The Sincerest Form of Flattery

The Interwebs have had their knickers in knots for the past few weeks over allegations Nic Pizzolatto plagiarized Thomas Ligotti for Rust Cohle’s dialog in the HBO series True Detective. Jon Padgett, founder of the Thomas Ligotti Online website, certainly thinks so, as he said to Mike Davis in The Lovecraft eZine:

“It is a fact that (in that crucial, character-defining scene) almost every one of Rust’s infamous lines is either taken word for word or is a paraphrase of Ligotti’s distinctive prose and ideas from The Conspiracy Against the Human Race.”

Padgett also cites what he calls “ample evidence” that is “unmistakably evident,” providing eight comments by character Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey), along with examples from Ligotti’s work. (You can read the entire article at the link above. I’m going to cherry-pick a little, in the interest of space.)

COHLE: We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from

itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law.

Ligotti: “We know that nature has veered into the supernatural by fabricating a creature that cannot and should not exist by natural law, and yet does.” (Emphasis in original.)

Another example:

COHLE: So my daughter, she spared me from the sin of being a father.

Ligotti: “…non-coital existence… the surest path to redemption for the sin of being congregants of this world.”

Padgett goes on to say, “Are we truly expected to believe that all of the above is pure coincidence?”

No, not at all. It’s also not plagiarism.

In the second example, by Padgett’s reasoning, anyone who uses the phrase “the sin of being” is a plagiarist. We start looking at examples that small for plagiarists, no one is safe.

I once had two detectives eat lunch in a Chinese joint named Lee Ho Fuk’s. I got the name from Warren Zevon’s song, “Werewolves of London.” Is that plagiarism? No. it’s what I call an Easter Egg, something people who get the joke will smile at, and those who don’t haven’t missed anything. The restaurant has to be named something.

Ligotti is clearly a major influence on Pizzolatto’s work. No one disputes that. To be fair, he could have cut all of this off at the pass by writing a few lines of dialog before Rust Cohle says a nihilistic word to Marty Hart:

Cohle: You ever hear of a writer named Thomas Ligotti, Marty?

Hart: Uh-uh.

Cohle: Well, he says…

From there you can do about what you want.

The Lovecraft article created a furor I think is dying down a little. (I admit I’m late to the party again, but I have other things to do. Just be happy I’m not a fireman.) With all the bits and bytes that have been consumed, one thing seems more evident now than ever before: fantasy/sci-fi/horror fans are the most thin-skinned and self-important assholes of the reading world.

True Detective

HBO made its programs available again on Netflix just as it released True Detective available on DVD far sooner than its previous practice. Once again my clean living and purity of mind pay off.

My impression of True Detective during its run, based on what I read in social media, was it was a groundbreaking series that had viewers shaking their heads in wonder and admiration after each episode. After its eight-week run had ended, I found a more mixed collection of opinions, so I was eager to give it a try.

First, an overarching opinion: I believe the limited duration television series with at least one continuing story arc, used for years by the Brits, is the highest form of visual storytelling. The creators can take the time they need, and only that much, to go as deep into their characters and subject matter as they wish. The Wire was sometimes describes as a “television novel,” but the mold wasn’t broken. It’s still there, and it works. Brilliantly, when done right.

That being said, True Detective is good, often excellent, sometimes brilliant, but uneven as

an old mining road. The conceit of the early episodes—modern detectives interviewing Rust Cohle and Marty Hart about a case from seventeen years ago, intercut with scenes of the actual investigation—was brilliant, and well done. Especially successful are scenes where the previous events show how Cohle and Hart lie to the detectives. I have no idea how to do that in a novel and make it half as effective. (There’s also a scene—I think it’s in Episode Four—where Cohle goes undercover and winds up in a stash house robbery gone bad that runs as a single shot for over six minutes. That was filmmaking of a level Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas at the Copa) and Orson Welles (opening to A Touch of Evil) would be proud.)

The acting is uniformly excellent. I have long been a Matthew McConaughey basher, but he’s taken his craft seriously and come a long way. Having seen him in Mud before this, I wasn’t as shocked as I might have been. It’s his performance that carries the series. Woody Harrelson is also excellent; we’ve come to expect that. McConaughey’s Cohle is a fundamentally good man beset by demons; Harrelson’s Hart is an asshole who must find his own redemption. What’s best about True Detective is how their interactions bring this out, building a strong friendship built on an apparent foundation of antagonism.

What throws the show off-kilter are the domestic scenes of the Hart family, and of Marty’s inability to stay faithful to his wife, played by Michelle Monahan, whose talents are largely wasted. While the plot line of trying to include new partner Cohle into Hart’s life works well in spots, most of the Hart family scenes serve to show Martin is an ever-enlarging asshole, and his wife is a vindictive shrew. That’s important to know, as it has implications for the partners’ relationship, but it went on way too long.

Watching the back-and-forth of today’s investigation with the original was fascinating, though the momentum was too often disrupted by the detailed examinations of the Hart family travails. Things really start to roll when the focus shifts to today, as Cohle and Hart take it upon themselves to solve the original case. The ending is pitch perfect, on multiple levels. (Don’t ask. You know I don’t do spoilers. All I’ll say is, David Chase’s idea of a personal hell must be to have to watch the final episodes of True Detective and The Shield for eternity, to show him how not to cop out on an ending.)

Was it worth watching? Absolutely. Did it blow me away? On occasion. Did it leave me with my mouth hanging open in slack-jawed admiration? No. Will I watch it again? Almost certainly, but not for a while. Will I buy it so I can drop it into the player whenever the mood hits me? Probably not.