FW: you hoird it here foirst!

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

     From Thomas Pynchon


Given the British genius for coded utterance, this 
could be about something else entirely, impossible 
on this side of the ocean to appreciate in any 
nuanced way-- but assuming that it really is about 
who owns the right to describe using gentian 
violet for ringworm, for heaven's sake, allow me 
a gentle suggestion. Oddly enough, most of us 
who write historical fiction do feel some 
obligation to accuracy. It is that Ruskin business 
about "a capacity responsive to claims of fact, but 
unoppressed by them." Unless we were actually 
there, we must turn to people who were, or to 
letters, contemporary reporting, the encyclopedia, 
the Internet, until, with luck, at some point, we can 
begin to make a few things of our own up. To 
discover in the course of research some 
engaging detail we know can be put into a story 
where it will do some good can hardly be classed 
as a felonious act-- it is simply what we do. The 
worst you can call it is a form of primate behavior. 
Writers are naturally drawn, chimpanzee- like, 
to the color and the music of this English idiom 
we are blessed to have inherited. When given 
the choice we will usually try to use the more 
vivid and tuneful among its words. I cannot of 
course speak for Mr. McEwan's method of 
proceeding, but should be very surprised indeed
if something of the sort, even for brief moments, 
had not occurred during his research for 
Atonement. Gentian violet! Come on. Who 
among us could have resisted that one?

     Memoirs of the blitz have borne indispensable 
witness, and helped later generations know 
something of the tragedy and heroism of those 
days. For Mr. McEwan to have put details from 
one of them to further creative use, 
acknowledging this openly and often, and then 
explaining it clearly and honorably, surely merits 
not our scolding, but our gratitude.
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From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net
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 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml