Michael Chabon's Holocaust Hoax

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http://www.bookforum.com/maliszewski.html

Did anyone see this? Responses?

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

VERY funny

― tweezy rider, Wednesday, 30 March 2005 14:38 (twenty years ago)

I think he made up a great story, but it makes me a little uneasy that he passes this off as truth. The joke's on the audience, but it's not clear why -- they're not evil or stupid. The point seems to be, if you tell a lie about a serious subject, and it sounds within reason, and you're a figure of some authority, people will believe it.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 14:41 (twenty years ago)

how very strange.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 16:38 (twenty years ago)

Wow, this board is neat.

― BOATPEOPLEHATEFUCK (ex machina), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 19:55 (twenty years ago)

I'm trying to understand what Chabon is supposed to be getting at with this, and I'm coming up blank.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 31 March 2005 00:50 (twenty years ago)

Right, exactly. WTF?

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 31 March 2005 01:04 (twenty years ago)

I'm also surprised this isn't making the rounds yet on blogs and such. I guess the piece did only come out a couple days ago.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 31 March 2005 01:18 (twenty years ago)

I'm trying to understand what Chabon is supposed to be getting at with this, and I'm coming up blank.

Could it be that he's doing exactly that - trying to show people that just because someone gets up in front of you and tells you things from a position of authority doesn't mean you should believe them just because you want to? The character he invented was supposedly a Nazi journalist who printed articles about how great conditions were in the camps. Did people believe such articles because they wanted to? Is he making some connection there? Not that he's making a joke as such, but he's trying to remind people that just because an authority figure (Michael Chabon, George W. Bush) tells you something that seems plausible, doesn't mean you should take it at face value.

Or maybe he really is playing an artistic game to rouse people's emotions, to prove that something doesn't have to be true to affect you, it just has to seem real and possible. People immediately rejected the Golem part of the lecture because they saw it as impossible, but this seemed to be true because it could have happened.

Maybe, I'm just saying, is all.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 31 March 2005 05:19 (twenty years ago)

when was he going to let people in on the joke?

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 31 March 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

If this was in a book of short stories with "Michael Chabon" the main character/narrator, would people still have the same reaction?

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 31 March 2005 12:59 (twenty years ago)

Right, I think the point here is that he didn't tell the people the truth after the lecture, so he didn't make any "point" to them at all. I guess in a different sense he could be making some kind of artistic statement (which would be my guess as to what he think's he's doing).

If, as Jordan said, he had done this all within a short story, I'd think it would be more effective and less confusing.

For that matter, I'm getting paranoid now. Maybe Maliszewski (the notorious "faker" from The Baffler) is making all of this up himself.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 31 March 2005 14:22 (twenty years ago)

hey, you didn't tell me that the article was written by a "notorious faker"!!

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 31 March 2005 14:48 (twenty years ago)

wheels within wheels

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 31 March 2005 20:49 (twenty years ago)

Read for yourself:

http://www.thebaffler.com/faker.html

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 1 April 2005 00:59 (twenty years ago)

But could Bookforum be dumb enough (or willing enough) to publish a fake article on the subject? And wouldn't Chabon immediately cry out? Or is he complicit in the whole thing? Or ... BLARGHAHAHAHHAAA!!!

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:08 (twenty years ago)

on opening this thread, the name "Maliszewski" immediately recalled that I, Faker thing (which is one of my favorite pieces ever), and lo and behold...

Maliszewski's About at the bottom ends with "Maliszewski's writing has appeared in Harper's, Granta, and two Pushcart Prize anthologies. He is currently completing a novel, as well as a collection of essays about the varieties of faking." I'm betting he's positioned himself, successfully, as an expert on this sort of behavior; this might be a trial run for one of these essays.

― f--gg (gcannon), Friday, 1 April 2005 02:41 (twenty years ago)

So is this just an April Fool's? It would be an esoteric one, I'll give it that.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 1 April 2005 08:10 (twenty years ago)

Well fuck me! It is the April issue, I guess. But that would be an awfully elaborate April Fools. I dunno.

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:29 (twenty years ago)

I still see nothing about this anywhere else. Odd. Seems to me that Chabon's enough of a celebrity that somebody would have picked up on it one way or another.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 4 April 2005 00:17 (twenty years ago)

I was tempted to forward it to my dad, who'd in turn probably forward it to some ADL-type Jewish org that would probably make a small fuss about it. But I don't really want to do that.

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 4 April 2005 00:36 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

The NYT picks up on this, although it doesn't really further the story any.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 18 April 2005 06:56 (twenty years ago)

Part of me almost wonders if the two are up to something together.

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 18 April 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

Any progress on this story? I bummed a cigarette off the editor-in-chief of Bookforum last Saturday, but I neglected to ask him about this.

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 27 April 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

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