Perhaps somewhat beside the point but Mark Tauger, a legitimate academic and specialist in Soviet agriculture, doesn't think the 1932 famine was purposeful. He thinks it resulted from a crop failure. Nothing special in Russian history. And not just Ukrainians died.
May I draw your attention to An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin. I am, if I am anything, an artist, a painter, a re-arranger. If you think lit is up for a bit of a leg pull you should take a look at the art world. In all the world there is no set of people who take themselves as seriously as art people. It is the world of fakes, bluffs and double bluffs. I think Banksy got it in a one when he publicly shredded his picture at auction, seconds after the hammer fell. I was at once a supreme act of artistic piss taking and also a commercial coup. It was obvious to me that the shredded item was going to be worth a lot more and indeed this proved to be true when it was later sold at a massive profit. Banksy of course, knew this. He is just another Warhol, a chap who see the way the wind is blowing and weaponises it. It's not art, it is the South Sea Bubble, it's Alpacas, it's Bitcoin, it's Dolce and Gabbana and Rolexes. It's whatever people will pay more for than it's worth, either intrinsically or extrinsically.
In the world of publishing it's pretty much the same; If I were to call myself Jo Obochacheba and send in a manuscript about a trans lawyer trying to make it in the world of rock music whilst attempting to build a haven for badgers in Essex the agents would be fighting to sign me.
But as always, hope lies with the proles. Like it or not, people stand like sardines with their little selfie phones to see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. They take a clever forced perspective picture of their loved one holding up the leaning tower of Pisa. They get eaten by sharks in Australia. They crave reality when those who are better than they are believe in anything but. Keep at it. I once pretended to be German and I always tell people at parties (those who say, "and what do you do?" - a question I hate with a vengeance) that I was a lion tamer with Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey's Circus and have a well rehearsed back story to make it seem authentic.
A very interesting story, however there is something which you don't seem to have addressed, and that is the charge of plagiarism against you at the time. I wonder how that has affected you personally and professionally.
“Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired.” Jonathan Swift
I love your two recommendations from your dad. Those are great to remember!
Perhaps somewhat beside the point but Mark Tauger, a legitimate academic and specialist in Soviet agriculture, doesn't think the 1932 famine was purposeful. He thinks it resulted from a crop failure. Nothing special in Russian history. And not just Ukrainians died.
https://agrarianstudies.macmillan.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/papers/TaugerAgrarianStudies.pdf
May I draw your attention to An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin. I am, if I am anything, an artist, a painter, a re-arranger. If you think lit is up for a bit of a leg pull you should take a look at the art world. In all the world there is no set of people who take themselves as seriously as art people. It is the world of fakes, bluffs and double bluffs. I think Banksy got it in a one when he publicly shredded his picture at auction, seconds after the hammer fell. I was at once a supreme act of artistic piss taking and also a commercial coup. It was obvious to me that the shredded item was going to be worth a lot more and indeed this proved to be true when it was later sold at a massive profit. Banksy of course, knew this. He is just another Warhol, a chap who see the way the wind is blowing and weaponises it. It's not art, it is the South Sea Bubble, it's Alpacas, it's Bitcoin, it's Dolce and Gabbana and Rolexes. It's whatever people will pay more for than it's worth, either intrinsically or extrinsically.
In the world of publishing it's pretty much the same; If I were to call myself Jo Obochacheba and send in a manuscript about a trans lawyer trying to make it in the world of rock music whilst attempting to build a haven for badgers in Essex the agents would be fighting to sign me.
But as always, hope lies with the proles. Like it or not, people stand like sardines with their little selfie phones to see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. They take a clever forced perspective picture of their loved one holding up the leaning tower of Pisa. They get eaten by sharks in Australia. They crave reality when those who are better than they are believe in anything but. Keep at it. I once pretended to be German and I always tell people at parties (those who say, "and what do you do?" - a question I hate with a vengeance) that I was a lion tamer with Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey's Circus and have a well rehearsed back story to make it seem authentic.
This was such an amusing and thoughtful piece that I feel quite bad for bringing down the tone, but I have to ask - whose unmentionables were they?!
A very interesting story, however there is something which you don't seem to have addressed, and that is the charge of plagiarism against you at the time. I wonder how that has affected you personally and professionally.
Please keep writing Helen!