I think Lethem is making the latter point: that the notes are a fortunate unnecessity.
But mostly he is reminding readers that authors often embed bits of other authors' work in their prose, sometimes deliberately, sometimes unconsciously, and that it's impossible to maintain proper credit (in the academic sense) without footnoting our every sentence. He implies, I think, that such bibliographic back matter isn't obligatory. What struck me about the notes is that they forgot to include the one piece of source info that I actually wanted to know: exactly which Simpsons episode contains a court case about plagiarism.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-03-02 09:21 am (UTC)Very clever :) I'm trying to decide if the notes at the end are an unfortunate necessity, or just a great bibliography to mine further.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-04 03:46 pm (UTC)But mostly he is reminding readers that authors often embed bits of other authors' work in their prose, sometimes deliberately, sometimes unconsciously, and that it's impossible to maintain proper credit (in the academic sense) without footnoting our every sentence. He implies, I think, that such bibliographic back matter isn't obligatory. What struck me about the notes is that they forgot to include the one piece of source info that I actually wanted to know: exactly which Simpsons episode contains a court case about plagiarism.