Talk:Michael Innes

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This page should be merged with the J. I. M. Stewart page, since this is the same person!!! Kraxler 18:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC) The Innes books are mentioned on the Stewart page, though, and I think even if he wrote for distinct audiences, it's still the same man, there is not one page for Winston Churchill the politician and another for Winston Churchill the writer, although most people who ever voted for him never read a book by him..... Kraxler 19:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• True. But that's confusing apples and oranges. Churchill wasn't calling himself something else as a writer. How about Ellery Queen and Barnaby Ross? How about John Dickson Carr and Carter Dickson? There are probably many others.... Hayford Peirce 19:14, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Exactly, in all these cases the pages should be merged, I'm going to do it tomorrow! John Dickson Carr used even a few more pseudonyms, writing DISTINCTLY for the SAME audience, and there is NO Carter Dickson page, it redirects to John Dickson Carr, because someone was sensible enough to merge it if there was one! Anyway, this is an ENCYCLOPEDIA! If people play hide-and-seek with their audience, this is the place to say so! Kraxler 16:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello Mr Pierce! I'm reasonably confident that the Appleby novels are quite strongly influenced by Stewart's psychoanalytic interests. Admittedly, though, explicit references to Freud are quite rare and tend to be jocular. What would count as an acceptable form of proof of my assertion. Please do advise, as I'm new to contributing.

Hi! I too had problems, as most new contributors do, about sorting out the differences between "original research", "point of view", "neutral point of view", "sources," citations, etc. etc. Some of this stuff can be argued back and forth, but some things are now settled enough in Wiki to allow for very little slack. If you write something like "Innes falls into the category of the British 'Golden Age' mystery writers, with elaborate plots, smart detectives, surprise endings, etc. etc.", I don't think any other Wiki editor will raise an eyebrow -- some things are pretty evident and we don't have to have citations for a statement that "grass is green." If you write "Innes is the wittiest, funniest, most erudite, and most wonderful mystery writer of them all," that's a very "point of view statement" and will be edited out. If you write "Innes is widely considered to be the most erudite of all mystery writers", that is borderline. I myself would let it go, since it's almost certainly true. Someone else might query it. If you wrote: "Anthony Boucher, writing in the New York Times, has called Innes the most erudite etc. etc., and other critics have shared his opinion," that ought to be good enough. In other words, you can say that Evelyn Waugh wrote black-humored satire, since that's pretty well known. You can't call it "hilarious" with citing a source. As for the Freudian stuff, I really don't know what to say. I haven't read Innes for maybe 10 years now, but for 20 years or so I read and reread him -- to me (completely ignorant of Freud except for what the general well-educated citizen knows) there were never any freudian overtones that I noticed. That doesn't mean that they aren't there, of course, maybe as a major part of his work. I've also read a certain amount of criticism of Innes (or what there was of it up till 15 or 20 years ago), and I never saw Freud brought up, just Innes's wit and erudition and general skills. I would think that if you're going to make a bold statement about Innes and Freud, you're going to have to back it up concretely. In other words, "Kingsley Amis, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, said that Freudian etc. etc. Other critics, writing in academic journals, have expanded upon that remark and have etc. etc." At which point you really ought to either footnote your remarks and/or put in a Source or Reference down below. Take a look, for instance, at the Nero Wolfe article -- it will show you both footnotes and sources. I hope you find these comments helpful and hope that you'll be able to contribute to the Innes and many other articles. I myself would be fascinated to learn about the Freudian connection -- properly cited, of course! Cheers. (Oh, and when you write a discussion remark such as this, please don't forget to end it by typing in 4 "~" at the very end -- this will be your signature....) Hayford Peirce 23:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I might add that if you say "The structure and plots of Innes's books are heavily influenced by Freud," you are going to have to cite a source for that. If you write, however, "There are many jocular references to Freud and Freudian concepts by both the characters and the narrator in Innes's books," that is almost certainly a statement that no one will argue with. I might ask you, in the discussion area, to give me an example, but that would probably be the extent of it. If the article ever expanded to be as lengthy as the ones about Robert A. Heinlein or Jack Vance, say, then a separate paragraph about it would probably be warranted. The hardest thing for a Wiki neophyte to grasp, I think, is that they really mean it when they say NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH! I argued for months about trying to put in something that Robert Heinlein told me once and couldn't understand why they wouldn't let me. I finally understood: Even though *I* know Heinlein told me this, I can't prove it to anyone else -- if Ben Bova, however, came out with his "Collected Letters" and there was a letter in it from me to Ben in which I said: "Heinlein told me over lunch the other day that etc. etc." THAT could be included in the Wiki article. Because it has a verifiable source. Even if, in my letter to Ben, I was making up what Heinlein purportedly said.... Hayford Peirce 23:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Hi. I'm delisting the move request from WP:RM that this page be merged into J.I.M. Stewart. That's not a move request, but a merge request, and we don't handle those at requested moves. If you want to merge this article into the other, and if there's no opposition to doing it, then you can really just do it. Simply make sure all the content from this article is covered at the other location, add a note on the talk page there about where any merged content is coming from (in case someone needs to trace its history), and then turn this page into a redirect to that one. Please see Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages for more information. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)