[ilds] DURRELL, MILLER, ANARCHISM AND HERALDIC UNIVERSES

[James Gifford]

Can you both be right?  "Facts" may be indisputable but equally useless 
-- interpretations are shaky yet essential.  Of course, for "facts" 
we're mainly dealing with words on paper, whether it's a legal document 
or a book, and both have been known to lie or at least be subject to 
revision a good deal of the time, and that's before we even consider our 
various interpretive practices.

Isn't there a series of novels that uses this problem as a central theme?

The Durrellian "facts" have changed a good deal over time, and I've been 
resiting the urge all day to quote 1933's "Bromo Bombastes":

"It's facts that attract us
    Facts that attract us
        Facts, facts, facts.
Let’s have no subterfuge,
Let’s have a deluge,
A cataract of facts."

Surely LD took facts seriously enough to give them a chorus with such 
gravitas, one followed by the East Wind swishing across the stage, 
disguised in a beard...  Do you interpret this statement with irony?  Is 
irony a "fact" or an interpretation?

Some on the list may recall with pleasure the performance of this short 
play in 2000 on Corfu with Jim Nichols offering his glorious "Gawd!" in 
a lead role as the Reporter.

Cheers,
James

On 21/07/11 6:20 PM, Bruce Redwine wrote:
> Depends on what you call a "fact."
>
>
> On Jul 21, 2011, at 2:16 PM, Marc Piel wrote:
>
>> "Facts", by definition do not change, or they are not facts!
>>
>> Le 21/07/11 22:23, Bruce Redwine a écrit :
>>> Facts, biographical and otherwise, are tricky things and change over time
>