[link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=150302|Post #150302]
Although Truman Capote attempted to get the notion of the "nonfiction novel" accepted a generation ago, it never really caught on, and so for the inspector to put it the way he did would be akin to...oh, I don't know, perhaps to asking McEwan whether his laptop computer used integrated circuits or vacuum tubes. Particularly in view of my long professional association with this crew, it struck me as delightfully droll and all too characteristic of a certain subset of the class.

[link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=150418|Post #150418]
The boxter had no difficulty in identifying the intent of my original post and followups:
stated clearly that he knows the custom types upclose and personal and got a giggle over the Sgt Friday types dealing with an artist.
I don't fault the inspectors, or any average citizen, for not knowing McEwan from McKuen\ufffdfor my own part I know the former largely from book reviews, having read just one of his novels\ufffdwhereas I do find their apparent lack of awareness that "novel" is a more specific term than "book" richly comic, and thought to share it with my droogies here.

It's hard not to read into that the inference that denying entry was somehow related to not knowing that novels are fiction. That makes him one of the "hard core of ignorant, officious, narrow sensibilities who revel in the inflexible exercise of the powers their offices bestow upon them -- the worst sort of small-town cop mindset".

But it turns out entry was denied because the inspector/agent believed that the honoraria qualified as salary, and McEwan should have had a work visa. And that is an issue I belive lawyers (and certain HR drones) would love to debate.