Philip Roth Versus Wikipedia

[Brainster]

A rather amusing incident has arisen regarding Wikipedia's entry on Philip Roth's novel, The Human Stain. Wikipedia writers have claimed that the inspiration for Roth's book was the actual life of Anatole Broyard. Roth claims otherwise, but apparently that's not good enough for Wikipedia:

Yet when, through an official interlocutor, I recently petitioned Wikipedia to delete this misstatement, along with two others, my interlocutor was told by the “English Wikipedia Administrator”—in a letter dated August 25th and addressed to my interlocutor—that I, Roth, was not a credible source: “I understand your point that the author is the greatest authority on their own work,” writes the Wikipedia Administrator—“but we require secondary sources.”

While I found that somewhat risible, at the same time you can understand the problem. However, what absolutely stunned me was the response of a blogger at Lawyers, Guns & Money:

Now that’s he’s written this letter he’s become a reputable secondary source about himself. So concludes l’affair du ou de la Parkwells. Or does it? Outside all of the usual issues with its editorial politics, Roth’s clever circumvention of Wikipedia’s citation policies points to a fundamental weakness in them. His “Open Letter” is no differ in substance from the self-published media Wikipedia bans: it’s essentially a personal website, blog post or Internet forum posting that his stature allows him to publish in The New Yorker.

So far so good. But get the conclusion:

Meaning we’re not significantly better off than when we started. Why am I going on at such length about this? Because I fancy myself an historicist and this affair addresses an issue near and dear to my heart. If I were to investigate the cultural and historical context of The Human Stain, a novel whose narrative present is the late 1990s, my researches would have turned up information about the prominent New York Times critic Anatole Broyard and the controversy surrounding his death. I would have considered the 1996 revelation that Broyard had spent his life passing to be a significant part of the novel’s cultural and historical context because it is. The Human Stain was published in an environment in which its audience, including Kakutani and Taylor, were primed to understand it as belonging to larger interest in the politics of passing at the end of the 20th Century and they were right to do so. I would have been too. Philip Roth is well within his right to identify his inspiration with all the specificity he desires, but he doesn’t have the right to alter future perceptions of his cultural and historical moment by insisting that he somehow lived outside it. It doesn’t matter when he learned about Broyard: he was still living and writing in a moment that was informed by the disclosure.

It may interesting context, but it is not the inspiration for the novel, as Roth makes clear in somewhat exhausting detail in the New Yorker piece.

 

[Morrigan]

Wikipedia is retarded sometimes. There was once an edit war over the band about my website. I edited something (I forgot what) and it was reverted, saying a source was required. On the talk page I said I was the source, as the site owner I knew what I was talking about, but they wanted a cite from a secondary source... as if that were more reliable. *facepalm*

I understand they don't want, say, Uri Geller editing his own page and making up self-promotional stuff, but this wasn't the same kind of information at all and it wasn't something that could have come from any other source than myself, much like this author's source of inspiration. I don't remember what I did, but I think I posted something on my own forum, then used that as a source.

 

[Damien Evans]

Wikipedia is retarded sometimes. There was once an edit war over the band about my website. I edited something (I forgot what) and it was reverted, saying a source was required. On the talk page I said I was the source, as the site owner I knew what I was talking about, but they wanted a cite from a secondary source... as if that were more reliable. *facepalm*

I understand they don't want, say, Uri Geller editing his own page and making up self-promotional stuff, but this wasn't the same kind of information at all and it wasn't something that could have come from any other source than myself, much like this author's source of inspiration. I don't remember what I did, but I think I posted something on my own forum, then used that as a source.

Which is a most excellent and informative website, by the way.

 

[geni]

I understand they don't want, say, Uri Geller editing his own page and making up self-promotional stuff, but this wasn't the same kind of information at all and it wasn't something that could have come from any other source than myself, much like this author's source of inspiration. I don't remember what I did, but I think I posted something on my own forum, then used that as a source.

You would be amazed at how many people aren't reliable sources on themselves.

In this case multiple respectable Literary critics have suggested that the work was inspired by the life of Anatole Broyard. This presents a bit of a problem.

 

[Morrigan]

Just realized the typo/brain fart in my earlier post, I meant "page", not "band". Weird. Silly JREF, I wish it'd let me edit my own posts.

Which is a most excellent and informative website, by the way.

Thank you.

 

[Beerina]

Anyone with a web page and remotely famous enough to have a Wiki entry could, I suppose, put up a page on their website quoting the wrong bit, and saying why it's wrong, then using that as a source.

I don't know if the issue here was disbelieving him as a source, or just not wanting Wiki to be a source origination site, and rather keep it as a reference of things elsewhere.

 

[Madalch]

Then again, anyone could have sent a letter to Wikipedia, signing Philip Roth's name, demanding various edits. Or I could sign up as a wikipedia editor with the user name "PhilipRoth".

 

[Spindrift]

You would be amazed at how many people aren't reliable sources on themselves.

In this case multiple respectable Literary critics have suggested that the work was inspired by the life of Anatole Broyard. This presents a bit of a problem.

Literary critics know better than an author as to what inspired the author?

 

[godless dave]

You would be amazed at how many people aren't reliable sources on themselves.

In this case multiple respectable Literary critics have suggested that the work was inspired by the life of Anatole Broyard. This presents a bit of a problem.

Yeah, the idea that the author of a work is not a reliable source of information about that work isn't risible at all. Not only is there the possibility of deliberate dishonesty, the creative process itself means that an author may not know what inspired his work.

 

[Brainster]

You would be amazed at how many people aren't reliable sources on themselves.

In this case multiple respectable Literary critics have suggested that the work was inspired by the life of Anatole Broyard. This presents a bit of a problem.

And if the article had simply stated that, I doubt Roth would have had an objection. Indeed, now that the secondary source is out there, Wikipedia has revised its comment to this:

It had been frequently claimed or suggested by critics, such as Michiko Kakutani, Janet Maslin, Lorrie Moore, Touré, and Brent Staples, that the character Coleman Silk was inspired by Anatole Broyard, a mixed-race author and editor who was able to pass as white, due to Silk also passing himself off as white in the story.

 

[geni]

And if the article had simply stated that, I doubt Roth would have had an objection.

You could doubt it but you would be wrong. This is the paragraph Roth originaly objected to:

Salon.com critic Charles Taylor argues that Roth had to have been at least partly inspired by the case of [[Anatole Broyard]], a literary critic who, like the protagonist of ''The Human Stain'', was a man identified as [[Louisiana Creole people|Creole]] who spent his entire professional life more-or-less as [[white people|white]].<ref name="salon"/> Roth states there is no connection, as he did not know Broyard had any black ancestry until an article published months after he had started writing his novel.<ref>[http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aw9u2ESpnFN0&refer=muse Philip Roth interview at bloomberg.com]</ref>

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Human_Stain&oldid=493566373


See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-09-10/In_the_media for the whole story.