about me

Regarding the controversy, after I got my gold medal I filed a complaint with Authonomy, attaching the Turtle respond's thread.

They replied with an apology.

That's good enough for me.

Sent: Tue, Apr 19, 2011 3:38 am
Subject: RE: Authonomy Contact Us

Dear David,

Thank you for drawing our attention to recent defamatory content relating to yourself in the forums of Authonomy. We are looking into this problem and hope to have all defamatory threads pulled down within the next 48 hours. Removing any indexing of old threads may take slightly outside of this time frame (this makes comments to be ‘visible’ through, but not fully viewable), however, we can assure you it is being treated as a top priority, and will be dealt with in the shortest time possible.

We would also like to apologise that you feel the forums have been used as a platform to direct abuse at you. We will be instigating a much stricter policing of the forums imminently, to try and make them a safe and valuable environment for Authonomy users, as they were originally intended to be.

Regards,
the authonomy team
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I loved my review. His/her take on Undo was thoughtful and balanced. I would even add is the most sophisticated review I have read in authonomy (i.e. my bias notwithstanding)

As for the three recommendations;

a) More succinct descriptions; agreed and have edited accordingly.

b) Strengthen the first person POV; agreed and have edited accordingly.

c) Make the imagery less abstract; here, I prefer a nuanced approach. I wanted Undo not only to be about modern art but to be read as modern art. That means descriptions of place and characters that use abstract imagery, outstretched metaphors and cinematic shots. I agree that abstract imagery breaks the illusion, but then that is the central aim of modern art: isn't it?

For example: "How do I look?"

“Like a movie star"
"Like ice cream"

The first is a simile; the image is preserved. In the second the image no longer holds any resemblance, instead what's left is the evoked emotion (i.e. yummy)

That is the essence of abstraction.

"flower pots descending chiaroscuro-like”
"Table tops at the Coffee Shop spread in white-wine formation. The grid they formed created a vanishing point on the window wash; it made Fourteen Street look as if trembling in glass…."

The first is a painter's eye, the second the cinematic fade-out shot.

To be fair with the reviewer, the approach divided authonomy from the start (i.e. I discussed it in my thread: http://www.authonomy.com/forums/threads/71866/turtle-s-anthology-the-post-moderns/#AnchorPostId1811296)

The writers that got it became champions (i.e. Ana Reynolds comment at the bottom of my pitch: "I liked the fact that art and colours and other visual references kept appearing through your writing, knitting it all together with the sense of perusing a piece of modern art") For others, it was a source of fierce criticism. This schism appears to be the same that divides people that like modern art and those that do not.

The reviewer also has a point that it should not be used to distract from the story telling. I am troubled by his/her opinion that abstract imagery created a "distancing effect." Like a modern painting, the aim of abstraction is to evoke rather than to distance.

Thus, it makes sense to prune and tone it down.

It also convinced me to insert the "modern painter's eye" into the marketing pitch as a way of encouraging critics to notice and react to it. I did that through writer's quotes in authonomy to great effect. Writers that "got it" became hugely loyal and kept it in their shelves for the long haul. I am hoping to re-create that 'cult following' when Undo is published, thus my hesitancy to disregard it altogether.

As for his/her statement that it deserves to be published, well:

What more can one ask?

I am a dancing Turtle!!!!!!


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Undo has received an offer. They have send the contract and agreed to wait for the HC review before I sign the dot line. Two of the big 5 Spanish publishers have requested the galleys.

Ole!

David Breitling is a native from Chile, he holds a BA from Harpur College, an MA from NYU and an MBA from Columbia.

He started his career as a neuro-scientist at NYU Medical Center. His research was published in numerous publications, obtaining research awards, including study grants from Switzerland and a research fellowship from Paris CRNS.

Following and internship at the World Bank and Business school, he pursued his career at McKinsey where he worked with emerging countries.

He resides in Manhattan, New York.

Book cover by the lovely Lucy Leid (check her wonderful 'Old Magic')

For favorite books in Authonomy, follow my threads:
Turtle's New Find.

favourite books

Pinter, Beckett, Bellow, Ashbery, Nicanor Parra, Richardson's Picasso, The Interpretation of Dreams, Jean-Christophe, Tanizaki, Mishima, Kobo Abe, O'Hara's Selected Poems, Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, Remembrance of Things Past, Morrison's Beloved, Plath's Selected Poems, The Naked Heart, Simenon's Memoires Intimes, Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, Derrida's Dissemination & L'écriture Et La Différence, Naipul's A Bend on the river, Borges's Historia universal de la infamia, Marquez Cien anos de soledad, Bolanos's Los Detectives Salvajes & 2666, Cortazar's Hopscotch.

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