Friday, October 18, 2013

NYT correction watch: Did Dickens meet Dostoevsky? -- Opinions still differ

About six months ago, University of California Berkeley Prof. Eric Naiman revealed that much of the literary world, including the New York Times, had been taken in by massive hoax.(you can read my take here but you should read Naiman's piece first. It's exceptionally good). When scholars first started raising questions about the hoaxster's claim, which appeared in the NYT, that Dickens met Dostoevsky, the paper published a weaselly update:
Correction: October 29, 2011

The Books of The Times review on Tuesday, about “Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist” by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, and “Charles Dickens” by Claire Tomalin, recounted an anecdote in Ms. Tomalin’s book in which Dostoyevsky told of meeting Dickens. While others have also written of such a meeting and of a letter in which Dostoyevsky was said to have described it, some scholars have questioned the authenticity of the letter and whether the meeting ever occurred.  
The "some scholars" line badly understated the case but it was at least technically accurate at the time. Now, though, we know that all of the primary sources for this anecdote came from a serial fantasist writing under a string of assumed identities and we've known this since last April (the story even made Slate). That would seem to be plenty of time for the NYT to update their correction so I googled "Dickens Dostoevsky" and Michiko Kakutani (the writer in question). Here's what I saw:
Correction: October 29, 2011

The Books of The Times review on Tuesday, about “Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist” by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, and “Charles Dickens” by Claire Tomalin, recounted an anecdote in Ms. Tomalin’s book in which Dostoyevsky told of meeting Dickens. While others have also written of such a meeting and of a letter in which Dostoyevsky was said to have described it, some scholars have questioned the authenticity of the letter and whether the meeting ever occurred.  
Maybe they'll get around to fixing it next year.

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