Higher literary hijinks

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, literature, practical jokes

A well done hoax is the highest form of practical joke…except when the hoaxer is serious, or seriously disturbed. Literary Hoaxes: An Eye-Opening History of Famous Frauds by Melissa Katsoulis presents a collection of such paradoxical concoctions, some good, some bad, and a few downright ugly (the hoaxes, not her writing).

Some people have called Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code a hoax, but if so, it is a meta-hoax: the mythology of the Priory of Sion upon which it is based is itself a hoax that will not die, initially perpetrated in the 1940s, though claiming (of course) many centuries more history than that. To add to the confusion, there is a somewhat older entity named the Priory of Zion, but with greatly different aims than the "Sion" version.

Most hoaxes come in three categories. The largest number, called by the author's sources "genuine hoaxes", include the Hitler Diaries and the Donation of Constantine, which were intended never to be discovered as hoaxes. Such hoaxes have the aim of making money or political gain. "Entrapment hoaxes" are designed to expose pretentious litterateurs to mockery for being taken in by works in a popular tone which are purposely done badly. One of the most famous seems to be ongoing; a falsified letter was accepted by a pompous biographer as genuine, and was published in full in the biography, where it anagrammatically, and scatologically, ridiculed the biographer. Finally, "mock hoaxes" are literary works intended to obscure the true author's identity. An author may feel the need to experiment without being pilloried for straying from "what has worked". Writing under a pseudonym is one thing, and is not really hoaxing; making up a biography and past oeuvre for one's imaginary self is more obsessive, and sometimes effective.

Some hoaxes are hurtful, such as those written by phony Holocaust survivors, which invariably damage the reputations of genuine survivors' work, or those written across racial boundaries by authors who really don't know what they are talking about. Several of the latter sort have been written in Australia, by "Aborigine wannabes", causing justifiable umbrage among genuine Aborigines. America's First Nations representatives are also rattled on occasion by pseud0-Indians writing of things they barely comprehend.

The book consists of essays, with a tone that varies from admiration to disapproval and even contempt. In a number of cases, the question that looms largest is, what did the hoax's author believe? Some claimed they had no intent to deceive, but rather to work through their own phobias or neuroses by using a metaphorical setting (such as the Holocaust). Oppositely, what are we to make of Mark Twain, who seldom wrote without exaggerating, conflating or inventing? Just as a painter often lightens a shadow or dims a highlight so as to show detail that a photo might miss, a writer may focus on what more "accurate" reporting might pass over.

In the end, intent means a lot. It is hard to call some of these things hoaxes because they were real to the perpetrator! What I find ironic is that some hoaxed productions, written out of frustration at "legitimate" work being rejected, have much higher literary quality than that rejected work. Sometimes you really have to get out of yourself to do good work.

I think of my favorite musical clown, Peter Schickele, whose PDQ Bach spoofs portray poor, imaginary PDQ as a hoaxer "whose work was so bad he put others' name on it so it might sell". Schickele's spoofs are brilliant. But I have heard a concert of music he wrote in his own name, and I must consider it a "pity production": the music was awful. Then there is a poet I know (a relative) who is quite good, but it is a piece he wrote while playfully trying out a very different style that brought his English teacher to tears.

Here is what is ultimately sad about hoaxes: they aren't necessary. Work done for joy is simply going to be better than that done from selfish anger. A frustrated author just might need to use a pen name and write in as different a voice as possible to kick free of the doldrums. That's usually healthy, and leads to much admirable work. It is sad when someone goes farther and burns more energy creating and maintaining a facade, than doing the work itself.