Anissa (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
anissaannalise) wrote2006-01-11 07:15 am
anissaannalise) wrote2006-01-11 07:15 am
Entry tags:
So... Like Non-Fiction... But Not
That would be the sound of a bitch slap you hear and it's being issued by thesmokinggun.com on James Frey (author of the much-pimped-by-Oprah book A Million Little Pieces) the investigative website outed Frey on various integral "facts" being in fact, fictitious in his best-selling memoir.
The author has denied an egregious level of embellishment in his work. He has admitted to taking a sort of dramatic license if you will, for his non-fiction work. Which makes it what exactly? Non-fictionesque? Non-fiction with a lean toward fiction? Half non-fic with a double shot of fic? WTF?!
How is this any different from Vanilla Ice working the hard edge, from the streets angle back in the day? Frey embellished his criminal record and his involvement in a tragic accident cited in the book. The mother of one of the victims of the accident makes his actual proximity to the event quaternary at best, nothing close to his alleged central role. So was he going for street cred? Props?
I don't know and truthfully, can't care. I am suspicious of any book Oprah's Book Club is proffering at any given moment anyway. Also, I am not the biggest fan of the "everyman memoir": My life was hard, but I pulled myself up and beat that bitch down & that makes me a hero. Let me be your hero! I am here to inspire!
The saddest thing may actually be that his real life wasn't interesting enough to be published, let alone become a best-seller. Which may say more about society in general than Frey. No one wants to hear about a life that's just kind of bad. It has to be extreme. It's the only way to make the public interested. It gives the opportunity to sit back and feel better about oneself. If the proximity is too close, it only serves to alienate and then... no best-seller. People love the idea that someone else has divulged all their basest secrets and it's simply intoxicating that they didn't have to share their own in return. The ability to join in the orgiastic frenzy of gossip is a payoff all it's own. It's all just so sordid.
So, let me pass out the WTF?! awards for this one:
To Mr. Frey: Because a fundamental responsibility of being a writer is to know the difference between fiction and non-fiction.
To the public that made it a best-seller: You'd do well to ask yourselves if you were really looking to be inspired by a story of redemption ot you just wanted to have a peek at what may have been a human being's lowest point. I think the amount of current reality programming answers this one.
One final note, Mr. Frey's next book to be released is a novel. Which if the past is any indicator, will be fiction... but not.
The author has denied an egregious level of embellishment in his work. He has admitted to taking a sort of dramatic license if you will, for his non-fiction work. Which makes it what exactly? Non-fictionesque? Non-fiction with a lean toward fiction? Half non-fic with a double shot of fic? WTF?!
How is this any different from Vanilla Ice working the hard edge, from the streets angle back in the day? Frey embellished his criminal record and his involvement in a tragic accident cited in the book. The mother of one of the victims of the accident makes his actual proximity to the event quaternary at best, nothing close to his alleged central role. So was he going for street cred? Props?
I don't know and truthfully, can't care. I am suspicious of any book Oprah's Book Club is proffering at any given moment anyway. Also, I am not the biggest fan of the "everyman memoir": My life was hard, but I pulled myself up and beat that bitch down & that makes me a hero. Let me be your hero! I am here to inspire!
The saddest thing may actually be that his real life wasn't interesting enough to be published, let alone become a best-seller. Which may say more about society in general than Frey. No one wants to hear about a life that's just kind of bad. It has to be extreme. It's the only way to make the public interested. It gives the opportunity to sit back and feel better about oneself. If the proximity is too close, it only serves to alienate and then... no best-seller. People love the idea that someone else has divulged all their basest secrets and it's simply intoxicating that they didn't have to share their own in return. The ability to join in the orgiastic frenzy of gossip is a payoff all it's own. It's all just so sordid.
So, let me pass out the WTF?! awards for this one:
To Mr. Frey: Because a fundamental responsibility of being a writer is to know the difference between fiction and non-fiction.
To the public that made it a best-seller: You'd do well to ask yourselves if you were really looking to be inspired by a story of redemption ot you just wanted to have a peek at what may have been a human being's lowest point. I think the amount of current reality programming answers this one.
One final note, Mr. Frey's next book to be released is a novel. Which if the past is any indicator, will be fiction... but not.
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I'll admit, I want to read the book. Not because I'm interested in Mr. Frey and his trials and tribulations, but rather becuase I think the topic of a drug-induced trainwreck is pretty delicious - just because it's so far off from what I've experience in my life.
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And don't forget... the drug-induced trainwreck is quite far off from what he's experienced. He's got something like... four degrees of seperation, minimally. And since we're all seperated by six, he's way far from being persona sui generis.
;)
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Also, I would not pay money for this book. I will rent it from the library at some point when it's not so trendy. I'll take it as it is ... a work of fiction.
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And here's to hoping they categorize it correctly at the library! LOL! I think I'm going to go by my local at some point and check.
;)
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Back in the early 70s I edited a religious magazine and got tons of books to review for it. The major theme was destitution and redemption. As I read the books and studied the market, what I discovered was a huge desire on the part of the readers of this type of book to have a "vicarious experience" of the dregs of life. People actually would get off on the stories of other people's depraved lives, as long as somewhere near the end there was a moment of redemption. I read volumes of what was really no more than "Christian Porn" in which three-quarters of the book (or more) described in lascivious detail the life of the sinner followed by a moment of salvation at the end that would let the reader gasp and participate in the redemptive moment. In reality they were just a jerk-off read that made you feel good about doing it.
I have no interest in reading Mr. Frey's book. I find most inspirational "pseudo-biography" to be pretty disgusting. The classic literature of our time and of times past has revolved around keeping the reader out of the cesspool, not dipping them into it and hoping they don't smell like shit afterward. But the line is often indistinct. Everybody loves a book that transports them into a different life. And when you do that, you pretty much have to offer a redemptive moment so the reader can let go and feel good about having lived there. Maybe that's the "Catch 22" of writing contemporary literature.
This was a great post Anissa. Certainly rant-inspiring. :-(
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;)