[ilds] The Lost Art of Lying

[Denise Tart & David Green]

Sometime back we were discussing how 'true' some of Durrell's book were.

Both Baudelaire and Wilde were influences on LD. Here is Wilde, paraphased

The Ancient Historians used to give us delightful fiction in the form of fact, but the modern novelist is presenting us with dull facts under the guise of fiction. Promising young writers with a natural gift for exaggeration are developing a morbid and unhealthy habit of truth - telling and are ending up writing novels that are so lifelike that no one could possibly believe in them.. I make a plea for a return to the art of telling beautiful and untrue things, that noble and lost art of lying.

For me, the strange, magical, timeless quality of much of Durrell's work stems from some application of this approach

David

Denise Tart & David Green
16 William Street, Marrickville NSW 2204

+61 2 9564 6165
0412 707 625
dtart at bigpond.net.au
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