Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Literary ventriloquist... the follow up

I saw an article in The Times of India yesterday. Looks like another addition to the list of people who can 'read' minds.

"An author has produced a book in which he imagines the thoughts of famous couples while they are having sex, his subjects include Britain's Prince and Princess of Wales, Bill and Hillary Clinton and George and Laura Bush" Other couples he has written about in the book include "...Adam and Eve; Bonnie and Clyde; Attila the Hun and his 12th wife; King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn; and even Santa Claus and a female elf." Cheap publicity trick? As it turns out though, this American author is the 1993 Pulitzer prize winner Robert Butler who denies doing any of this to stir up controversies. He says, "It is a rendering of the inner consciences of these people, a way into the inner selves of the characters." Right... but wait, there's more. "Two years ago he published Severance, short stories imagining the final thoughts of decapitated heads, based on scientific evidence that the brain keeps functioning for up to 60 seconds after the head has been severed from the body. His characters included Marie Antoinette, John the Baptist, a victim of Al Qaida and a dragon slain by St.George" He has "...always agreed with WB Yeats, who said that sex and death are the only things that can interest a serious mind." "Severence was my death book; Intercourse is my sex book"

Are you serious??

This is the link for the original article http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3382276.ece But we aren't really talking about the same thing... their focus is mainly on whether we are invading the privacy of Charles and Diana.

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