[ilds] "Facts"

[Bruce Redwine]

1.  Fact:  Lawrence Durrell published the memoir Prospero's Cell in 1945.

2.  Fiction posing as fact:  Much of the content of that book.

I once took no. 2 as fact, naively believing that Durrell truthfully reported people and events.  I was wrong.  Nancy Myers called it, "All lies."


Bruce


On Jul 22, 2011, at 12:33 AM, James Gifford wrote:

> 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
>> 
> 
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