Warlock: Prefatory Note

[Scott Badger]

Rob:
> 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_.

Apaches in 1986 and Bad Lands in 1978. Apaches shares many of Warlock's
themes, but doesn't cut nearly as deep. Its exploration of the post
civil-war interactions between the "white-eyes" and the "Indeh" of the
south-west is interesting, though, and balanced I thought. But, like every
Hall novel, the female characters are as poorly crafted as the men are well
done.

> 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):

Yeah, Hall's "The pursuit of truth, not facts, is the business of fiction."
is the flip-side to the Adam's quote. In either case, there seems to be a
lot of "fact" AND "fiction" in Hall's novels. Interesting that Pynchon (or,
more properly, the Rev Cherrycoke), in his "Facts are the playthings of
lawyers" passage (M&D), relegates facts to the lawyers and suggests that
historians must "learn the arts of the quidnunc, the spy, and Taproom Wit"
to survive, as well as the necessity of a plurality of narratives, rather
than AN "authentic" collection of facts.

>"......and fiction deals with what should have
> happened rather than what did happen. "

There's a great Dashiell Hamett line about the tenuous relationship between
how the crime DID happen, and how it SHOULD have....any Marlowe fans know
the one?

Scott Badger

>
> 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
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>