Jeffrey Rubard, US, writing pseudonyms 11/7/2023

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Published book pseudonyms for Jeffrey Rubard (Oregon/US), 1990s-2020s


Fiction:

Kent Haruf

Russell Banks

T. Jefferson Parker

China Mieville

Dave Eggers

Jacques Roubaud (backdated, not known as original member of "Oulipo")

Paul Auster (less *Country of Last Things*, "by another hand")

Jeffrey Eugenides

John Wray

Jeffrey Lent

Jeff Noon

Andy Weir

Cixin Liu

Tom Rob Smith

Pascal Mercier

Paolo Coelho

Jamie Ford

Martin Solares

David Leavitt

Adam Rapp

John A. Heldt

Adam Levin

Russell Rowland

Edward Rutherfurd (shared, "city books" and *China* by Rubard)

Abdelrahman Munif (backdated to Intifada times, "Munif" not a person known to Arab world)

Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Richard Russo

Richard Flanagan

Joshua Cohen

Nick Hornby

Jonathan Littell

Mark Z. Danielewski

Arturo Perez-Reverte

Brendan Mathews

Yann Martel

Roddy Doyle (less first three novels)

Douglas Stuart

W.G. Sebald (backdated)

Stieg Larsson

Anthony Doerr (as in recent TV series *All The Light We Cannot See*)

Tom Drury

Keith Waldrop

M.T. Anderson ("Octavian Nothing")

Garth Greenwell

Wallace Cochran

Antonio Scurati (English texts original)

Mark Helprin

Cormac McCarthy (“general Western life” comp. to Larry McMurtry)

Michel Houellebecq

Eugene Vodolazkin

Rohinton Minstry

Fernando Aramburu

Carlos Ruiz Zafon



History:


Gordon S. Wood

Alan Taylor

John Ferling (shared, 70s-80s books "by another hand")

David Hackett Fischer

Jon Meacham

Ted Widmer

Scott Reynolds Nelson

David W. Blight

David Priestland

Leslie Holmes

Ian Bell

Michael Dobbs (not the Dobbs of *House of Cards* and related series, separate individual)

Robert W. Merry

Richard White

James Sullivan

RJ Smith

Stephen Greenblatt (not the literary criticism)

Matthew Stewart

RJ Smith

Michael Azerrad

Nelson Lichtenstein

Timothy Egan

Tracy Daugherty

Greg Grandin

Bryan Burrough (*Public Enemies*, *Days of Rage* etc.)

Peter Hall

Louis Menand

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Arthur Kempton

Mark Fisher

Robert Fisk

James J. McPherson (backdated, books not available in 1980s)

Taylor Branch


Sociology:


Charlie Bertsch ("Bad Subjects")

Craig Calhoun

William Rasch

Randall Collins (earlier books by another individual)

Göran Therborn (group)

John Roberts (not John Roberts, SCOTUS; fact known to Mr. Roberts)

Don Ross

Derrick Jensen

Gerd Baumann

Enzo Traverso

John Bellamy Foster

Richard A. Lanham (shared with other individual)

Joseph Carroll

Gerd Baumann

Jens Rubart

Hans-Georg Moeller

Michael Bentley

William H. Sewell Jr.

Jeffrey Alexander (less *Theoretical Logic in Sociology*)

John Roemer

Mark Fisher

Jan-Werner Müller

Oliver Zunz

Ulrich Beck

Michael Burawoy

Taylor Branch

Robert Brenner

John Mearsheimer



Philosophy:


Philip Pettit (John Locke Lectures)

Tyler Burge (“Individualism and the Mental” backdated)

Frank Jackson?

Tim van Gelder

Peter Carruthers

Jeff Malpas

Manuel Delanda

Kojin Karatani (hybrid?)

R.J. Lipton

Patrick J. Hurley

Peter Godfrey-Smith

Huw Price

Evan Thompson

Kevin Lynch

Domenico Losurdo

Alexander Stern

Ian Hacking

Alain Badiou

Ted Sider (John Locke Lectures)

Axel Honneth

Detlev Claussen

Gilles Dowek

Jean-Luc Nancy

Jean-Pierre Dupuy

Joseph LeDoux

Terrence Deacon?

Eric Baum

Murray Clarke

Joshua Cohen

Paul Guyer

Karl Ameriks

Matthew Stewart

Philip Kitcher

[Jeffrey Rubard]

The Expert Knowledge: "Seems odd, and odd to say it. Still, I suppose he actually wrote the 'MSS.' for those books if he did write them..."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Isn't there some 'grey area' to this, though?"
"Not really. It's just that you don't 'discuss details of authorial composition' in public, and the name of pseudonyms or noms des plumes is so great that it seems implausible as such."
"So it's not true, hah hah!"
"That's not what that statement says."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Honestly, once you guys give up 'doxxing' or 'dithering' things he's the author of those books under those 'pen-names', or not. It doesn't really have a 'gray area', really."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Really?"
"More like 'truly'."
"Ahh, I see this."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"So you're saying he's "Alain Badiou'?"
"You don't meet Alain Badiou 'in person', no."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"But it could somehow be that he - this freaking weird US resident - wrote the texts associated with these 'pen-names'?"
"That's how writing books works, yes, it sure could be, at least in part."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Is that really 'how that works', though?"
"Yes, it is. However, you don't discuss the topic of authorship in public."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"So there'd be 'precious little' evidence available to back these claims up, as a general rule?"
Yeah, pretty much. "Story of my life", etc.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Maybe you would... care to speak on the battle of Gettysburg today?"
I already did.
"Is it sometimes written..."
No, no it isn't.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Its anniversary was yesterday, I take it?"
I believe that's so.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Wider World:
"1863 was a long time ago, though."
Sure was, definitely. But we are even not talking about 1862 or 1864, right?
"Yeah, that kind of thing, sure."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Wider World:
"So there are some determinate matters of fact that are non-problematic, we sure know they are thus-and-such."
"Obviously."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Like how Henry Kissinger and Sandra Day O'Connor died recently, it's just so, etc."
Or George Santos was expelled from Congress, sure, 'it's like that for real' stuff.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Poofy Cheese: "So, what's Philip Pettit got to say?"
"I don't live in Spain." Would you like to hear from John Mearsheimer instead?

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"No, I wouldn't."
Got it.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"What's with the Prix Goncourt?"
It's not very prestigious?
"Oh, I don't believe you."
No, really? Like 'if you knew a thing' really?

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Poofy Cheese:
"Oh no, that is a very select thing about the newest fashions in modernist literature, like Jonathan Littell's *Les bienviellantes*."
Really, and this has something to do with the remembered character and reputation of the Goncourt brothers, the Prix Goncourt
winner is a sensationalistic 'litter-box-liner' more than English-language 'stans' would realize.
"Oh no, that won't do."
It's true and it 'won't do'?

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"It's 'not so'."
In the sense of the German *Nicht so...*, where the behavior is too rude to be a 'normal go-to' of anybody sane about everyday life?

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Right. It's 'not so'."
No, sometimes things which are *nicht so* 'factually obtain', are actual but awkward. Got it?

[Jeffrey Rubard]

The world isn't just the plaything of your words.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"I thought this was obvious."
It isn't 'obvious' to such people.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"So, like, when you just say that you're 'Robert W. Merry'..."
Oh, point taken.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Like, how am I to know that..."
Aren't lots of facts 'verification-transcendent' with respect to oneself, though?

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Like, I myself couldn't quite figure out whether what you say is true? I don't like that."
About "I don't like that", and about how that'd be about how it really was most of the time?

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Is Andre Braugher really dead, for example?
"I can't believe you!"
But sometimes those things aren't real, it's an entertainment identity they've jettisoned?
"Yeah, that's true."
So maybe I couldn't tell whether the reports were genuine or not?

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Well, either he is or he isn't! There's not a 'middle ground', there."
That's called 'bivalence' in philosophy of language.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Yeah, 'true or false but not both'. I think we think most factual assertions fall in the 'bivalent' category..."
Yeah, I think so too.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"So, yeah, with most of the stuff you tell us about, Mr. R, it either is or isn't the way you say it is. It's 'bivalent'. But we're not practically going to
know whether you're telling the truth, including because the topics discussed are not interesting enough for us to spend much time on..."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Sure, but these people are so dense about the logical "problem of trichotomy" they never get to that...

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Really: for most all intents and purposes a 'thing asserted' is true or not, and you care or not (it's not the sort of thing you worry about, etc.)
These people just have an endless buffet of 'logical hair-splitting' and misdirection set before them as though it could be all the world...

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Can't it, though? Couldn't they work out a 'cover-all description' of life today that obviated all criticisms?"
In practice, no. You don't know what to do for such an 'illusionist' when they ask something practical of you, etc.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Wider World: Today is only Tuesday, even if you need a "cleverer" idea.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"What will you do on Wednesday?"
Gee, I don't know.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Well, now it's Wednesday. So I guess you'll find out!"

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Wider World:
"What's with 'John A. Heldt'?"
It was an old US naming convention. 'Can you tell... you shouldn't read too much into things?'
"Compared to, say, 'Mark Z. Danielewski'?"
A newer thought: 'Try to stay human'.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

So the one of them wouldn't really necessarily be "John A Hero"?
Sure, and maybe your promise to keep it "Danielewski" would not exactly work out either.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Oh, I'd keep it..."
I don't think you understand the 'jocose' mode of speech being used.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"You're trying to hem me in here..."
No, you can 'think what you want' about this topic. You just can't do *someone else's* thinking for them.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Oh, but I would really just know that..."
"No, but"... that's not how literary history (of which such questions are a subdepartment) works.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Conjectures and refutations", a la Karl Popper, not "confutations and reproofs" a la ordinary life (which often does work like that).

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Did you write the works of Shakespeare?"
Uh, no.
"Is it conjectured that another individual also wrote some of the plays by 'Adam Rapp'?"
That'd also be a 'no'. #notalaxaltfanandonbeyondthat

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Oh, I get it. 'No pics and it did or didn't happen.'"
Sometimes there are author's photographs?
"That's not how that expression works, dude."
I hate this era.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Wider World:
"Man, those photographs could be of anybody."
They're of the person in front of the lens, dude.
"You can't play it like that, guy."
Still, it is like that though, right?
"Sure, just trivially, sure."
Uh, yeah. #cloudcuckooland

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Wider World:
"Yeah, and you know what? It is attested that James McPherson, whom you have claimed to be you, is opposed to Trump's re-election on grounds of insurrection..."
Well, that's not my attitude.
"Well, that's that."
I believe the claim is 'it is attested'? #doyoubelieveeverythingyouaretolddept

[Jeffrey Rubard]

Wider World:
"So maybe you're lying?"
My saying something doesn't make it *not so*.
"That makes enough sense, sort of."

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"So maybe you did or didn't write book-length manuscripts. Do you see where I, the interlocutor, can't go legally here?"
I've had this problem for a couple of decades, yes, I see this.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"Right. It's easily believed that you're the author of books in a style 'known as yours' and with an author's photograph that closely resembles your face. It's just *not a thing you can bother a stranger about*, on account of the legal dynamics of IP claims."
Sure. Sure, it's like that. (It's like I wrote those volumes, too.)

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"What do you mean 'it's like I wrote them'?"
Maybe do some 'as if' reasoning sometimes, instead of 'psych-out' reasoning.

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"How's that? I think I see this."
If in fact I did write volumes using *noms des plumes*, wouldn't it also in an important sense seem 'as if' I did so write them?

[Jeffrey Rubard]

"I get this. You wouldn't, strictly, have to make an 'existential' claim about a fact to reason rationally about it. What if it was 'as if' it were true? I see this."