{"id":25479,"date":"2012-01-13T13:00:11","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=25479"},"modified":"2012-01-13T22:46:46","modified_gmt":"2012-01-14T03:46:46","slug":"slanderous-correspondence-imitations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/","title":{"rendered":"Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3251\" title=\"boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"271\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg 271w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5-211x300.jpg 211w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><em>I take great and perverse joy in reading insulting, inflammatory, and slanderous correspondence between authors, publishers, and celebrities. Could you recommend some particularly bilious rivalries?<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>As Mr. Wilson so justly proclaims in the beginning of \u201cThe Strange Case of Pushkin and Nabokov,\u201d we are indeed old friends. I fully share \u201cthe warm affection sometimes chilled by exasperation\u201d that he says he feels for me. In the 1940s, during my first decade in America, he was most kind to me in various matters, not necessarily pertaining to his profession. I have always been grateful to him for the tact he showed in refraining from reviewing any of my novels. We have had many exhilarating talks, have exchanged many frank letters. A patient confidant of his long and hopeless infatuation with the Russian language, I have always done my best to explain to him his mistakes of pronunciation, grammar, and interpretation. As late as 1957, at one of our last meetings, we both realized with amused dismay that despite my frequent comments on Russian prosody, he still could not scan Russian verse. Upon being challenged to read <em>Eugene Onegin<\/em> aloud, he started to do this with great gusto, garbling every second word and turning Pushkin\u2019s iambic line into a kind of spastic anapaest with a lot of jaw-twisting haws and rather endearing little barks that utterly jumbled the rhythm and soon had us both in stitches.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So begins the famous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/articles\/archives\/1965\/aug\/26\/letters-the-strange-case-of-nabokov-and-wilson\/?pagination=false\">response<\/a>, by Vladimir Nabokov, to a negative review by Edmund Wilson in <em>The New York Review of Books<\/em>. The book: Nabokov\u2019s translation of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eugene-Onegin-Novel-Verse-Vol\/dp\/0691019053\">Eugene Onegin<\/a><\/em>. A fun game to play: Exactly where does Nabokov start to show his teeth? Is it \u201cthe tact he showed in refraining from reviewing any of my novels\u201d? Or \u201cnot necessarily pertaining to his profession\u201d? Or even that \u201cjustly\u201d in sentence one?<\/p>\n<p>Six years later, when Norman Mailer was attacked by Gore Vidal in that same magazine, Mailer took his case to the masses\u2014on <em>The Dick Cavett Show<\/em>\u2014with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=C8m9vDRe8fw\">less sinuous results<\/a>. The lesson, most publishers will tell you, is never respond. But it&#8217;s awfully good TV.<\/p>\n<p><em>I am taking a beginning poetry class and am expected to write imitations of poets on the class list. What should I be careful to do or not do? What should I pay attention to in an imitation?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>To get the most out of the exercise, try to make the meter sound exactly like the meter of the poem you\u2019re imitating. And make sure the teacher checks your work. The meter will look and sound right to you\u2014and if you are a beginner, it will almost certainly be wrong. (You will say your words out loud in your head as if they marched along ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, when in fact they will go baah-duh-dee, buh-dee-doo.) Don\u2019t get hung up on matching the vocabulary of the old poems. You won\u2019t get it right, and it will sound fake. Use words that are more or less natural to you.<\/p>\n<p>And have fun! <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><em>Some people say there are books you have to read at a certain stage of your life. I\u2019m nineteen\u2014are there any books I should read before I turn twenty-one?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Thanks,<br \/> Max Coleman<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s true of most books, I think, that you have to read them at the right stage. The trouble is, we all enter these stages at different times. By the time I was twenty-one, some fire in my brain had gone out. Since then, I\u2019ve never gone back to my first novelist-hero, Dostoevsky, or to another favorite, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. Maybe you, too, want to read them now. It is a very good time to read Susan Sontag\u2019s first book of criticism, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Against-Interpretation-Essays-Susan-Sontag\/dp\/0312280866\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1326478044&amp;sr=1-1\">Against Interpretation<\/a><\/em> (and to follow up on her recommendations). Other books that spring to mind: Robert Musil\u2019s <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Confusions-T\u00f6rless-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics\/dp\/0142180009\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1326478068&amp;sr=1-1\">Young T\u00f6rless<\/a><\/em>, Andr\u00e9 Gide\u2019s <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Counterfeiters-Novel-Andre-Gide\/dp\/0394718429\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1326478113&amp;sr=1-1\">Counterfeiters<\/a><\/em>, and Roth\u2019s <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Portnoys-Complaint-Philip-Roth\/dp\/0679756450\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1326478142&amp;sr=1-1\">Portnoy\u2019s Complaint<\/a><\/em>. I\u2019d say the <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Slaughterhouse-Five-Novel-Kurt-Vonnegut\/dp\/0385333846\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1326478187&amp;sr=1-1\">Slaughterhouse-Five<\/a><\/em> train is probably leaving the station, and this may be the time to read Sylvia Plath and Dylan Thomas, if you haven\u2019t already, but also to start reading harder stuff, like Hart Crane or John Ashbery. In general, it is a good time to memorize poetry. Right now your memory has the muscles, and you will always have the poems.<\/p>\n<p><em>Have a question for the editors of <\/em>The Paris Review<em>? <a href=\"mailto:advice@theparisreview.org\">E-mail<\/a> us.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I take great and perverse joy in reading insulting, inflammatory, and slanderous correspondence between authors, publishers, and celebrities. Could you recommend some particularly bilious rivalries? As Mr. Wilson so justly proclaims in the beginning of \u201cThe Strange Case of Pushkin and Nabokov,\u201d we are indeed old friends. I fully share \u201cthe warm affection sometimes chilled [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[57,5736,5734,5733,2453,1474,4509,5738,5741,5234,1437,5740,3471,5737,501,2704,967,5739],"class_list":["post-25479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-the-paris-review","tag-advice","tag-against-interpretation","tag-andre-gide","tag-correspondence-2","tag-dylan-thomas","tag-edmund-wilson","tag-gore-vidal","tag-hart-crane","tag-imitations","tag-john-ashbery","tag-norman-mailer","tag-portnoys-complaint","tag-robert-musil","tag-slaughterhouse-five","tag-susan-sontag","tag-sylvia-plath","tag-vladimir-nabokov","tag-young-torless"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations by Lorin Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"January 13, 2012 \u2013 I take great and perverse joy in reading insulting, inflammatory, and slanderous correspondence between authors, publishers, and celebrities. Could you\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations by Lorin Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 13, 2012 \u2013 I take great and perverse joy in reading insulting, inflammatory, and slanderous correspondence between authors, publishers, and celebrities. Could you\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-13T18:00:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-01-14T03:46:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"271\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"384\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lorin Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lorin Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Lorin Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/ccd66e9829fecb87371ce574d778e34b\"},\"headline\":\"Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-13T18:00:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-01-14T03:46:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/\"},\"wordCount\":735,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"advice\",\"Against Interpretation\",\"Andre Gide\",\"correspondence\",\"Dylan Thomas\",\"Edmund Wilson\",\"Gore Vidal\",\"Hart Crane\",\"imitations\",\"John Ashbery\",\"Norman Mailer\",\"Portnoy's Complaint\",\"Robert Musil\",\"Slaughterhouse Five\",\"Susan Sontag\",\"sylvia plath\",\"Vladimir Nabokov\",\"Young T\u00f6rless\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Ask The Paris Review\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/\",\"name\":\"Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations by Lorin Stein\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-13T18:00:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-01-14T03:46:46+00:00\",\"description\":\"January 13, 2012 \u2013 I take great and perverse joy in reading insulting, inflammatory, and slanderous correspondence between authors, publishers, and celebrities. Could you\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/ccd66e9829fecb87371ce574d778e34b\",\"name\":\"Lorin Stein\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/336124c76cd6e539d4400e8b6c72da18130705594d9fe99e18f431d949440f1c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/336124c76cd6e539d4400e8b6c72da18130705594d9fe99e18f431d949440f1c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Lorin Stein\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/lstein\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations by Lorin Stein","description":"January 13, 2012 \u2013 I take great and perverse joy in reading insulting, inflammatory, and slanderous correspondence between authors, publishers, and celebrities. Could you","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations by Lorin Stein","og_description":"January 13, 2012 \u2013 I take great and perverse joy in reading insulting, inflammatory, and slanderous correspondence between authors, publishers, and celebrities. Could you","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2012-01-13T18:00:11+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-01-14T03:46:46+00:00","og_image":[{"width":271,"height":384,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Lorin Stein","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Lorin Stein","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/"},"author":{"name":"Lorin Stein","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/ccd66e9829fecb87371ce574d778e34b"},"headline":"Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations","datePublished":"2012-01-13T18:00:11+00:00","dateModified":"2012-01-14T03:46:46+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/"},"wordCount":735,"commentCount":1,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg","keywords":["advice","Against Interpretation","Andre Gide","correspondence","Dylan Thomas","Edmund Wilson","Gore Vidal","Hart Crane","imitations","John Ashbery","Norman Mailer","Portnoy's Complaint","Robert Musil","Slaughterhouse Five","Susan Sontag","sylvia plath","Vladimir Nabokov","Young T\u00f6rless"],"articleSection":["Ask The Paris Review"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/","name":"Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations by Lorin Stein","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg","datePublished":"2012-01-13T18:00:11+00:00","dateModified":"2012-01-14T03:46:46+00:00","description":"January 13, 2012 \u2013 I take great and perverse joy in reading insulting, inflammatory, and slanderous correspondence between authors, publishers, and celebrities. Could you","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/boyreadingnedanshutzsmall5.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/slanderous-correspondence-imitations\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Slanderous Correspondence; Imitations"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/ccd66e9829fecb87371ce574d778e34b","name":"Lorin Stein","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/336124c76cd6e539d4400e8b6c72da18130705594d9fe99e18f431d949440f1c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/336124c76cd6e539d4400e8b6c72da18130705594d9fe99e18f431d949440f1c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Lorin Stein"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/lstein\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25479"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25559,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25479\/revisions\/25559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}