Subject
Re: DN's Legal Challenge (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Lapina <dolinin@facstaff.wisc.edu>
From Alexander Dolinin
Jeff Edmunds wrote:
>>Parodies, pastiches, satires, spin-offs, and rip-offs are as natural as
>>doggie doo. Some stink more than others. Ultimately, they all disappear,
>>picked up and discarded by fastidious neighbors, devoured or rolled in by
>>other animals, absorbed as fertilizer, or simply washed away by rain
There is a great difference between parodies, travesties, imitations,
pastiches, and so on-quite legitimate and sometimes very productive tools
of the literary evolution (the first example that comes to mind is
Fielding's *Shamela*)-and commercial frauds by literary bloodsuckers who
try to prey upon the fame and ideas of others. Whatever-her-name's book is
just a vulgar manifestation of the so called "post-modernist" thinking with
its moronic conviction that "everything is allowed." Actually the very idea
of "Lo's Diary" is a plagiarism: some years ago someone in Europe tried to
publish something like "Lara's Diary" preying upon *Doctor Zhivago* on the
pretext that it had to be retold from the female perspective. The
Pasternak estate sued the bloodsucker in Germany and easily won the case. I
hope Dmitri's lawers are aware of this precedent and can use it in court.
Alexander Dolinin
From Alexander Dolinin
Jeff Edmunds wrote:
>>Parodies, pastiches, satires, spin-offs, and rip-offs are as natural as
>>doggie doo. Some stink more than others. Ultimately, they all disappear,
>>picked up and discarded by fastidious neighbors, devoured or rolled in by
>>other animals, absorbed as fertilizer, or simply washed away by rain
There is a great difference between parodies, travesties, imitations,
pastiches, and so on-quite legitimate and sometimes very productive tools
of the literary evolution (the first example that comes to mind is
Fielding's *Shamela*)-and commercial frauds by literary bloodsuckers who
try to prey upon the fame and ideas of others. Whatever-her-name's book is
just a vulgar manifestation of the so called "post-modernist" thinking with
its moronic conviction that "everything is allowed." Actually the very idea
of "Lo's Diary" is a plagiarism: some years ago someone in Europe tried to
publish something like "Lara's Diary" preying upon *Doctor Zhivago* on the
pretext that it had to be retold from the female perspective. The
Pasternak estate sued the bloodsucker in Germany and easily won the case. I
hope Dmitri's lawers are aware of this precedent and can use it in court.
Alexander Dolinin