I have entered a phase of avidly reading 'The New Yorker'.
I get so involved in each article I'm reading, and have just been poking around on the internet after finishing a thrilling read. I thought I would share with you the comment I wrote on this blog in response to Tom Robbins:
I loved Janet Malcolm's 'Iphigenia' article. (I also love Tom Robbins' novels!!) I like the way she includes herself in the story - it really is rather brilliant. As a journalist myself, I found her commentary about our profession fun, thought provoking and particularly interesting in painting the picture of journalists in court, and the community created around a long case like this one. I also very much appreciated her delving into the spaces between "fact" and the stories we create. And she really IS much harder on lawyers than she is on journalists: "We go through life mishearing and misunderstanding so that the stories we tell ourselves will add up. Trial lawyers push this human tendency to a higher level. They are playing for higher stakes than we are playing for when we tinker with actuality in order to transform the tale told by an idiot into an orderly, self-serving narrative." ('The New Yorker', May 3 2010, p.38) I appreciate Malcolm's reference to Macbeth there, 'life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!' Macbeth murdered Duncan in vain; if Marina murdered Daniel, it was in vain. But did she?
I loved Janet Malcolm's 'Iphigenia' article. (I also love Tom Robbins' novels!!) I like the way she includes herself in the story - it really is rather brilliant. As a journalist myself, I found her commentary about our profession fun, thought provoking and particularly interesting in painting the picture of journalists in court, and the community created around a long case like this one. I also very much appreciated her delving into the spaces between "fact" and the stories we create. And she really IS much harder on lawyers than she is on journalists: "We go through life mishearing and misunderstanding so that the stories we tell ourselves will add up. Trial lawyers push this human tendency to a higher level. They are playing for higher stakes than we are playing for when we tinker with actuality in order to transform the tale told by an idiot into an orderly, self-serving narrative." ('The New Yorker', May 3 2010, p.38) I appreciate Malcolm's reference to Macbeth there, 'life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!' Macbeth murdered Duncan in vain; if Marina murdered Daniel, it was in vain. But did she?
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