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Title: Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous by Donald W. Foster, Don Foster ISBN: 0805063579 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.13
Rating: 5
Summary: A unique perspective of investigation
Comment: Vassar College Professor Don Foster is an armchair sleuth who has solved some of history's literary mysteries. In AUTHOR UNKNOWN: ON THE TRAIL OF ANONYMOUS, Professor Foster explains his forensic techniques in solving the real identity of the most prolifically used nom de plume, anonymous. His premise is simple: writing is like DNA or fingerprints, unique to the individual. The book also goes into the more famous cases that Professor Foster has "solved" such as identifying the author of PRIMARY COLORS or proving that Moore is not the author of THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Finally, Professor Foster provides insight into how his literary analysis methodology has helped law enforcement.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN: ON THE TRAIL OF ANONYMOUS is an intriguing non-fiction work that will hook readers or writers with its different outlook. In an interesting manner with real world examples from today's headlines, Professor Foster explains his use of modern day science to ferret out the unknown behind writer of letters, books, poems, and the written word in general. This reviewer evaluated Professor Foster's writing style and concludes that his book is well written and very entertaining.
Harriet Klausner
Rating: 5
Summary: a really pleasant surprise
Comment: Give anonymous offenders enough verbal rope and column inches, and they will hang themselves for you, every time. -Don Foster, Author Unknown
In a culture where your fifteen minutes of fame are immediately followed by a book deal, we are flooded with memoirs, but remarkably few are any good. For the most part, our enjoyment of these books hinges almost exclusively on our interest in the event that propelled the author into the public spotlight, however briefly. Don Foster is a Shakespeare scholar, Vassar professor, and literary sleuth, and his book, Author Unknown, is a glorious exception to this rule.
Though his name may be unfamiliar, many--at least the political junkies among us--will remember the dramatic moment when Mr. Foster unmasked Joe Klein as the man behind the nom de plume "Anonymous" and the author of Primary Colors. Foster, at the behest of New York Magazine, had compared the text of the novel to the writings of a number of the most likely suspects and had found so many stylistic and linguistic similarities between the book and Klein's column--including heavy use of adverbs, hyper hyphenation, Capitalization of Concepts, an obsession with race and a certain uncomfortableness about sexual orientation issues--that he was able to confidently pronounce Klein the author. Despite Klein's fearsome denials and some brief second thoughts, Foster stuck to his guns and eventually Klein was forced to acknowledge authorship, when handwriting samples also tied him to the manuscript.
This book contains plenty of fascinating details about the techniques Foster uses and the nitty gritty of the investigation, but the basics of the "Anonymous" caper are fairly well known, in at least general form, and, though this episode alone would probably suffice to sell the book, it is the other cases that Foster deals with that really make the book worthwhile. He starts with the work that brought him to the attention of New York's editors, when as a graduate student he managed to use his investigatory skills to attribute a poem to William Shakespeare. This story provides a truly sublime moment when, having submitted his dissertation to Oxford University Press as a book proposal, he was turned down and received instead two anonymous critiques of his work--apparently standard practice calls for scholars to read and judge submissions anonymously--wherein both authors stated that it is not possible to use only the internal evidence in written works to attribute authorship. However, Foster then proceeded to compare the critiques to the writings of various prominent Shakespeare scholars and was able to discern precisely who had written them--perhaps predictably, neither expert saw the humor in this this, but the reader surely will. Despite these early rejections, Foster was eventually credited with having discovered a new Shakespeare poem and write-ups in The New York Times and elsewhere established him as perhaps the first, certainly the leading, practitioner of literary forensics.
Later sections of the book deal with : his subsequent involvement in the JonBenet Ramsey and Unabomber cases; a demonstration that Thomas Pynchon was not the secret author behind a series of vituperative letters to the editor of Mendocino County, California newspapers, signed by Wanda Tinasky, the Fort Bragg Bag Lady; a tantalizing rumination on who may have really written the infamous "Talking Points" of Lewinsky fame; and a final chapter which pretty much demolishes the idea that Clement Moore wrote the beloved poem, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. The Talking Points discussion is especially interesting, mostly because it remains such a galling mystery, particularly for those of us who wanted Bill Clinton led out of the White House in an orange jumper and handcuffs. Foster is not able to pin the deed on a specific culprit, but does show conclusively that the memo was not the exclusive work of Monica and her pal, Linda Tripp, and points at clues in the language and legal sophistication of at least the first page of the memo that seem to indicate it was most likely the work of one of a handful of lawyers in the Clinton inner circle. Recall that Clinton himself is a lawyer, but Foster does not pursue him directly, focussing instead on Bob Bennett, Bruce Lindsey and Vernon Jordan. He is hindered here by not having access to much written work by these three men, but it would be fun to see what he could do with more evidence.
My only criticism, and it's a mild one, is that there's a little too much "gee has my life become hectic" and "what have I gotten myself into." This is self indulgent, almost self pitying, and is at odds with the genuine excitement he obviously brings to his work. He does such a good job getting us caught up in the thrill of the chase that his complaints about the hectic lifestyle the work entails fall on deaf ears. These quibbles aside, the book was one of the more pleasant surprises to come over the transom here in quite awhile. This one is highly recommended.
GRADE : A
Rating: 5
Summary: Livingston did write "Twas the Night Before Christmas"
Comment: Author Unknown: on the Trail of Anonymous, by Don Foster, 2000. Foster has written an enjoyable book concerning writing attribution, that is, given a document where the author is unknown, he developed the method that may crack the puzzle of who wrote it. In his book writers from Shakespeare to Joe Klein and Monica Lewinsky are considered. I found the book fascinating and difficult to put down, and he took me through his several whodunit stories involving Shakespeare, Joel Klein and primary colors, the UnaBomber, Monica Lewinsky and the "Talking Points", writings falsely attributed to Thomas Pynchon, and who really wrote the doggerel that starts "Twas the Night Before Christmas,..."
Foster is annoyed when his method is thought of as a computer program that will crank out attribution from material at hand. Computers were very helpful but more important was his familiarity with text databases that allowed him to find similar language and writing habits. When we write, our reading background greatly influences just what phrases and sentence structure we come up with. Foster's ability to detect greatly depended on his immersion in all sorts of literary works in order for him to proceed and follow fruitful lines of inquiry. In addition, the person's grammar, the way he or she puts words together, idiosyncratic punctuation, and other orthogonal marks can help. Such expertise is not build in a day, and also such immersion apparently put him on the road to burnout. He's going to give it a rest. But what he has done so far, I found fascinating and convincing (especially that Livingston and not Moore wrote "'Twas the Night Before Christmas").
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Title: Forensic Linguistics: Advances in Forensic Stylistics by Gerald R. McMenamin, Dongdoo Choi ISBN: 0849309662 Publisher: CRC Press Pub. Date: 28 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $69.95 |
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Title: The Forensic Science of C.S.I by Katherine M. Ramsland ISBN: 0425183599 Publisher: Boulevard (Trd Pap) Pub. Date: 04 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Language of Confession, Interrogation, and Deception by Roger W. Shuy ISBN: 0761913467 Publisher: Sage Publications Pub. Date: 1998 List Price(USD): $46.95 |
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Title: Crime Scene by Larry Ragle ISBN: 0380773791 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: 02 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Who Owns History?: Rethinking the Past in a Changing World by Eric Foner ISBN: 0809097044 Publisher: Hill & Wang Pub Pub. Date: 20 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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