Can A Book Be Good Even If Its Politics Are Terrible?

Adam Kirsch: What could be more cruel than Dante’s Inferno, with its sadistic vision of divine justice? … Art will always exceed ethics, including political ethics, in the same way that the possible exceeds the desirable.”
Zoë Heller: “If we couldn’t find anything to delight or instruct us in the works of sexists, racists, anti-Semites and people who believe in the divine right of kings, our literary canon would barely fill a medium-size handbag.”