The Folded Lie

In a small provincial university town, everybody is trying to marry off the young divorce who has just been hired. Sexual intrigues underlie the lives of the people portrayed in this allegorical novel incidentally placed on a campus. The chairman is up for review; there is opposition in the department, then open revolt. Will he be reelected? The new assistant professor in an otherwise all-male department is willing to risk everything. Will the administration consider her plight and resolve the situation favorably? Life on campus and in the town comes alive in the summer when an outdoor theatrical performance loosens inhibitions, and people speak and act freely. Superbly crafted, humorously diverting, witty and unusual.

Letter to the Reader:

The reader needs to enter a novel barefoot and naked. That means leaving aside his persona and being ready to be immersed in the reality the novel provides. When a reader comes to a novel with preconceived notions he comes out of it frustrated because his expectations have not been met.


Let us talk about The Folded Lie. At first glance, it doesnt look like most novels. There is plenty of dialogue, and quotation marks are used only rarely. How do you know who is talking? The dash () lets you know someone is speaking but not always who it is or to whom. Sometimes it is hard to guess, but after a while you will get the hang of it. Furthermore, the two main characters are unnamed; they are referred to only as she and he, and you will find no objective description of either one. Only now and then someone else reflects their appearances. There is no adventure in the ordinary sense; one gradually realizes that there is a problem to be solved. The story is about people seen mainly from one angle, and from that angle their humanity and vulnerability are visible.

What about the content of that story? It takes place in academe, but that is incidental, since it describes by implication any institution where power is exercised. The action occurs in a locale that could be anywhere. What happens? Basically nothing. What counts is how the characters feel about the events that surround them, how they understand and react to the forces that affect their lives.

In what words can one describe this kind of book? Take it in your hands, feel it, open it and read a few pages at random. It seems more like a play than a novel. It is called on the title page a comedy of bad manners. And there is a List of Characters at the end, almost the dramatis personae of old plays that lets you know who is who and how who is related to whom. Here they are related not to each other but according to the system or organization they belong to. In this particular system women, with few exceptions, dont count for much. Many are wives of the men but are relegated to backstage and are only briefly heard or seen. If a woman, by some fluke, belongs to the system, she finds herself isolated, misunderstood, manipulated, and ultimately scorned, eliminated. And at the center of this drama of elimination, an actual theatrical production reflects the basic problem posed by the text: the characters are playacting, using words and body language to manipulate other people while at the same time they watch themselves act. In a word, it is a comedy of bad faith.

Presenting characters as if in a play is not without consequences for the reader. In many novels the author/narrator is a primary source of information concerning the people that inhabit the pages we read. Since plays are meant to be experienced in performance rather than in silent reading, that information is communicated by other means: stage directions, the production, and mostly the actors, who bring the characters to life with a stamp of individuality. Here, in The Folded Lie, reading is a matter of listening to the voice of the characters as it is embodied in the words they use and the rhythm of their utterances. It