The British Museum displays original artefacts, contradicting the false claim made by an individual met in a pub. This misconception triggered a fascination with fakes and their emotional impact. An experience with a replica prompts questions about authenticity and the nature of emotional connections to the past. This inquiry inspired the creation of a novel called The Original, which explores themes of deception in art, stories, and people, reflecting a world that often feels increasingly insincere.
The artefacts in the British Museum are original, unless otherwise explicitly stated. It was the man who claimed to work there who was a fake.
If that Greek water jar had been a fake, I could never have known just by looking with an inexpert but appreciative eye. Would it devalue my overwhelming sense of connection to the past?
This is one of the questions that led me to write my new novel, The Original, about fakes and the people who fall for them.
I wanted to think, in the story, about the experience of being duped, because we live in a world that feels, at times, increasingly fake.
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