Head's up folks, this article has nothing to do with sports or hip hop and it's not even a rant on people who aren't good at what they do.
Instead, it's a confession. A confession, because I don't get it.
I don't understand this being a controversy that everyone feels like they deserve an explanation.
Since becoming the talk of the literary world after being on Oprah and being lauded by the iconic host for penning a book that was "like nothing you've ever read before," James Frey has been stripped down publicly and taken out to the woodshed over the fact his best-selling novel contained some embellishments.
This is where you lose me.
It's only fair that I acknowledge I haven't read the book, but I'm aware of its plot and I'm aware of the ensuing controversy. And while I don't exactly side with the idea of a novellist penning a piece of work and passing it off as non-fiction when it isn't, I also don't accept those that have lashed back at him, most notably Oprah bringing him on TV and pretentiously lecturing like he was a grade-school troublemaker who flushed the class goldfish down the toilet and then blamed it on the immigrant student no one ever talked to.
Oprah herself said she felt "duped" and her audience certainly backed her up. Frey appearing on that stage was about as comfortable a situation for him as Strom Thurmond joining in a family cookout at Tavis Smiley's place.
So there Oprah scolded and admonished him and the audience, on cue, gasped and tisked and Frey squirmed uncomfortably undoubtedly counting the minutes until the whole thing was over.
Oprah is the frontman for this whole storyline and her celebrity, as well as her self-righteous crusade to inform the world about Frey's evil-doings, have kept the story in the public view.
Still, we're talking about a form of entertainment here. People read their books for various reasons and undoubtedly the point of Frey's was to tell a gripping and often haunting tale of one man's burdensome struggles and impending self-revelations. That people were inspired, emotionally invested and brought to tears by his words is the point that too many people are forgetting. The truth, and there is still some here, is that his book, no matter how much is deadly accurate to the actual events, did what it was written to do and the readers got something out of it.
(Don't forget the story isn't totally fictionalized, there is a much greater percentage of truth than lie.)
To be a little more colloquial here, some of this whole fuss reminds me of the Seinfeld episode The Chinese Woman where a blonde woman, through various plot twists, is mistaken over the phone as being Chinese because her last name is Chang. Not having seen Donna, George's mom Estelle takes marital advice from her that she finds particularly poignant. Later in the show, when she finds out Donna is from Long Island, Estelle loses it, renounces the advice and all decisions that came from it because: "I thought I was talking to a Chinese woman!!"
The advice itself doesn't change, does it, just because the source was different.
Well the power and emotion of this story still remains despite the fact some experiences aren't exactly as told. If someone made a promise to clean their life up because of what they read, then the book has achieved some of what it sets out to do. If someone was inspired to help a loved one, if someone was moved enough to make a change in another person's life — and surely there are many who did — then you cannot argue the validity when the bigger picture is the effect. You can't take that away from the author, nor the person who was touched by the words.
It's sad that so much of the world feels like they're owed something now. When in fact those who read Frey's work, I'd wager, already got infinitely more out of the book than the small amount of money they paid for it.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
A Million Little Fleeces
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4 comments:
I would submit that the message does change with such gross fabrications. The point of his "true story" of pulling himself out of the depths of drug and alcohol fuelled despair was to suggest that if he could do it, anyone could and all you had to do was believe (and buy his book, no doubt). But the message loses all credibility because now we find out that his climb out of the gutter was not nearly as arduous as it was made out to be. He was never the hardened criminal that he led us to believe he was, but rather a petty two-bit troublemaker. Hardly the portrait of someone who had to do some serious soul-searching to make his life better. No one is questioning that his life was messed up, but the point is that his life was not nearly more messed up than are the rest of ours and the reason why the book was so acclaimed and revered was that we thought we had an honest-to-goodness case of someone halfway down that slippery slope who managed to grab on to the last twig, hang on for dear life, and painstakingly make his way back to the edge. With an example like that, how could we possibly not believe that our lives could not be turned around? Finding out that he is, in fact, a fraud doesn't, actually, excuse him. It doesn't mean we should shrug our shoulders and say 'Oh well, the message is the same', because the message is not the same. If his book was originally labelled a work of fiction, it would have been lopped into obscurity with the majority of other literary works out there. The fact that it was deemed non-fiction (ie: a true story) gives it a resonance all its own. We're led to believe that this stuff actually happened. And when his "advice" is seen to work for him, we're led to believe that this could work for us. But his advice did not work for him because he lied. About almost everything. And so why follow the advice of a liar? That's why people are so upset and why Oprah is right to say that she felt "duped". She was, as was everyone who read the book and decided to make it the pivotal turning point of their lives. It's like saying someone will not enter politics because they've read 'All the King's Men'. A very powerful description of power gone awry and how it can not be stopped. But that is a work of fiction and it has to be seen as such. If it was a work by a former Chief of Staff then it has a different and more powerful affect on the readership because the author is telling us to believe that all this is real and to make our conclusions based on this starting point.
You're right in suggesting that the message of the book can touch people in powerful ways and that this is deemed as good. The problem is that there is a very real difference between knowing that the message is told through an imaginary trip or through a bona-fide true story. There is a difference in how it is viewed. And that's why people should be rightly upset with the author and his admissions that most everything was fabricated(including, apparently, his witness of a suicide. He lied about not only witnessing it, but admitted that no one did, in fact, die.). The credibility of the author becomes zero and I would suggest he has actually done more to hurt his message than help it. His message, I am inclined to believe, was told with nothing but good intentions at the outset. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And with his desire to tell a better story, has now led people to forget his message and worse, to denigrate it to the trash heap as the smooth talk of a snake oil salesman. And let's not forget, it's not as if he wrote the book and stayed silent. He lived this lie. He perpetuated his myths. And if due diligence had not been carried out, he would still be the darling of the self-help set and writing other works of "non-fiction". The fact that he has another book out is laughable. We're supposed to get our advice from someone like this? What kind of role model is that? The kind who follow the mantra 'give the people what they want to hear, whether it's true or not doesn't matter because they're so gullible that by the time they've figured it out (or forgotten about it until the next author tells us essentially the same thing in a different package) we're set for life on Easy Street'. No thank you.
As an aside, full disclosure: I have not read the book either but have read enough about it to piece together some of the major points. Let's be honest: it's not as if the book is suggesting any radical formula for success. It tries to lay out that life is to be taken one day at a time and by taking baby steps and celebrating small victories, you too can become whole again. How many times have we heard that message?
Shoulda known something like this would have come from Ottawa :)
Your points are well-taken but, without getting into any drawn-out blabbering in retort, I still stand by the work itself stands and the thought that people feel they are "owed" by him is preposterous.
I think there's some middle ground in between yours and my opinion. I don't honestly believe we're dealing with a "two-bit ... snake oil salesman" and nor do I believe Frey is an entirely altruistic wordsmith. Fact remains, in my opinion, if you were moved and inspired by this story -- that's your payback for buying the book. And I don't believe, too, that Frey is out there as a self-help guru, just a man who was telling a story.
He wanted to write a book to help people. Fine. If you're going to make some major embellishments, however, tell us about it at the outset. Don't try to make the story any more than it is by telling us it is 100% true and then backing that up by speaking about it in the same way. That, I think, is the whole issue behind this. A "True Story" makes us react differently than a general work of "non-fiction". The fact that we believed it was a true account of one man's descent into a living hell and his attempt to climb back to a sense of normalcy has a more profound affect than if it was a novel. A novelist, by definition, is lying. They make the story up. In this case, he lied and suggested it was not a made up story when clearly most of it was. My point is that people would not have been as moved nor as enamoured of its subject - a living, breathing beacon of what is possible in life - if he would have been honest at the beginning by telling us that it was, essentially, an "exaggerated" truth. You could look at the previous Government's sponsorship scandal in the same light. Former PM Chrétien, long ago, brushed aside suggestions of mismanagement of funds by saying if a million dollars had gone missing, isn't that a small price to pay for keeping the country together? He's right, in the sense that you can't put a price on national unity. The point he missed is that there are ethical (and bureaucratic) rules to follow no matter what is at stake. This is the same principle. Does the author owe us something? Absolutely he does: his honesty; his integrity. No matter how good your message may be, don't leave out such important details such as the validity of the facts. These facts lend significant credence to your story and if you're caught cheating us then your message, rightly, should be called into question. How good could your message possibly be if you can't come clean about it yourself?
See, this is where I think we're being WAY too over the top on this topic. In fact, MOST of what is in the book IS entirely true. For instance, a woman didn't hang herself, she slit her wrists. That doesn't change the foundation of the story.
Furthermore, I don't think he went into this novel wanting to write a book to help people. I don't necessarily believe that was the goal at the outset.
I still think there is an over-reaction to the extent of the falsifications. If the guy never had a drug addiction and lived like a king, then we've got issues. But if he was addicted to meth instead of blow, then don't bother me with complaints of how big a liar he is.
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