Roger asks
> One final question.....Plot-wise, are the books very accurate at all? How
> much of each is fiction vs truth? Did he really go to Chicago University?
> Did he really take a boat trip? Go insane?
[Dave]
As I indicated in my "Novel Reality" forum piece the "truth or fiction"
question is what sucker punched me into investigating MoQ in the first place.
RMP is the only one that knows how much is what and he's not talking. From the
bits and pieces I've gleaned from what's been posted here and in other
websites and publications the ZZM Author's Note is basically true:
"What follows is based on actual accurrences. Although much has been changed
for rhetorical purposes,it must be regarded in its essence as fact."
Lila has no such disclaimer and somewhere on the Web I think I remember
reading that he had a boat but that Lila, the bar lady, was fiction as he was
happily married during the boat time. But the "pickin' up bar lady" myth is
right up there with Paul Bunyan and Davey Crockett in American legends. Darn
almost left out the most famous bar lady of all; Miss Kitty who kept Matt,
Doc, Festus, Chester and countless others on the tab for years.
[Roger]
> What was the purpose of continuing the split personality in Lila?
[Dave]
IMHO the reason behind keeping the split in Lila was publishing pragmatism.
Lila is a "Paul Harvey Rest of the Story" and as such the format and
characters are familar to the primary target market for the book,readers of ZMM.
[Roger]
> Is it to separate the static intellectual from the dynamic and mystical?
[Dave]
Read an article recently that was hypercritical of "what the writer meant"
interpretations of writing which makes me cautious of reading too much into
the story aspect of either book. That being said, it sure does seem that the
narrator is the "static intellectual" while the ghost of Phaedrus is the
mystical, dynamic, Wild Child.
[Roger]
> Does it separate the immediate experience from the static reproductions of the > past?
{Dave]
Huh? If this was a multiple choice question I'm sure I opt for the "none of
the above" choice.
Dave Thomas
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