Mark Landis walks with a lumping, purposeful stride, a steep hump, and a sad look. His clothes hang a little loose, but like his beard, they are neat. He is skinnier than he ought to be. In his jacket pocket there is a cough-syrup bottle that he fills with alcohol to drink before he meets people. Sometimes he poses as a philanthropist, sometimes a priest. His story is less analogous to fiction than to the hidden lives of
I got major Bio of Savage vibes with this piece. The one line that hit me was how he never realized he could actually just make art. Which seems like the missing piece: people who care about others need to tell them when they have done something great, and should keep doing it. Wonderful piece!
Henry - enjoyed this one - you might like Tom Rachman's novel "The Italian Teacher" (actually, given your appreciation for Dickens, any of Rachman's novels are worth checking out) - it also has a late blooming (... or hidden blooming?) motif. Peter Carey's "Theft" and Daniel Kehlmann's "F" are also good on muddying the waters between art/plagiarism, truth/lies.
I got major Bio of Savage vibes with this piece. The one line that hit me was how he never realized he could actually just make art. Which seems like the missing piece: people who care about others need to tell them when they have done something great, and should keep doing it. Wonderful piece!
Henry - enjoyed this one - you might like Tom Rachman's novel "The Italian Teacher" (actually, given your appreciation for Dickens, any of Rachman's novels are worth checking out) - it also has a late blooming (... or hidden blooming?) motif. Peter Carey's "Theft" and Daniel Kehlmann's "F" are also good on muddying the waters between art/plagiarism, truth/lies.
Very interesting - thank you!
Plagiarism is wrong.
It is a lie.
“Live not by lies.”
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn