facts and fiction

this is the first paragraph of this week's 'new
yorker" fiction, by the noted author, james salter:

"Walter Such was a translator. He liked to write with
a green fountain pen that he had a habit of raising in
the air slightly after each sentence, almost as if his
hand were a mechanical device. He could recite lines
of Blok in Russian and then give Rilke's translation
of them in German, pointing out their beauty. He was a
sociable but also sometimes prickly man, who stuttered
a little at first and who lived with his wife in a
manner they liked. But Marit, his wife, was ill."

 
ahem.

rilke never translated blok.

in 'the hours', the author has virginia woolf recall
her clean-shaven husband as bearded. and the second
world war supposedly has just begun (it has been
raging in london for two years).

shouldn't our esteemed writers get their facts
straight before they attempt to entrall us with their
fiction?

kim

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Received on Fri Nov 15 11:52:31 2002