tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post858185535195581088..comments2023-10-30T12:26:15.822+01:00Comments on Research as a Second Language: Literary TypesThomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-77190937891263313222011-04-14T21:35:51.413+02:002011-04-14T21:35:51.413+02:00Yes, there is an argument to be made for some nove...Yes, there is an argument to be made for some novels as "eye witness" accounts of history. I have added a note to the post to capture this possibility, though, as I mention there, I'm not comfortable with a novel as historical evidence.<br /><br />Even "new journalism", like Norman Mailer's <i>The Armies of the Night</i>, can't really be taken as anything more than literature of its age. One would not want to source a claim about the march on the Pentagon to that book, even if the claim were true. One would want to find a more authoritative source.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-15485242063789661892011-04-14T18:45:43.193+02:002011-04-14T18:45:43.193+02:00Hello, Thomas
I understand your surprise at my abr...Hello, Thomas<br />I understand your surprise at my abrupt reference to AS's First Circle. AS's novel was based on his personal experience of a prison that also served as a research lab. I should have explained that in a note.<br />Best regards, Thráinn Eggertsson<br />PS I just picked up the following description of the book from the Internet:<br />In the First Circle, a sprawling narrative set within a time frame of four days, is based largely on the period Solzhenitsyn spent in a Moscow prison facility that doubly served as a research institute, where technicians, professionals, and intellectuals are detained to assist in developing state security technology. The title, an allusion to the first circle of hell depicted in Dante’s Inferno, connotes the slightly more humane treatment these zeks (prisoners) receive, much like the guileless philosophers condemned, albeit laxly, for having never known divine grace. Formally known as the sharashka, this privileged branch of the gulag network was described by one character as “practically paradise,” an irony considering that its inhabitants are stripped of their dignity and their humanity.Thrainn Eggertssonhttp://thrainneggertsson.comnoreply@blogger.com