Warlock: Prefatory Note

[jbor]

I think, but am not 100% certain, that the "trilogy" was something which was
concocted for a republication of three of Hall's novels in the early 1980s.
I'm not sure when novels 1 and 3 of the trilogy were actually written, and I
haven't read either; I don't know how, or whether, they fit in with the plot
or the context of composition of _Warlock_.

And I'm not sure that what Hall is saying and what Adams is saying are quite
the same thing (but perhaps that's intentional), and I'm also not sure what
the distinctions between "truth" and "facts", or "history" and "fiction" are
meant to be in either case. Nevertheless, see also _The Art and Craft of
Novel Writing_ by Oakley Hall (1995):

"Truth over facts! If the novel stems from actual events, the writer
tries not to be bound by the circumstances of those events. Truth is
more important than facts, and fiction deals with what should have
happened rather than what did happen. The novelist will take the
haphazard and disconnected items of real life and organise them into an
orderly sequence to produce a significant whole. Plot reassures the
reader of order in a chaotic world. If the inner connections are missing
in life, and they usually are, art must supply them."

http://www.writersbookcase.com/product.asp?PID=385

I believe Hall taught creative writing at in California (University of
Southern Cal?) for twenty years or so. He also published novels under a
pseudonym, though I don't know the whys or wherefores of that. However, he
was never so dishonest as to pretend to be doctoral student named "Moishe"
in order to cover up for his true identity -- at least, that is, as far as
I'm aware.

best


> Currently reading Apaches, third in the Warlock trilogy, which opens with a
> complementary quote from The Education of Henry Adams:
> 
> "The historian must not try to know what is truth, if he values his honesty;
> for, if he cares for his truths, he is certain to falsify his facts."
> 
> Small world......
> 
>> 
>> This book is a novel. The town of Warlock and the territory
>> in which it is located are fabrications. But any relation of
>> characters to real persons, living or dead, is not always
>> coincidental, for many are composites of figures who live
>> still on a frontier between history and legend.
>> 
>> The fabric of the story, too, is made up of actual events
>> interwoven with invented ones; by combining what did happen
>> with what might have happened, I have tried to show what
>> should have happened. Devotees of Western legend may consequently
>> complain that I have used familiar elements to construct a
>> fanciful design, and that I have rearranged or ignored the
>> accepted facts. So I will reiterate that this work is a novel.
>> The pursuit of truth, not of facts, is the business of fiction.
>> 
>> -- Oakley Hall
>> 
>> http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0001&msg=44015
>> 
>> best
>> 
>> 
> 
>