Composite authors

[White, Rich]

Also the Illuminatus Trilogy and Burdick and Lederer's Fail Safe and The 
Ugly American.
 ----------
.*++From: owner-pynchon-l
.*++To: SY19058
.*++Subject: Composite authors
.*++Date: Tuesday, May 21, 1996 6:39PM
.*++
.*++<<File Attachment: HEADERS.TXT>>
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++Various people have with their comments prompted me to consider
.*++books that are the efforts of "composite authors". ie, more than
.*++two co-writers.  (The joke was that TRP was one such.)  I can
.*++think of CAVERNS, bu "O. U. Levon", who was really Ken Kesey plus
.*++a dozen of his writing students.  I _think_ that NAKED CAME THE
.*++STRANGER, a 'Sixties Jackie Suzanne spoof was one such, as I
.*++dimly recall.  In the SF world, there was once a tradition of
.*++"round-robin" writing, not truly joint, as each author did one
.*++section, then passed it on (usually with a cliffhanger almost
.*++hopefully impossible to resolve!).  HP Lovecraft participated
.*++in one famous session with other WEIRD TALES writers.  Of course,
.*++we have almost any modern movie script on which dozens (scores?)
.*++of writers receive credit.
.*++What are the defining characteristics--if any--of such work?
.*++What do they tell us about an "author's" "individuality"?
.*++Fascinating questions, I think....
.*++
.*++--
.*++DiFi&Newton/2 Poplar/Prov., RI 02906/Vox: 401-751-0139
.*++"I have almost nothing in common with myself"--Franz Kafka
.*++"I do the best imitation of myself."  Ben Folds Five
.*++
.*++