Talk:Andrew Malcolm (author)

Cephascrispus (talk) 19:26, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

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Notability

Clearly, Malcolm is not notable as an author. His two books have minimal WorldCat holdings, and the only review to be found is the one published by the editor who was rebuked for embroiling OUP in the whole messy affair to begin with. The only way this article has encyclopedic value is as an article about Malcolm v OUP. If this is truly a notable case in British case law, then it merits inclusion. Otherwise, I really don't think so, but I'll let others chime in here. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 12:31, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Cephascrispus seems to disagree with my assessment that the subject of this article is not notable. Given that his case (Malcolm v Oxford University Press) appears to have set an important precedent in the issue of the validity of verbal contracts in the publishing industry (the case appears to be somewhat widely cited in this regard), I recommend moving the article to Malcolm v Oxford University Press and report more on the notable case rather than its less than notable litigant. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 14:49, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

'Malcolm is not notable as an author...the only review to be found is the one published by the editor who was rebuked for embroiling OUP'

This isn't true. The article quotes (Newdigate poetry prize winner) Arina Petrikova's review in The Oxford Student: ' 'Now, more than twenty years since its completion, Making Names is neither obsolete nor dispensable. The tragicomic legal struggle does little to lessen the intellectual merits of Making Names - its prose still shines, its questions still stand, and its 'Electra' remains one of the most powerful statements of the human condition written in the last century.'

It also quotes R.W.Noble in the TES: 'Making Names is an original tour de force. As its title forewarns us, it deals with some modish issues of semiotics, but the overall contents are more comparable to some of Bertrand Russell's later writing, effectively communicating the essentials of philosophy and scientific theorising to students and general readers.'

Here's Professor Roy Edgley's assessment, also quoted: 'Making Names is an exceptional piece of work, highly unusual in both its content and presentation. Malcolm's use of dialogue is in certain ways more fully dramatic than Plato's or Berkeley's, his writing is fluent and wonderfully easy to read. Most of the major philosophical problems are presented and argued, but it is not until the final chapter that Malcolm's fusion of philosophy and drama takes its most audacious step, when he presents his very striking version of the tragedy Electra. Malcolm has done something in this book which is unique.'

This is not to mention his second book, The Remedy, which Henry Hardy described in the Times Higher Education Supplement as a 'gripping story of the alleged ineptitude and skulduggery with which he was treated by a publisher to whom he offered it....Malcolm has a real gift for farce – and the portrayal of muddle and evasiveness on the part of the publishing grandees and their legal representatives is intensely tragicomic.'

So even without the legal case he is notable as a writer Cephascrispus (talk) 19:26, 7 April 2015 (UTC)