"“The Master’s Muse”... bills itself as “a novel,” it is about her life, the title refers to her, and the cover features a photo of her. The truth is, this isn’t a novel, it’s a “novelization” — the difference being that writers of novelizations (let’s preserve the distinction and call them novelizers) choose for their main characters real, usually famous, people, then put words in their mouths and thoughts in their heads. Ann Beattie’s “Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life” and Curtis Sittenfeld’s “American Wife: A Novel,” about Laura Bush, are the most conspicuous recent additions to the shelf. This is a genre custom-made for a culture fixated on celebrity. Where will the body snatchers strike next?" ............................................................................................................ "As a writer, I subscribe to the notion that material is wherever you find it. The license to novelize someone else’s life seems to be based on the assumption that public figures are fair game, that only those of us no one has ever heard of retain the rights to our own experience.............................I can’t help regarding “The Master’s Muse” as a violation, made even more brazen by the fact that it’s narrated in the first person." nytimes/2012/02/19/t-magazine/inside-the-mind-of-tanaquil-le-clercq.html?pagewanted=all
Posted on: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 06:15:01 +0000
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