clarification

[TERRY CAESAR]

     Oh, dear. To speak, it seems, is to be misunderstood, even here, and even
when one asks what one takes to be an innocent question. Mr. Dinn is pleased
to remind me that no question (and certainly no typo!) is innocent. Then he
pontificates yet again, on Gaddis in The Recognitions and Amis in a couple of
other novels. Thanks for the references. No thanks for the opinions. The
status of what real movie stars (among other celebrities) are doing in a number
of contemporary texts is what remains to be assessed. Nothing much is served
by dismissing them out of existence. Are we to understand that only distin-
guished authors merit the inclusion of their own individual reality in their
fictions, much less that even the most distinguished ones are wondrously free
of "onanistic fantasies?" Please.

     Just so, I didn't mean to suggest that the only real people in novels are
those whose reality is widely known. It's merely a fact that the neighbors of
Amis, or Gaddis, or Pynchon simply can't be known by readers AS THEMSELVES. 
It's not a fact, on the other hand, that people such as Nicolson, or Pacino, or
Mailer can be known by readers as themselves. But they can be recognized in
this way, and recognized by large numbers of people who might be able to identi-
fy them more readily--if not enthusiastically--than their next-door neighbors.
Indeed, I take the inclusion of real people to register something like this
state of affairs. 

     I'd like to understand it better. This is why I asked for some other 
examples. Even if just asking turns out to be more volatile, or perhaps Dinn-
witted, than I'd thought, I'd still like to be permitted to continue.