Frivolous literary note

[Murthy Yenamandra]

Joe Varo writes:
> Is it okay to incite to
> riot (or anything else, for that matter) as long as you do it via a work
> of fiction? Where and when does an author become responsible for what s/he
> writes?

Good question. Was this not one of the reasons why novels were initially
held to be so disreputable? I vaguely remember that there were even
instances when a novelist's testimony on the witness stand was
discounted because he was "in the habit of writing fiction" and so was
an unreliable witness (don't ask me where I read this, I don't
remember). I must say that I'm all in favor of attributing dialogue to
the character and not the author.

> Reminds me a bit of the de Man controversy from the late 80's --
> was he a nazi sympathizer or wasn't he?  Some of his writings seemed to
> indicate that he was, but many say that that was just what he wrote, not
> what he truly believed, or however you want to phrase it. 

As dennis grace has already said, this is bit different because what de
Man wrote was not intended to be fiction.

Murthy

-- 
Murthy Yenamandra, Dept of CompSci, U of Minnesota. mailto:yenamand at cs.umn.edu
"It is of no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is
 our preaching." -- Saint Francis of Assisi