41–50 of 56 posts
The skeptical part of me says none of this actually happened and that the article is just a piece of publicity stunt. The other part thinks the author is too careless/not paranoid enough: he just guaranteed himself a spot on a watchlist by publicly admitting that he deceived the officers who interrogated him.
The skeptical part of me says none of this actually happened and that the article is just a piece of publicity stunt. The other part thinks the author is too careless/not paranoid enough: he just guaranteed himself a spot on a watchlist by publicly admitting that he deceived the officers who interrogated him.
> Our house was often filled with peasant leaders, trade-union leaders, radical poets, essayists, short-story writers, and occasionally, not encouraged too much, members of the family, or old family friends. In Pakistan, the Communist Party was banned, and two of its leaders, Muslim intellectuals from India who’d been sent to fertilise the barren land which was now Pakistan, were trying to create a party. One of them was a brilliant literary critic, Sajjad Zaheer, who was the party secretary. When the party was banned, they went underground, and Zaheer was put up in our house, pretending to be a professor of literature from Aligarh University. One night we were eating supper and there was a knock on the door. In walked one of my grandfather’s oldest and dearest friends, but who happened also to be inspector-general of the country’s police force. In he came, sat down and ate with us. There was a slight nervousness, but the professor/underground CP leader carried it off brilliantly. He knew how to deal with these people, discuss literature and Quranic interpretation, but after supper he beat a retreat: ‘With your leave, sir, I’m tired, I’ll just retire to bed.’ The inspector-general of police turned to my parents, and said: ‘I wish all your friends were like that! Where did you find such a cultured guy?’ A week later, when he was looking at pics of the disappeared CP leaders, he saw that the person he’d met at dinner was actually on the most-wanted list! So, it was a contradictory existence, though I never had any doubts which side I was on.
0. David Edgar, “That was the year that was”, London Review of Books 40.10 (24 May 2018), pp. 3-10, https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n10/tariq-ali/that-was-the-year-th...
"a case of exploding mangoes" has been on my reading list for long. Would give it a read this weekend.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Even in countries which pride themselves on free speech. Where else have you seen this?
yeah, kind of annoying to see this "everythings fucked" narrative as the top post, while it lacks any kind of evidence (even anecdotal would work)
>The Federal Bureau of Investigation had great influence over the production, with J. Edgar Hoover acting as a co-producer of sorts. Hoover even forced LeRoy to re-shoot several scenes he didn't think portrayed the FBI in an appropriate light, and played a pivotal role in the casting for the film. Hoover and LeRoy were personal friends, but Hoover only approved the film after he had a file of "dirt" created on LeRoy.[11][12] Hoover had to approve every frame of the film and also had two special agents with LeRoy for the duration of filming
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pakistani novelist visits Bangladesh. Shortly after his return, he is subject to a visit and interrogation by Pakistani security services. They demand a detailed explanation of the plot, which he embellishes to make as patriotic as possible and hide the subplot about disappeared activists in Pakistan. He talks about his other, first novel: > My first novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, grew out of my frustrated attem…
>> A Case of Exploding Mangoes had to be printed in India; the publishers in Pakistan found it a bit over the top and disrespectful to the establishment. To the surprise of everyone, nothing bad happened to me when it came out: no lawsuits, no ban. I'm reminded of Bill Gates' appearance in Pirates in Silicon Valley, which was generally not flattering, which he described as "reasonably accurate".
One of the more interesting aspects of this article was that it touched on this concept I have of 'narrative density'. It's closely related to Brandolini's law, that the amount of energy it takes to create bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than the energy it takes to refute it. A story takes more effort to explain than it does to simply read and experience it. The author's efforts to explain the story to the i…
Isn't it the opposite?
The skeptical part of me says none of this actually happened and that the article is just a piece of publicity stunt. The other part thinks the author is too careless/not paranoid enough: he just guaranteed himself a spot on a watchlist by publicly admitting that he deceived the officers who interrogated him.
One of the more interesting aspects of this article was that it touched on this concept I have of 'narrative density'. It's closely related to Brandolini's law, that the amount of energy it takes to create bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than the energy it takes to refute it. A story takes more effort to explain than it does to simply read and experience it. The author's efforts to explain the story to the i…
>It's closely related to Brandolini's law, that the amount of energy it takes to create bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than the energy it takes to refute it. Isn't it the opposite?
One of the more interesting aspects of this article was that it touched on this concept I have of 'narrative density'. It's closely related to Brandolini's law, that the amount of energy it takes to create bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than the energy it takes to refute it. A story takes more effort to explain than it does to simply read and experience it. The author's efforts to explain the story to the i…
>It's closely related to Brandolini's law, that the amount of energy it takes to create bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than the energy it takes to refute it. Isn't it the opposite?
https://ordrespontane.blogspot.com/2014/07/brandolinis-law.h...
"The bullshit asimmetry: the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."