[EDNOTE.  I'm including Carolyn Kunin's note below, but otherwise I suggest that we abandon the thread concerning A.D. Harvey and his various avatars, lest we drift away from VN.  On a related note, however, I am enjoying Dan Chaon's novel AWAIT YOUR REPLY, which features similar instances of imposture and doubling and identity theft, along with an appropriate epigraph (to Part Two) from RLSK.  - SES]

 

Hi Sandy,

A joke perhaps? But it really happened that Oscar Wilde, in full flowered
regalia, came to the wild west and gave a lecture to a handful of miners - and
they listened.Byvaet (it happens). Dickens, too toured the wilds of the US and
his mother started a department store somewhere and wrote about it. Dickens and
Dusty have a lot in common although VN adored the one and not the other.

Da Ponte long outlived his divine composer and died in Brooklyn a rich man -
also a merchant I believe. On the other hand the great composer of slavic origin
whose name won't come* died in Brooklyn in poverty. Brooklyn has a rich and very
varied history - there was this preacher and the first woman stock broker who
ran for president of the US just after the civil war - well, I could go on and
on, but don't let me. Should any be interested in a great story, read Other
Powers, the biography of Victoria Woodhull and the fascinating interaction
between mesmerism (an interest of VN's), spiritualism, high finance, the
demimonde and women's suffrage - also lots about the scandalous preacher Henry
Ward Beecher, brother of the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and his harem .... [if
you doubt me, there's even more in the wikipedia article]

Carolyn

*wrote a famous concerto for orchestra at the urgings of Furtwaengler of Boston
... etsy etsy etsy - Bartok, Bela.