When a book reviewer lies about you in the New York TIMES or the NEW REPUBLIC is there any way of defending yourself?
No one believes a reviewer will flat out lie about what's in a book and what the state of knowledge is. Readers trust reviewers.
If in 2002 Richard H. Brodhead says that only I in my "black hole" had ever heard of Melville's lost book POEMS, who is going to write to the TIMES saying that since 1922 everyone has known about POEMS and that Melville's 12-point memo to his brother Allan on the publication of his poems has been printed many times, including right there in the book being reviewed? No one. Would the TIMES have printed any such correction without allowing Brodhead the chance to make some wittily evasive reply?
If you complain almost anyone says, "Oh, he's sore because Brodhead gave him a negative review." No, in this case I was sore because Brodhead lied about me. But it's hard to talk about. You certainly can't go around showing friends the review in the New York TIMES! Yeah, it was reviewed in there but don't look at it.
Similarly, Andrew Delbanco in the NEW REPUBLIC said I could not be trusted in any volume because I talked about POEMS, when "it was never published--and it is a surmise that Melville ever wrote it." It is not a surmise that Melville ever wrote it. It was offered to at least 2 publishers and rejected.
How do you convey the fact that the Dean of Yale College and a chaired professor at Columbia lied about you?
Look at how the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION falsified my grievances against Brodhead and Delbanco back on 11 February 2013. The CHRONICLE fabricated a false set of grievances in its 2nd paragraph. Brodhead had raised questions about my "editorial principles" in his New York TIMES review, says the CHRONICLE. Of course that is not true, not based on anything: it is a fabrication to avoid stating the charges I make in MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE. What the CHRONICLE says about Delbanco is equally evasive and falsified.
The CHRONICLE cannot be afraid of being sued by Brodhead and Delbanco? I am the aggrieved party, after all. Is it to protect such representatives of elite academia, however incompetent they were to review a biography of Melville? The CHRONICLE behaved dishonestly.
Carl Rollyson in "The Hunt for Herman Melville" (WALL STREET JOURNAL 30 March 2013) is not afraid to name Delbanco and expose some of the shoddiness of his reviewing. The WALL STREET JOURNAL is not behaving dishonestly.
In MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE I lay out just what Brodhead, Delbanco, and others did; among the others is Elizabeth Schultz, who echoed their lies.
Can I make the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION care about higher education? Nope. Can Carl Rollyson? Well, maybe. He's tough and he's not afraid.
No one believes a reviewer will flat out lie about what's in a book and what the state of knowledge is. Readers trust reviewers.
If in 2002 Richard H. Brodhead says that only I in my "black hole" had ever heard of Melville's lost book POEMS, who is going to write to the TIMES saying that since 1922 everyone has known about POEMS and that Melville's 12-point memo to his brother Allan on the publication of his poems has been printed many times, including right there in the book being reviewed? No one. Would the TIMES have printed any such correction without allowing Brodhead the chance to make some wittily evasive reply?
If you complain almost anyone says, "Oh, he's sore because Brodhead gave him a negative review." No, in this case I was sore because Brodhead lied about me. But it's hard to talk about. You certainly can't go around showing friends the review in the New York TIMES! Yeah, it was reviewed in there but don't look at it.
Similarly, Andrew Delbanco in the NEW REPUBLIC said I could not be trusted in any volume because I talked about POEMS, when "it was never published--and it is a surmise that Melville ever wrote it." It is not a surmise that Melville ever wrote it. It was offered to at least 2 publishers and rejected.
How do you convey the fact that the Dean of Yale College and a chaired professor at Columbia lied about you?
Look at how the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION falsified my grievances against Brodhead and Delbanco back on 11 February 2013. The CHRONICLE fabricated a false set of grievances in its 2nd paragraph. Brodhead had raised questions about my "editorial principles" in his New York TIMES review, says the CHRONICLE. Of course that is not true, not based on anything: it is a fabrication to avoid stating the charges I make in MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE. What the CHRONICLE says about Delbanco is equally evasive and falsified.
The CHRONICLE cannot be afraid of being sued by Brodhead and Delbanco? I am the aggrieved party, after all. Is it to protect such representatives of elite academia, however incompetent they were to review a biography of Melville? The CHRONICLE behaved dishonestly.
Carl Rollyson in "The Hunt for Herman Melville" (WALL STREET JOURNAL 30 March 2013) is not afraid to name Delbanco and expose some of the shoddiness of his reviewing. The WALL STREET JOURNAL is not behaving dishonestly.
In MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE I lay out just what Brodhead, Delbanco, and others did; among the others is Elizabeth Schultz, who echoed their lies.
Can I make the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION care about higher education? Nope. Can Carl Rollyson? Well, maybe. He's tough and he's not afraid.
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