Saturday Again
Saturday Again
I like Poets & Writers and pick up most issues. Often it seems to have a crusade going on and usually, as in the ever present discussion of the merits of MFA programs manages to stay editorially independent.
James Frey is the recurrent topic in the May/June issue and the subject of an article by Aaron Hamburger – Why Truth Matters in Memoirs. I find Hamburger to be one of those irritating writers that is hell bent on demonstrating their intellectual superiority. For example: “As every viewer of the classic Japanese film Rashomon knows all too well…”, now how many readers of this magazine is that likely to be Aaron? Or: “Wasn’t it Samuel Beckett who proved there’s no such thing as truth?”
So, I start off disliking the man and his article. An article in the same issue profiling Wole Soyinka quotes from a 1998 interview that Soyinka gave where he said of his dislike of autobiographies: “ they are mostly lies”. I think any reader of political memoirs would be likely to agree with that, they are almost without exception heavily spun and entirely self-serving. But back to Frey, he exaggerated some aspects of his life and invented others and called it memoir. To what extent are we damaged by that? Has he defrauded us? The FBI doesn’t seem to be taking an interest in the case. Has he attempted to alter important historical facts? Not at all, he was a nobody and we, the public, had never heard of him in any other way. He made up a criminal career, which is not quite like inventing acts of heroism in Vietnam, Iraq or any other war zone.
Hamburger brings up a fabricated memoir of the Holocaust and in this case I agree with him. The issue is too important to be trivialized through a fictionalized account and such a book can only serve those attempting to deny the Holocaust. That, finally, for me is the real argument. Frey’s deception does us no damage but by accepting it, we create a shifting line where one has not existed before. What is the point at which it matters that a memoir has been invented, at least in part? I don’t know and for that reason agree with Hamburger that it should be clear to the reader what is fiction and what is not.
This issue of Poets & Writers has come too late for the Kaavya Viswathanathan plagiarism controversy, but I look forward to the commentary in due course. The background is extraordinary; a 17 year old girl who had never written a book was awarded a $500,000 advance for a book concept is assisted by a ‘book packager’ that, apparently, received joint award of the copyright and half of the advance. This book packager assisted in the conceptualization of the novel. I wonder what that means?
Oh well, back to some yard work. Several young trees did not survive the winter. despite its mildness, so off I go to haul them out. I listened briefly to Car Talk on NPR this morning where, bravely, they were discussion butt sweat. I’ll know all about butt sweat in an hour or so!
I like Poets & Writers and pick up most issues. Often it seems to have a crusade going on and usually, as in the ever present discussion of the merits of MFA programs manages to stay editorially independent.
James Frey is the recurrent topic in the May/June issue and the subject of an article by Aaron Hamburger – Why Truth Matters in Memoirs. I find Hamburger to be one of those irritating writers that is hell bent on demonstrating their intellectual superiority. For example: “As every viewer of the classic Japanese film Rashomon knows all too well…”, now how many readers of this magazine is that likely to be Aaron? Or: “Wasn’t it Samuel Beckett who proved there’s no such thing as truth?”
So, I start off disliking the man and his article. An article in the same issue profiling Wole Soyinka quotes from a 1998 interview that Soyinka gave where he said of his dislike of autobiographies: “ they are mostly lies”. I think any reader of political memoirs would be likely to agree with that, they are almost without exception heavily spun and entirely self-serving. But back to Frey, he exaggerated some aspects of his life and invented others and called it memoir. To what extent are we damaged by that? Has he defrauded us? The FBI doesn’t seem to be taking an interest in the case. Has he attempted to alter important historical facts? Not at all, he was a nobody and we, the public, had never heard of him in any other way. He made up a criminal career, which is not quite like inventing acts of heroism in Vietnam, Iraq or any other war zone.
Hamburger brings up a fabricated memoir of the Holocaust and in this case I agree with him. The issue is too important to be trivialized through a fictionalized account and such a book can only serve those attempting to deny the Holocaust. That, finally, for me is the real argument. Frey’s deception does us no damage but by accepting it, we create a shifting line where one has not existed before. What is the point at which it matters that a memoir has been invented, at least in part? I don’t know and for that reason agree with Hamburger that it should be clear to the reader what is fiction and what is not.
This issue of Poets & Writers has come too late for the Kaavya Viswathanathan plagiarism controversy, but I look forward to the commentary in due course. The background is extraordinary; a 17 year old girl who had never written a book was awarded a $500,000 advance for a book concept is assisted by a ‘book packager’ that, apparently, received joint award of the copyright and half of the advance. This book packager assisted in the conceptualization of the novel. I wonder what that means?
Oh well, back to some yard work. Several young trees did not survive the winter. despite its mildness, so off I go to haul them out. I listened briefly to Car Talk on NPR this morning where, bravely, they were discussion butt sweat. I’ll know all about butt sweat in an hour or so!
posted by Paul | Saturday, April 29, 2006
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