Talk:Pico Iyer

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Contents 1 School team 2 Autobiographical writing 3 The Recovery of Innocence 4 Parents

[edit] School team

I'm sorry that my addition about the school chess team was deleted. I thought it was sufficiently interesting. Maybe it is not strictly verifiable; I could verify it, but it would be a lot of bother, and anyway I do not think it contravenes the spirit of the verifiability guidelines. Viewfinder 03:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

diff for reference. --Quiddity 17:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Autobiographical writing

I find the tone of the writing in this article to be a little autobiographical (and not particularly WP:NPOV). I applaud Mr. Iyer for noting that he made changes to the article himself, but the official Wikipedia policy toward autobiographical changes to articles requires that the subject of the article request these changes through the article's talk page. See Wikipedia:Autobiography. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.108.108.193 (talk • contribs) .

In theory, you are right, but in practice, I do not think any breach of the spirit of Wikipedia's guidelines has occurred. I do not think the edits by Mr Iyer have made the article into any more of a eulogy than it already was. If editors who are merely improving the accuracy of articles about themselves are expected to use the above mentioned talk page procedure, it will discourage them from making such improvements, and that would not be good. Viewfinder 08:14, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed the NPOV tag, this article is perfectly fine Appalachiangirl 00:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Recovery of Innocence

I've just readded a mention of PI's first book, The Recovery of Innocence (subtitled on its cover, but not on its title page, Literary Glimpses of the American Dream). Readded, because the man himself (or somebody credibly claiming to be him) removed it within this extensive edit. Because of this earlier removal, because although the first place of publication is London even Copac doesn't list it, and because later books I've seen by him don't mention it, some readers might reasonably conclude that it's a hoax. But it isn't: the Library of Congress has a copy, and [cough] I have one too. It's a slightly too elegant paperback, printed in dark blue on cream paper; its prose is a bit purplish but entirely forgivable for such a young writer. And yes, it's about American literature. I hope that its author is not ashamed of it; he does not need to be. -- Hoary 11:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Somebody dislikes this book. It has just been removed for at least a second time. So I replaced it. -- Hoary 23:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

And yet again. This is very strange. -- Hoary 04:03, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

And yet again. Stranger and stranger. -- Hoary 04:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Thoroughly surreal! --Quiddity 05:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps there's still a lingering notion that the book doesn't exist. If a Library of Congress entry isn't sufficient evidence, consider these:

• Amazon.com page for the book
• Amazon.com image of the front cover
• NYRB contributions list and profile, listing the book
• Alibris page listing copies of the book
• book listed by ISBN among other books from the same publisher

-- Hoary 04:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

And yet again. What is it about this book? Hello, editors: Pico Iyer wrote and had published a book titled The Recovery of Innocence. Live with it. -- Hoary 05:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

And yet again. This time, with the edit summary Only tiny changes for accuracy. I'd be most interested in reading an explanation here of how the removal of mention of this book constitutes a tiny change for accuracy. -- Hoary (talk) 00:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Parents

A recent version of this article tells us: Iyer was born in Oxford England to Indian parents, Nandini Iyer and Raghavan N Iyer. (The current version doesn't name either.) Offhand I don't know about the former name but I believe that the latter is correct. I wonder why this information was removed. -- Hoary 11:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Removed again, with the explanation Only tiny changes for accuracy. Most mysterious. -- Hoary (talk) 00:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)