So, does anyone have thoughts on this story? I am mystified. I suppose it could have been outright plagiarism, but I also marvel at the human mind's ability to lie to itself
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I'm reminded of Joe Biden's plagiarism of that Kinnock story, ages ago- simply because the same explanation surfaced then: an inadvertant internalisation of a story repeated over and over, so that it had become a part of his own personal story. I'm still not sure that I buy that. But -
The reason it intrigues me is that there are stories about my childhood that I can't possibly remember, but I have clear recollection of them based on the repeating of the stories over and over. They no longer seem like stories about me, but like real memories. And I know lots of people for whom this is the case. I know the examples above are different by nature of their being the work or memories of someone else's life, but how far a leap is it really?
You've just given me one of those "I thought I was the only one who - " moments. -laughs-
But I've been wondering about the reverse of that for a while, now; if you were to sit down at someone's detailed livejournal, for instance, and spend serious hours reading years and years' worth of entries, how much of that person might you internalise? Because I can buy the internalisation - not of the word-for-word recitation, but of the concepts. It says something interesting about human consciousness, maybe.
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A word for word lift? That's literary suicide.
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The reason it intrigues me is that there are stories about my childhood that I can't possibly remember, but I have clear recollection of them based on the repeating of the stories over and over. They no longer seem like stories about me, but like real memories. And I know lots of people for whom this is the case. I know the examples above are different by nature of their being the work or memories of someone else's life, but how far a leap is it really?
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But I've been wondering about the reverse of that for a while, now; if you were to sit down at someone's detailed livejournal, for instance, and spend serious hours reading years and years' worth of entries, how much of that person might you internalise? Because I can buy the internalisation - not of the word-for-word recitation, but of the concepts. It says something interesting about human consciousness, maybe.
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