Thursday, March 01, 2007

Can You Spot A Faker?

I have a friend who compulsively lies about the movies and books and CDs and TV shows he's seen/read/heard. Even though he is extremely knowledgable, his instinct when anyone makes reference to just about anything (Proust, Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexanderplatz," you name it) is to nod and act as if he's read or seen that work. 999 times out of 1000, it works and people never suspect. You don't really need to read something to talk knowledgeably about it. (In fact, my friend would talk knowledgeably about a NYTimes review of a high profile title but he wouldn't even bother reading THAT.) So now the BBC has an article featuring two experts discussing Tolstoy's "War and Peace." One of them hasn't read it; can you spot the faker? Tomorrow I'll tell you my pick and reveal the answer.

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