[ilds] The Lost Art of Lying

[James Gifford]

Old Fruit,

I believe Bruce is taking a nearly obscene pleasure in quoting from a 
book to which he knows few people on this list can refer (and largely 
using the citations given by Pine and Godshalk).  Let's level that 
playing field once and for all.

Sophie Atkinson's /An Artist in Corfu/:

http://www.archive.org/download/artistincorfu00atkirich/artistincorfu00atkirich.pdf

or just the text in a much smaller file size:

http://ia360626.us.archive.org/2/items/artistincorfu00atkirich/artistincorfu00atkirich_djvu.txt

Also, for the "smokescrean" of which I stand accused, I can only offer 
the fact that I keep adding information rather than retreating from it 
as my defence.  I've not dodged a single example Bruce -- I keep asking 
you to talk about one of them.  Please.  I've already published on such 
instances (Groddeck and Hutin), so it's a matter of record for me...

So, now that the whole text is here for us, Bruce, can you answer some 
of the specific questions I raised, and perhaps we can still find a way 
to disagree more constructively?  Can you give me your close reading and 
tell me how you think these are wilful misrepresentations rather than 
allusive grabs and creative reconstructions?  The latter is something I 
consider very much available to the creative writer while utterly 
off-limits for the academic.

Moreover, 57 (your lucky number?) falls well within fair use provisions 
under copyright -- just for the record.

Also, for the record, had Durrell's borrowings and echoes come to the 
attention of Faber & Faber, I'm sure he would have spoken with T.S. 
Eliot about it directly...  I don't think it's *any* stretch to tie 
Durrell to Eliot on this matter, nor is it a stretch to see this within 
a very explicit and frequently referenced tradition of writing.

But back to my original request, can we actually analyze some of these 
instances, and Bruce, can you tell me exactly how these instances differ 
from Eliot and Wilde, two figures in an aesthetic tradition to which 
Durrell overtly and repeatedly gestures?

Best,
James

ps: Music doesn't confuse the basic issue in the least -- all of my 
references were to composers who lifted substantial portions of whole 
works from another composer, not something like a theme & variation. 
Perhaps the basic issue is the distinction between a classical source 
analysis and a hunt for plagiarism.  I see plenty of the former and very 
little of the latter, apart from /Caesar's Vast Ghost/, which I've 
already discussed in detail.

pps: before we get into icebergs, let's agree not to allude to 
Hemingway.  This is the tip of the iceberg, and I can send you plenty of 
other borrowings -- they're all quite clear in a source analysis.  But, 
you'll have to wait for me to publish most of them.  I suspect you'd 
plagiarize my work and repeat my information somewhere...  Those sources 
are one of the reasons *why* I find Durrell interesting.

ppps: you mention other analyses of the /CVG/ ms. and its compilation. 
Can you cite one?