Carowan Unmasked

W. Kiernan WKiernan at concentric.net
Tue Feb 20 20:05:23 PST 2001



> > Well it turns out that Jan Carowan was Rakesh Bhandari, a list alum,
> > under a pseudonym. I'm rather stunned

that's so cool!


> Some of you might remember that Bhandari's top 100 books which posted
> to the list not one concerned music or the arts

Yeah but it looks like art found Rakesh, as a creative writer, after all. I mean, using a pseudonym is what literary artists do. Rakesh Bhandari may have written "Jan Carowan's" posts but "Jan Carowan" clearly wasn't "Rakesh Bhandari." A writer behind a pseudonym and a real name are different things, readers distinguish right away:


> Still got a hundred Bhandari posts in my 'Keep' folder. But not one
> single Carowan.

so different, a shock when shown:


> Brother Rakesh is the mad Jan Carowan! Holy shit!

Knowing this ahead of time the pseudonym-veiled writer, happily free of responsibility to his own name, with scope like wings, can write all differently than he ever used to. If he's uninhibited enough he's even free to lie out loud which is always a ton of fun. This is more or less the identical aesthetic pleasure a writer of fiction gets as he fabricates characters and their adventures, or anyway pretty close, isn't it? Committing art is fun & it makes you happy:


> Absolutely. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, so to
> speak.

and we want our friends to be happy, so yay Rakesh! Hey Doug, is "Jan" still attached to your list and might he read this? Hi, Rakesh!

Yours WDK - WKiernan at concentric.net



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