A little anedocte as a comment on the exchanges bt.
CK and JF:
...so you can't hold VN to precedents, can you?
He's allowed to
invent.
Yes, but I think he has to pile on too many
inventions. It's one
thing to expect readers to infer what a delusional
character's
real name is, and another thing to expect us to infer
something
with one unprecedented feature after another. The latter
would
need much stronger evidence, in my opinion.
Fritz: 'Let's play a game. Try and discover what this is: " red, sitting on
a branch and whistling".'
Franz: " A red arara
bird."
Fritz: Wrong. It's a herring.
Franz: What? Sitting on a
branch?
Fritz: I placed it there myself.
Franz: But, red?
Fritz: I painted it red myself!
Franz: Aha... but whistling?
Fritz: I added this detail only to make the puzzle a little
more difficult.