Interesting discussion. Somewhat relatedly, it's interesting to contrast this whole Roth fiasco with what Coetzee achieved in his faux-memoir "Summertime." Coetzee seems to foreshadow this whole mess when one of the characters being interviewed by Coetzee's fictional biographer says something like "is this just going to be a book where people get to settle old scores?" "Summertime" offers a nice meditation on the limits of fact-checking, the unreliability of memory, the inability of an author to control the narrative about themselves. Roth would have been wise to heed its message.
Interesting discussion. Somewhat relatedly, it's interesting to contrast this whole Roth fiasco with what Coetzee achieved in his faux-memoir "Summertime." Coetzee seems to foreshadow this whole mess when one of the characters being interviewed by Coetzee's fictional biographer says something like "is this just going to be a book where people get to settle old scores?" "Summertime" offers a nice meditation on the limits of fact-checking, the unreliability of memory, the inability of an author to control the narrative about themselves. Roth would have been wise to heed its message.