Talk:Nadine Gordimer/Archive 6

praise

It might be interesting to add that she is friends with Nelson Mandela [1] and that Seamus Heaney has called her one of "the guerrillas of the imagination" [2]. The trouble is, I am a bit unsure about where to insert that info in the article. Zigzig20s 15:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Nelson Mandela should go into a moreo detailed bibliographic section that talks about her personal history, relationships, career, etc. Seamus Heaney quote I would put in a a discussion of her literary works. ... I want to work on these pieces too, and not just this silliness with anon editor; substantive edits take more time & I'll have more time in the next couple of months. --lquilter 17:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I started pulling out some subheadings. The middle heading ("Recognition and continued political engagement") might be a good place for both of the quotes you mention. --lquilter 02:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Afrikaner?

Why is she listed as an Afrikaner? 68.49.242.230 16:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)ahassan05

She isn't she is Jewish and an Afrikanerhater by that. http://www.praag.org/essay4.htm --41.242.216.57 16:53, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Lit crit

Okay, I've done a second major overhaul of the article, adding in many more references, and starting to give some short summaries and notes on her major works. There's more to do; I haven't even touched her short stories or her documentary work with her son. But at least there's something there. Still need:

• much of the early novels
• most of her 1990s novels

--lquilter 17:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Finally, some work on this article that's not about the robbery. It looks good. I think there are too many subdivisions, especially at the end. The References, Further Reading, See Also, and External Links seems like a lot. But I'm not sure how to fix it, or really if it needs to be fixed at all. I'll play around with it and see what I can do. I'll probably wind up leaving it like it is. Andyparkerson 21:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I hate external links sections, since they really are almost always "further reading". The References section should be renamed "Notes" and put into short form and also made so that it just lists works once; I'll do the renaming & short form, but will have to research the reference format to get it so that it just links to each unique footnote reference once. (I did a bunch of substantive work on this article in Jan/Feb, too, btw, but sometimes all one has time for is putting out fires.) --lquilter 23:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I did some reorg in response to your cmts. Andyparkerson, it would be swell if you could also add more to the lit crit stuff about her novels -- that section has thus far been drafted only by me, and could probably use another perspective, as well as more summaries about the major works. --lquilter 23:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd love to help on the lit crit stuff, but I've never actually read any of her works. I only got involved in this page because of the aforementioned firefighting. All I know about Gordimer is what is written here. All I can do is help rewrite, and reorganize, and restructure things here. And please, call me Andy. Andyparkerson 00:34, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

activism

doesn't her political engagement need a mention in the lead article and categories? Doldrums 08:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. Yakuman (数え役満) 20:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Spring Cleaning

I removed a disputed fact claim and restored an important sentence which was lost in the edit wars. I also made some nonsectarian copyedits, oplus I cleared up several redundancies, POV clains, etc. HTH. Yakuman (数え役満) 18:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Busy day on the page today. Removed references to "regime", since that sounds POV to me. Of course, the statement "Apartheid is bad." is POV, so being objective here is not all that easy. Using neutral language is more important than advancing a viewpoint in this article. We should all remember that. Andyparkerson 21:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Fine to leave it out, but please look at regime, specifically, The term need not imply anything about the particular government to which it relates, and most political scientists use it as a neutral term. --lquilter 21:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying, and I agree that it may not necessarily be POV, by definition. However the way it is currently used in popular speech, as opposed to technical speech, makes me feel it seems rather POV. It's a connotation/denotation issue, and maybe it's not that big a deal after all. Stupid language. Andyparkerson 21:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I left "regime" in. <smile> Yakuman (数え役満) 22:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The "restored an important sentence which was lost in the edit wars" might be more accurately described as "put back in a disputed sentence that another editor had deliberately removed in the paragraph that people have been edit warring over". --lquilter 15:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Now, wait...

Joining the Communist Party has nothing to do with Communism? That's just strange. I think we have enought disputed content as it is. I didn't add it. Its cited, non-defamatory and has no direct racial connotation. This isn't one of the Hollywood Ten pleasing the fifth. There is neither secret, nor POV, nor controversy. Just leave it, ok?Yakuman (数え役満) 08:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

why is his communism notable or relevant enough to be mentioned here? i bet this guy's also right-handed, we don't mention that, do we? the reason i've removed more than one statement u've added to this article is u've not demonstrated why those statements are notable or relevant to this article. do you want me to quote all the bits of various WP policies that tell you how and why notability and relevance determines the content of articles? Doldrums 08:47, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe that I probably added "Communist lawyer" to the initial description of Fischer in the novel section. However, while it's not secret, defamatory, etc., it would probably be more accurate in the context of the novel to descrbe him as the "anti-apartheid lawyer", because the novel focuses more closely on that. At any rate his name links to his article where all concerned can find out more about him, including the fact that he died in prison as a result of state repression of the SACP. --lquilter 12:22, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

i took a look at his biography and found very little to support the idea that his Communist party membership leadership is particularly notable about him, in this context. the "anti-apartheid lawyer" or similar formulation sounds fine to me. Doldrums 12:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought the guy was sentenced to prison under an anti-communist act, and he died in prison; so I think his communism is a pretty salient fact in his actual biography. However, in light of the politicization of this page over the last few months, I see how mentioning his politics could be touchy. Luckily I think it's not really relevant -- he's a real-life basis for the fictional father of a fictional character in one of Gordimer's works. So I think it works to just describe him as an anti-apartheid activist, since it was those real-life affiliations that were at the heart of the fictionalized character of Burger's Daughter. The communist thing will just confuse readers, because they might think BD deals only with communism, and it's really more about anti-apartheid political activism; so it's better to label him appropriately here. --lquilter 14:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Photo removal

Can anyone explain what the problem with Gordimer's photo is? Andyparkerson 04:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair use of copyrighted material, though permitted under U.S. law, is generally discouraged on Wikipedia as incompatible with the project's primary goal of creating free content. However, in an extraordinarily restricted set of circumstances, some fair use may be permitted. Photographs of living people are never allowed on Wikipedia under a fair use claim. For the Gordimer image to be usable on Wikipedia, the copyright holder would have to agree for anyone to use this image for any purpose, including commercial use and distribution of derivative works. See [3]

I don't like this weird new policy, but the admins are lined up in support of it. One has already tagged the Gordimer photo as a violation. Were it my decision, her photo would stay. Yakuman (数え役満) 05:35, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Roberts biography

Glad Doldrums added the stuff on the Roberts biography. We need an ISBN, and also as I understand there was some critical commentary about Roberts regarding his criticisms of Gordimer's AIDS stuff and about his bio generally. (Positive and negative, as I understand; mixed reviews.) That may be adding too much background info about the bio, but it's a much more interesting story than the assault .... --lquilter 13:58, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

just to note, i didn't add it, i rewrote (and expanded a little) what Yakuman (i think) added. i also felt that commentary about the biography would be too off-topic, so stuck to what the biography says about G. and vice-versa. Doldrums 06:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)