Rely on paralipsis to avoid difficult subjects


As a biographer, my role is not to justify every decision made by the man who is the subject of my work. Please do not misunderstand – it is my intention that this biography be a complete and accurate account of the great man’s life, but I see no need to reopen old wounds in the process.
For this reason, I shall not be mentioning, even in passing, the allegations of financial wrongdoing, perjury, fraud, bribery, coercion or blackmail which have been the subject of so much baseless speculation over the last few years. Nor will you find within these pages any references to organised crime, let alone the particular Mafia figures to whom my subject has no proven links. Additionally, in the chapters concerning his perfectly innocent family holiday in Eastern Europe, I will make no mention of either his first wife or her mysterious absence from the return flight. Finally, at no point in this book will I be using the word “treason”, either literally or in a metaphorical sense. This is for legal reasons which I will also not be discussing.
I hope this clears up any confusion – happy reading!

8 comments:

  1. I love you too much to comment in the same badly written style.
    Don't you hate it when people do that?
    That is why I won't mention that I'm in joyous tears.
    Nope. You won't hear a trickle of it.
    Also, I shouldn't mention that my sister wants to marry you.
    Cheers!

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  2. You won't find me grovelling and begging for a lesson on zeugma next.

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  3. Ah, so the incredibly interesting childhood years, ages birth to six years! Fascinating!

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  4. Hmmm, surely a credit is due to Inky Fool here...?

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  5. On the contrary, I keep writing Inky Fool posts only to find they've been preceded some other blog. And Joel is doing something completely different here.
    Though, if you do want to see the Inky post on paralipsis it's at http://inkyfool.blogspot.com/2010/01/paralipsis-and-occultatio.html

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  6. Stanislaw Lem has a great example of this - I think it was in "A Perfect Vacuum".

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