Talk:Helen Dale

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The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Edofedinburgh 02:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Darville and Eastern Europe ancestry(ies)

Responding to an entry in the Edit History that Darville did not claim any Eastern European backgrounds other than coming from the Ukraine:

According to Sneja Gunew in Performing Australian Ethnicity: 'Helen Demidenko we find:

"As tireless investigative reporters from her home town of Brisbane, sifted the evidence, it was revealed that the author had a long history of 'passing' as an 'ethnic', although her specific allegiances had been all over the map, so to speak, ranging from Czechoslovakian to Hungarian etc. (Bentley 1995; Dibben 1995)."

I attended Queensland University with Helen Darville before her "literary career" began and was in quite a number of lecture groups and tutorials with her for many years. I can say that from the first meeting she claimed to be czech and that she had learned english in 8 weeks and that she had been in australia for only 6 months. I found out a few months later that she had told one of the Classics faculty lecturers and tutor that she was hungarian, and another student that she was polish (unconnected to the comment below i think). She claimed that her father was a poor taxi driver, even though in a lecture she made a comment that her mother collected Wedgewood. Also to anyone who was familiar with brisbane it was obvious that Helen was a product of a private girl's school (Grace Lutheran i beleive). I cannot explain it any better than that, but anyone from brisbane would understand this. She came accross as somewhat spoilt and on one memorable occassion for the tute group she was scathing in her criticism, to the point of offensive, of the Classics and Ancient History faculty when she did not recieve the marks to which she felt she was entitled. During my time at university with her, i can say the people began to realise that not everything that she said was necessarily factually based. By a strange coincidence, through mutual friends in the brisbane reenactment community, i happened to know Paul Gadaloff, the guy that gave helen access to The Black Deeds of the Kremlin; he was from a russian emigre family that claimed aristocratic heritage and he was seemingly obsessed with returning to russia to reclaim the family estates. For another reference to the gadaloff's, Garth, brother of the above:

http://www.courts.qld.gov.au/qjudgment/QCA%201998/QCA98-458.pdf

When her novel was released amid the claims that she was making regarding her background, etc, i thought that it would only be a very short time before the "fiction" was uncovered; instead it went on and no one questioned what was being said in the media. Given that i am only one person of the literally dozens if not hundreds of people that shared lectures and tutorials with helen darville, who knew that she was not who she was now claiming to be, i still find it remarkable that no one said anything. I also knew girls that had attended high school with her, who also knew that what she was claiming was not true. In the 1990's Brisbane was still a relativly "small town" and the number of people that knew the real truth about helen darville must have been remarkable.

When Helen Darville was awarded the Miles Franklin it was just surreal that no one had caught on the deception. Taken in the context of the long history of contradictory lies, fabrications and half truths that she had told about herself I think that it is amazing that no one at all thought to say anything or that the media didn't do even superficial research, so much for the efforts of those "tireless investigators"!!

And in Natalie Jane Prior's The Demidenko Diary Prior says that Darville claimed Polish-Ukrainian background when they were studying in a course together before the writing of The Hand that Signed the Paper.

I cannot remember that exact reference but it is on the first few pages of that book.

This site may or may not help: http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/18/sept99/victim.htm

I do know that these are second-hand sources at best, and the editor who first raised it had a first-hand source.

EuropracBHIT 11:15, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Fairfax are Yellow on Geocities

Is this really a reliable site to be using? Further, is it NPOV?

(I did have a look at it. It mainly seemed to castigate certain columnists who write for the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, and reviewers).

For those of you who don't know it, it seems very pro-Darville. I looked in Google and there were 133 references to it, mostly in directories. So its claim that it is suppressed is not very true.

Rather, its situation seems to be a case of self-promotion:

"Fairfax Are Yellow Monitoring the censorship of Australian writer and journalist Helen Darville by the Fairfax media and their associates." is seen in the vast majority of tags.

This is what is in the directories (which include DMOZ, Tiscali and Excite, to name a few): /Society/ Issues/Business/Allegedly_Unethical_Firms/One_Complainant/ EuropracBHIT 11:30, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

false accusations of plagiarism?

i seem to recall that those accusations may not have been so false as to justify a flat rejection by this article. this article appears to be a one sided defence of darville for most of it. if my memory recalls, some of the accusations against darville were substantiated. Xtra 12:44, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Apparent edits by pro-Darville anons like 213.105.232.92 - Skysmith 20:48, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• There are newspapers claiming it was real; given the provability defenders are obligated to bring forth a source which says otherwise. Mackensen (talk) 23:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Helen Dale

The subject of this article appeared on ABC's "All in the Mind" radio programme as Helen Dale in 2006, which I've added to the article (along with a redirect page). I suppose, as this is her current name, the page should be moved? Ben White 11:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Not Much Attempt to Hide an Advertisement Here!

This is a good example of a dressed-up blurb, and it belongs in a publisher's catalogue. I'd expect better on a Kellog's Corn Flakes packet. Thedarky 14:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this page is a white wash. Helen Demidenko should have her own page as a hoax and helen Darville-Dale-Demidenko the real person could have a bio page. If I didn't have a real life I'd fixed it. --Meika (talk) 08:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Dubious claim in Oxford section

I removed this [1] from the 'Oxford' section as the ref cited didn't mention anything about it. Anchoress · Weigh Anchor · Catacomb 05:15, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Biographical Section

The opening sentence reads: "Helen Dale, formerly a lover of Jamie Darville (born 24 January 1972) is an Australian columnist and writer." This reads poorly. It appears from this that Jamie Darville was born on 24 January 1972 and not Helen Dale. Secondly, why the reference to Jamie Darville, without explanation, when he doesn't rate a separate page entry of his own? Is this trying to say that Helen Dale changed her name to Darville after being Jamie Darville's lover, or something else? I'm confused. I think this first sentence needs a re-write. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 10:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The introduction to this page has now been amended, for which many thanks. Perry Middlemiss (talk)

Appearance of novel on biography page

As part of my personal project to raise the profile of the Miles Franklin Award I am creating a separate page for each winner of the award. Helen Darville's page contains details of the novel which will make this rather difficult. I'd prefer to see it on its own page. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 03:52, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at Thomas Keneally and the reference in it to Schindler's Ark. I think you could do the same thing. Abbreviate what's on this article to one para (I think given the controversy a small section needs to be retained here), put in the Main Article tag as per the Keneally article, and then transfer the rest over to a separate article. Hopefully those who added it here will be happy with that.Sterry2607 (talk) 07:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Good suggestion. I'll work towards that. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 22:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Sydney Morning Herald Report

There is mention of the fact that the Sydney Morning Herald report that Darville's novel was originally submitted as non-fiction is not true. But no evidence or reference is provided for this refutation. In the absence of such evidence I suggest we take the news paper report as factual. I suggest that registered users edit the page to delete the claim that the report is not true.

Blurredcrusader (talk) 11:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Comparison with Ern Malley

The italicised section of the following sentence has been deleted from this article: "This created a furore and much debate on the nature of identity and ethnicity in Australian literature, with many comparing it to the Ern Malley Affair, a noted Australian literary hoax where an acclaimed author was found to have been an entirely fictitious creation of two established poets."

The comment on the amendment states: "Removed reference to Ern Malley affair, which was a hoax, unlike the Darville book."

The original sentence doesn't state that the Darville book was a hoax, only that some commentators indicated that it was. Have a look at [2], in which the two are discussed together.

I agree that the original statement probably needs a clean-up and references but it shouldn't be deleted outright.--Perry Middlemiss (talk) 23:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks PM, I agree that the sentence did not expressly say that the Helen Dale book was a hoax, but I do think it inferred that. The distinction between the book and the Ern Malley affair is not really made clear there or anywhere else in the article. There is a reference to 'the deception' but to follow that sentence with a direct comparison to Ern Malley makes it less clear that the Helen Dale book was not a hoax, unlike Ern Malley. It seemed a bit indelicate to state the distinction clearly so I decided that to delete the reference entirely would be safer - I would be grateful for your thoughts on a good way to include the Ern Malley reference while making the distinction clear (as I'm struggling with that). LaurenA1 (talk) 10:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll give it some thought. --Perry Middlemiss (talk) 22:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)