Tom Stoppard: A Believer?

When something in literature is convincing, I often, unhelpfully, assume it’s autobiographical. This doesn’t speak well for my imagination or my faith in the imaginations of others. But reading Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing (1982), I never thought Henry, though a playwright, might be a version of Stoppard–never until the play’s final moment, when the action onstage gives way to the Monkees’ hit “I’m a Believer.”

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