Bibliographies at the end of novels
Just what readers will make of Mr. Mailer’s bibliography remains to be seen. But readers of, say, William T. Vollmann’s “Europe Central” have every reason to be grateful for his lengthy bibliography — not as a talisman against plagiarism or a sign of his own learning but as a guide to further reading. In fact, the only real risk we see in a bibliography for a novel is that it will come to be a kind of obligatory disclosure. As far as we’re concerned, novelists are obliged to disclose nothing besides the art of the stories they have to tell.
What once might have been seen as pomposity is now, largely due to the Internet and hyperlinking, simply being a helpful citizen, yeah?
[At the End of the Book---New York Times]
