Piers Smith [to JM: A "takeoff"? Or is it a "takefrom" without soaring? ...
Is this a regular literary practice?]
- "It wasn't that bad. It explained the phone calls, and gave a new twist to
the son's madness. But yes, the practice has been common since Genesis, and
possibly before. Borges' Pierre Menard provides a worthy comment.
"
Jansy Mello: Good remembrance: Borges's
"Pierre Menard" offers a worthy, intriguing and funny comment on the arts
of "copying," "re-creating," "being truthful, or dependent,
on the vocabulary,mentality and costumes of an era," and
other procedures I don't recollect right now. However, it's a successful short-story and
it doesn't actually plagiarize, or explain, "Don Quixote." I was
surprised that it was accepted for publication in The New
Yorker.