitude/interest/skill/whatever that, later on, s/he and the

society may need.

(I know people my age — including some who probably have AS —

whose parents and teachers forced them to stop having an interest in

then- " unbelievable " things like household computers and

nanotechnology. Some of those people, including myself, had to promise

[in writing and/or before our parents/classmates/etc.] that we would

never, ever believe that any such " silly " things could ever become

real. To this day, every time I use e-mail I actually feel seriously

guilty because I have broken my oath ... ]

Kate Gladstone

September 7, 2006