Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
03/26/21 -- Vol. 39, No. 39, Whole Number 2164
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, *mleeper@optonline.net *
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, *eleeper@optonline.net *
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Topics:
Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in April (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
"Decolonizing Zombies!" (Part 1) (film comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
UNITY by Elly Bangs (book review by Joe Karpierz)
CARNAGE AND CULTURE by Victor Davis Hanson (book review
by Gregory Frederick)
Nebula Award Finalists
This Week's Reading (THE FORGER'S SPELL and the LAST VERMEER)
(book and film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
At the risk of stating the obvious, now that all the meetings are
Zoomed, you don't have to be in Old Bridge or Middletown or even
New Jersey to participate. So if we are discussing one of your
favorites, contact me at *eleeper@optonline.net *
for Zoom
information.
Both the Old Bridge and Middletown groups have (temporarily, we
hope) switched to Zoom meetings. For Middletown meetings,
participants need to watch the film on their own ahead of time as
well as reading the book.
April 1 (MTPL), 7:00PM: A WRINKLE IN TIME (2018) & novel
by Madeleine L'Engle
rent: *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd7UG8-Wwe4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd7UG8-Wwe4*
rent: *https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/details/
https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/details/*
A-Wrinkle-in-Time/911864
*https://www.bookscool.com/en/A-Wrinkle-in-Time/1
https://www.bookscool.com/en/A-Wrinkle-in-Time/1*
May 1 (OBPL author talk), 2:00PM (2 hrs): Neil Sharpson (WHEN THE
SPARROW FALLS), details at
*https://www.oldbridgelibrary.org/events/2021-05/
https://www.oldbridgelibrary.org/events/2021-05/*
(this is a library event, not the discussion group's)
May 6 (MTPL), 7:00PM: THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975) & novel
by Ira Levin (1972)
*https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x37rpim
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x37rpim*
*https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/13326454
https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/13326454*
May 27 (OBPL): TBD
===================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in April (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
DESTINATION MOON (1950), the film that probably should have led off
the Fifties science fiction cycle actually is still an enjoyable
adventure film even if parts are a little dated. It is colorful
and fairly realistic-certainly taking into account that it was
released in 1950. Not that some of the information known then was
handled as well as it might have been. The acceleration of takeoff
is made to look more of a horror than it is in real life.
Certainly details of weightless flight look more realistic than
they did similar effects in ROCKETSHIP X-M. The script calls the
moon a "planet" not once but twice. Of course because of its size,
very unusual among moons, some astronomers have been tempted to
call it that also, and to say it and Earth form a double planet.
Somehow this film's color captures a Fifties feel better than the
black-and-white Rocketship X-M. The color shows off better the
baggy post-war clothing fashions. Somehow talk of going to the
moon in an early Fifties film still has excitement that NASA
footage of the actual moon launch lacks. It is much the same sort
of thrill one gets from Jules Verne, even if he is describing an
1866 submarine that has long-since been surpassed by fact. It is
the fact that this submarine is around in 1866 that is exciting.
What does seem somewhat dated is the Cold War paranoia that is
present through most of the film. The nasties have sabotaged a
rocket at the beginning; the main reason given for going to the
moon is to beat the enemy; the enemy tries to use political
pressure to sabotage the mission, and finally the important reason
for returning to Earth is to tell the world how vulnerable it is
from the moon. Meanwhile, when the Americans get to the moon, they
claim it for the good of all mankind. Once they get to the moon it
turns out to be a pretty place to look at, but somehow the film
makes lunar exploration itself seem dull. The script writers have
no way of engaging the viewer in the actual exploration process.
What does save the film is a clever little engineering puzzle that
becomes the last treasure of this film. It is one that would do
credit to a Fifties science fiction story and it has a reasonably
nifty solution. What is dramatically lacking is the return to
Earth.
There are some interesting similarities between DESTINATION MOON
and ROCKETSHIP X-M. Both use obnoxious, harmonica-playing comic
relief characters, both have Texas humor, and both use stock
footage of V-2 launches, though this film uses it more
realistically.
George Pal uses the Chesley Bonestell paintings that he would make
use of in later films, especially in the prologue to WAR OF THE
WORLDS. The integration of the paintings and the forced
perspective sets really gave the feel of being on another world,
where ROCKETSHIP X-M had alien landscapes that did not look at all
alien. Even at the time people knew that showing the surface of
the moon as a cracked, dried riverbed was wrong, but it made it
much easier to use forced perspective to make the lunar landscape
seem much bigger than the set on which the scenes were shot.
This is a much more enjoyable looking film than most space travel
films of the Fifties. The ship itself is not a V-2, and that in
itself is something of a novelty. Pal designed a nice streamlined
ship that looks a lot better than the real thing. The simple fact
is that this is just a nicer film to view, both prettier and less
downbeat, than is ROCKETSHIP X-M. If there are some technical
problems with the rescue in space or in how weightlessness is
shown, we can forgive them and still find this film good to watch.
The biggest complaint most people have with the script is the
incredibly dense character of Sweeney. Perhaps he is overly
stupid, but the writers felt the need to explain the science and
needed someone to whom people could explain what was going on and
could serve as a sounding board.
[DESTINATION MOON, April 4, 4:00 PM]
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: "Decolonizing Zombies!" (Part 1) (film comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
Our niece is majoring in Spanish at Middlebury College, so I took a
look at the course catalog for that department. (It's actually a
joint Spanish-Portuguese department, which is fairly common.) And
I found a couple of courses that were a bit surprising, and also of
possible interest to readers of the MT VOID.
The first was "Decolonizing Zombies!" and the description was:
"SPAN 0381--Decolonizing Zombies: Zombies are generally depicted
as metaphors that represent contemporary affects. In this course
we will study a number of zombie movies with a focus on theories of
race, gender, coloniality, iconoclasm, and queer temporality. With
a strong emphasis on the American continent, the course will have a
global approach, which will allow us to delve into issues of
neoliberalism, cannibalism, genocide, diaspora, virus spread, and
political criticism. The main goal is to expose colonial
structures embedded in the representation of zombies, as well as in
the making of the genre. Among films included are: WHITE ZOMBIE,
THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, SAVAGELAND, WORLD WAR (United
States); MANGUE NEGRO (Brazil), JUAN DE LOS MUERTOS (Cuba), EL
DESIERTO (Argentina), EL ANO DEL APOCALIPSIS (Peru); LADRONAS DE
ALMAS, HALLEY (Mexico); DESCENDENTS (Chile), REC (Spain), "I'll See
You in My Dreams" (Portugal), THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS (United
Kingdom); TRAIN TO BUSAN (Korea); THE EMPIRE OF CORPSES, and VERSUS
(Japan)."
The second was "Hispanic Horror Cinema"; I will cover that in a
separate article.
For both courses, I have seen several of the films, but certainly
not most of them. Some are not even available easily in the United
States. (I can only assume that the department has a multi-region
DVD set-up.) But I will comment on those that I can.
In this article, I will discuss half of the zombie films, at least
those I have seen. (I'll admit it: I'm too cheap to spend full
price on the ones I cannot get through Netflix or other streaming
we have.) The remainder will be discussed in next week's issue.
WHITE ZOMBIE (1932) (United States) is the first English-language
zombie film, and actually sticks to the classic zombie tropes, even
if Bela Lugosi's stare and hand gesture are a bit overdone and not
at all part of the folklore. But the zombies are kept by white
colonizers as slaves, which is in line with much of the folklore.
I am surprised that they did not include I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE
(1943) (United States), which really does include some pointed
comments on colonialism, slavery, etc.
THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) (United States) completely
subverts the traditional zombie folklore and makes zombies into
basically a sort of vampire. They attack the living and if they
bite someone, that person becomes a zombie. Any connection with
colonialism or slavery is gone. Ironically, there is a racial
context to the film, but it is entirely accidental. That the main
character/hero is African-American was not planned, and none of the
dialogue or action was written with that in mind, or changed to fit
it. So when he slaps the female lead, it was shocking in 1968 in a
way that was not intended (unlike a similar scene in IN THE HEAT OF
THE NIGHT, equally shocking, but intentionally so).
I haven't seen SAVAGELAND (2015) (United States), though it is
available for about $13.
I have seen WORLD WAR Z (2013) (United States) but don't remember
it well enough to comment on it.
MANGUE NEGRO (MUD ZOMBIES) (2008) (Brazil) is not available.
JUAN DE LOS MUERTOS (JUAN OF THE DEAD) (2011) (Cuba) is described
in the IMDB as a take-off on DAWN OF THE DEAD, but that is
incorrect; it is more fashioned after SHAUN OF THE DEAD, even down
to the best friend who makes tasteless jokes, and the use of
graphic novel-style illustrations under the credits. It clearly
helps to know something about Cuba and Cuban history (such as what
the "Special Period" was). This is more violent than SHAUN OF THE
DEAD, though, because rather than just try to hide out, Juan and
his friends become capitalists and he starts answering the phone
(which still works) "Juan of the Dead; we kill your loved ones.
How can I help you?" You can take a cue from one of the zombie
fighters who blindfolds himself because he faints at the sight of
blood!
EL DESIERTO (WHAT'S LEFT OF US?) (2013) (Argentina) is not
available.
EL ANO DE APOCALIPSIS (2016) (Peru) is not even in the IMDB, but it
is available on YouTube (at
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho2X12rV3O4&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho2X12rV3O4&feature=emb_logo*),
and even has English subtitles. (The second word in the title
should have a tilde over the 'n'; as it is, the ASCII I use for the
basic MT VOID won't let me put one, so what is left is not the word
for 'year', but a rather rude word for a nether body part.) The
title is reminiscent of Daniel Defoe's JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR
and Norman Spinrad's JOURNALS OF THE PLAGUE YEARS.
Warning: SPOILERS ahead.
This film starts with a long voice-over serving as an infodump to
explain the plague. Even throughout the movie, much of the
"dialogue" even in the original Spanish is in the form of
subtitles. This means that Rafael Arevalo (who seems to be the
producer, director, write, and just about everything else) doesn't
have to worry about synchronized sound. Given that he had no
budget to speak of, that was important, as was the minimal cast.
(We do not see hundreds, or even dozens, of zombies in a scene.)
The film consists of twelve vignettes, one for each month. From
the days and dates given, the year is probably 2016 (the year the
film was released), though coincidentally, it could be 2021.
"January" starts, appropriately in a cemetery with someone who
does not want to die alone and so takes an extraordinary step.
"February" has four people on a roof who end up killing each other,
but while one is totally destroyed, the other three rise.
(Destroying a zombie hasn't changed since NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD-
-if you destroy the brain, you destroy the zombie. Decapitating
them (a.k.a. "topping them off" in the English translation) also
works.) Zombie speed doesn't seem to have changed either. Unless
you trip or are surprised by zombies, you can probably easily
outrun them.
"March" has a girl who is being attacked by zombies saved by a Good
Samaritan. Alas, she has faked her peril in order to bring the man
home to her zombie boyfriend for dinner.
In "April" a group of the elderly and the young are secure in a
compound, but all the other adults have disappeared when they went
out scavenging. This turns into a sort of "Lord of the Flies"
scenario, where the young first kill the old and then the very
young, out of what is claimed to be necessity. The one person who
resists this kills some of the others, who then turn into zombies
and destroy the rest of the survivors.
In "May" there is a mute but not deaf girl who is disgusted to see
that people kill each other, but zombies don't. She also hates the
sounds of humans that she cannot be part of and decides the world
would be better off of the humans all became zombies. The girl's
dialogue is all in captions, not dialogue, or even the voice-overs
of other characters. This episode is shot with very stylized,
formalized staging and photography. But it leaves the viewer with
the question, "Are the dead supposed to be translucent or is that
just poor green screen?" There is actual green screen shown near
the end of the episode, so it is possible the audience is supposed
to realize it was shot with green screen.
"June" has the explicitly stated moral of "survive with dignity or
die trying" and to illustrate it, the main character tries to help
a girl, and she kills him.
in "July" an infected man digs grave, then is shot in the chest by
another man while a woman watches. The man buries the corpse, then
man drugs and handcuffs the woman. When she wakes, she finds a
note giving jealousy as the reason. The corpse rises as the woman
finds a gun the man left with one bullet and three choices in the
note: permanent suicide by shooting herself in the head,
destruction of the zombie ex-lover, or shoot herself to turn into a
zombie. End of vignette.
"August" has one man killing another then turning cannibal by
roasting and eating part of him. When the corpse rises, the man
flees and is rescued by a woman, who takes him home and shows him
something in a pot that horrifies him, but which we do not see.
The man then kills and eats the woman, leaving us to wonder what
could have been in the pot that so horrified him?
"September" has two women giving the viewer the "Rules of
Survival".
In "October" a man is attacked by zombies but survives by faking
being a zombie. It turns out that he is immune. (Apparently his
immunity is that he won't become a zombie if he is bitten, not that
the zombies won't attack him.) He finds his girlfriend Zoe, but
her friend resents him and so lets zombies in to house to kill
them. To save Zoe, he bites her. He's immune, but does that mean
the zombies won't attack him? Apparently they will.
"November" has us in a laboratory looking for a cure, Their process
involves killing off the researchers one by one. The last one
tries to escape but apparently can't get the gate open. However,
she shows up in "December" when she is shot by a man with a
slingshot shoots her but she is rescued by the immune man. To save
her from zombies he bites her and sends her to a safe camp by the
sea. She arrives, immune, but in an echo of NIGHT OF THE LIVING
DEAD, the guard sees she has been bitten, assumes she is infected,
and shoots her.
The rest of the films I will comment on next week. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: UNITY by Elly Bangs (copyright 2021, Tachyon Publications,
Print ISBN: 9781616963422; Digital ISBN: 9781616963439, print price
$16.95) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
Tachyon Publications has been making a habit of introducing readers
to new writers, most recently with Kimberly Unger's NUCLEATION.
Now, they've given us a terrific novel by Elly Bangs. UNITY is a
lot of things: post apocalyptic, cyberpunk, adventure, thriller.
But most of all, it's an exploration of human consciousness and
what it means to be human.
Danae is a worker in the underwater city of Bloom. The landscape
has been obliterated, forcing most of society to live below ground.
Danae does not feel complete, whole. She feels the need to escape
Bloom and return to those that make her complete. She hires a
mercenary, Alexei, to get her safely out of Bloom. Alexei, Danae,
and Danae's lover Naoto begin the trek across the desolate
landscape to find Danae's people. The problem--and there always is
one, of course--is that there is a bounty on her head--well, more
precisely what's inside of her--placed by a man named Duke, who has
taken over Bloom and who wants the secret of what she carries.
There is a crazy and wild escape from Bloom itself, and then an
eventful chase across a desolate landscape that we learn used to be
the American Southwest. Danae is desperately trying to get to the
people she wants to reunite with before she is captured and taken
back by Duke and his men.
So far, it seems like a fairly standard kind of story we've read
before, and there really is nothing new: character has a secret
that bad people want, bad people chase character across dystopian
landscape, other stuff happens. It's the "other stuff happens"
that separates UNITY from other novels with this plot.
Yes, Danae carries a secret within her. Alexei has a secret too.
And within the course of the second half of the novel, Bangs slowly
but surely rolls the secrets out, little by little. Danae's secret
is the whopper, of course, the one that the whole story hinges on.
As Danae and Alexei interact more, it becomes less of a job for
Alexei than it is a badge of honor. He must finish what he started
with Danae because it is the honorable and right thing to do. He
is let in on the secret just as slowly and surely as the readers
are, and while he may not understand it, it helps him in his
journey of honor. Complicating this whole thing is the appearance
of a character out of Danae's past called "The Borrower". Who is
he and what part does he play in all of this?
As an aside, you may be wondering how Naoto fits in with all of
this. He carries a secret too, but it comes out fairly early in
the story and provides motivation for what he does throughout the
novel. In my opinion, he is a minor but important character.
The story's climax is one of the best I've read in years. Well,
maybe not a climax, but a revelation. Danae and The Borrower meet
and Danae learns that her project--the secret she's been carrying
with her--had been carried on without her. What she learns about
humanity and herself is a wonderful statement on what humanity is
and could become, and whether we'd want to go down that road that
The Borrower revealed to Danae.
It's a bit of an uneven book, especially at the start, but once it
gets going and we find out what's really going on, it turns into
one of the best first novels I've read in a long time. It seems
like Bangs has a bright future ahead of her, and it may be time to
hop on for the ride. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: CARNAGE AND CULTURE: LANDMARK BATTLES IN THE RISE OF WESTERN
POWER by Victor Davis Hanson (book review by Gregory Frederick)
This military history book is more than just a contribution to our
knowledge of Western history. It explains why the West has largely
been successful. The book describes nine decisive battles where a
Western military force faced a non-Western foe. It starts with
ancient Greece and the naval battle between Greek city states and
Persia at Salamis in 480 B.C., then proceeds to Alexander the Great
in 331 B.C., who fought against the Persians at Gaugamela.
Eventual this review of nine battles ends at the Tet offensive in
Vietnam in 1968 where the United States military fought the North
Vietnamese. And after more than two millennia of battles the
author proceeds to underscore an overarching theme: the West's
enduring military superiority. Hanson believes that the roots of
Western military dominance lies with Hellenic culture and its
legacies, particularly its brand of rational, individualistic
thinking, which rejects excessive reliance on theology, custom, and
tyrannical politics. Hanson suggests that a tradition of civic
militarism, that is, the West's ability to mobilize citizen
soldiers and animate them with the discipline of collective
endeavor has created an ascendancy in military matters that
remains, secure. A well-written and thought provoking book which
creates the argument for the dominance of Western military forces.
[-gf]
Evelyn adds:
I feel obliged to point out that while we may have won the Tet
offensive, and every other battle, we did lose the war. [-ecl]
Mark adds:
I feel I should point out that while the North Vietnamese may have
won the war the country went strongly into capitalism. You see
international brand names all over the country. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Nebula Award Finalists
SFWA has announced this year's Nebula finalists. Note: all the
short story finalists are available free on-line.
Novel
- PIRANESI, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury US; Bloomsbury UK)
- THE CITY WE BECAME, N. K. Jemisin (Orbit US & UK)
- MEXICAN GOTHIC, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher)
- THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN, C. L. Polk (Erewhon)
- BLACK SUN, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga; Solaris)
- NETWORK EFFECT, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)
Novella
- TOWER OF MUD AND STRAW, Yaroslav Barsukov (Metaphorosis)
- FINNA, Nino Cipri (Tordotcom)
- RING SHOUT, P. Djeli Clark (Tordotcom)
- "Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon," Oghenechovwe Donald
Ekpeki (DOMINION: AN ANTHOLOGY OF SPECULATIVE FICTION FROM
AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA, Aurelia Leo)
- THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES, R. B. Lemberg (Tachyon)
- RIOT BABY, Tochi Onyebuchi (Tordotcom)
Novelette
- "Stepsister", Leah Cypess (F&SF 5-6/20)
- "The Pill", Meg Elison (BIG GIRL, PM Press)
- "Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super",
A. T. Greenblatt (Uncanny 5-6/20)
- "Two Truths and a Lie", Sarah Pinsker (Tor.com 6/17/20)
- "Where You Linger", Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (Uncanny 1-2/20)
- "Shadow Prisons", Caroline M. Yoachim (serialized in the
Dystopia Triptych series as 'The Shadow Prison Experiment',
'Shadow Prisons of the Mind', and 'The Shadow Prisoner's
Dilemma', Broad Reach Publishing + Adamant Press)
Short Story
- "Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse", Rae Carson
(Uncanny 1-2/20)
- "Advanced Word Problems in Portal Math", Aimee Picchi
(Daily Science Fiction 1/3/20)
- "A Guide for Working Breeds", Vina Jie-Min Prasad
(MADE TO ORDER: ROBOTS AND REVOLUTION, Solaris)
- "The Eight-Thousanders", Jason Sanford (Asimov's 9-10/20)
- "My Country Is a Ghost", Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny 1-2/20)
- "Open House on Haunted Hill", John Wiswell
(Diabolical Plots 6/15/20)
The Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult
Fiction
- RAYBEARER, Jordan Ifueko (Amulet)
- ELATSOE, Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido)
- A WIZARD'S GUIDE TO DEFENSIVE BAKING, T. Kingfisher (Argyll)
- A GAME OF FOX & SQUIRRELS, Jenn Reese (Holt)
- STAR DAUGHTER, Shveta Thakrar (HarperTeen)
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I recently saw THE LAST VERMEER amd this led me to read THE
FORGER'S SPELL by Edward Dolnick (HarpersCollins, ISBN 978-0-06-
082541-6), upon which it was based. (There are several other books
on this subject, both non-fiction and fictionalized.)
And to be specific, the subject is Han van Meegeren and his forgery
of paintings by Vermeer and several other 17th century Dutch
painters. They were quite convincing, apparently, and he even sold
one--"Christ and the Adulteress"--to Hermann Goering. That was
what got him into trouble: he was accused of collaboration in
selling Dutch national treasures to the Nazis. Faced with the
death penalty, he put forward what was certainly a unique defense:
the painting he had sold was a forgery. Art experts were
disbelieving--they had raved about the painting for years--but van
Meegeren was able to prove it three different ways. One of which
was to paint another "Vermeer" in front of witnesses. One was to
tell the court what modern chemicals could be found in the paints
of the forgeries. (These two also confirmed that his other
"Vermeers" were forgeries.) The best--though only applicable to
this specific painting--was a plank shown to match perfectly the
stretched behind the Vermeer, and hence have been sawn from the
same larger piece of wood. And van Meegeren had bought a 17th
century painting (for which he had documents of the sale) that was
just the size of the two pieces of wood placed together.
After this, van Meegeren became a folk hero to the Dutch for
defrauding Goering, although he also profited handsomely from it
and appeared to have been a bit more chummy with the Nazis than his
folk hero status might imply.
At his trial, van Meegeren said, "Yesterday this picture was worth
millions of guilders, and experts and art lovers would come from
all over the world and would pay money to see it. Today, it is
worth nothing, and nobody would cross the street to see it for
free. But the picture has not changed. What has?"
In the book, however, Dolnick notes, "Today, visitors to the
Boymans Museum will not find 'Emmaus' in a place of honor. For
years they would not have found it at all. Its banishment now
past, it hangs high above the ground--the bottom edge of the
painting is perhaps six feet above the floor... The painting bears
a label, but it is mounted on the frame's top edge and cannot be
read from ground level. The museum's audio tour skips over
'Emmaus'. So does the postcard collection in the gift shop. But
to the dismay of the Boymans's curators, "Emmaus" is the picture
that most visitors want to see. 'It's awful that it's one of our
most famous paintings,' laments Jeroen Giltaij, a specialist in the
Dutch Golden Age."
Van Meegeren's "today" was 1947. Dolnick's "today" was 2008. The
admission fee in 2018 was 17.50 euros. Ultimately van Meegeren was
wrong about the painting's popularity, but not about how it is
valued artistically. It is popular the same way the ashtray of
Jackson Pollock or the inkwell of Lord Dunsany would be: as an
associational item or curiosity.
Dolnick also discusses why van Meegeren was able to fool so many
people at the time, yet why now the paintings seem so obviously
forgeries. The book is worth reading for those interested in art
or hoaxes or both. and the film is entertaining enough if you keep
in mind that it is not entirely true to the actual facts of the
case. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
*mleeper@optonline.net *
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
--Oscar Wilde