I was going to include here a paragraph something written in 1930 and which would just pass under the 75-year rule if applied to writings (77...) (published in a book
Though Gently by Laura Riding, the Seizin Press, 1930, in Deyá, Majorca
and found by me quoted in Sorabji: A Critical Celebration published some sixty-five years later. Paraphrase seems warranted by copyright law instead ;) but if you can find the original - in the book on Sorabji (edited by
Rapoport, Paul, ed. published by Scolar, Press: Aldershot, Hampshire, UK
on page 195) I think the quote- under Preliminaries - will please and give pause-for-thought.
This is really not about active intentional lying but the triage, selection, needed by writers of biographers, nonfiction writers, fiction writers of course.
Paraphrase then, paraphrasing then, trying to keep some of the spirit if not Riding's poetry... or concision
--
If we must choose then, we must leave out, and how much may we- before we are no longer truth-telling?
If we go so quickly on, speed on as though everything were being left to the side in the rush, we may not omit anything.
If we go slow, telling a tale and not an inventory, then much.
"Gently omitting, though gently."
