Fucking nuts
That is what James Frey drives me. Don't get me wrong. I love to lie. I love to tell bullshit, embellished stories. But, I also know how to pull the fuck back and go "That didn't really happen, but how funny would that have been?"
This dipshit asshole is #1 on the NYT non-fiction list. That's like giving a chemist the Nobel Peace Prize; the idea is so-so, the classification is absurd.
And when did fiction become such a pariah? My grandmother always hated fiction; I assumed it was, because she was old. And as my friends get older, I see this much is true: Old people hate fiction. But those readers still want the mechanics of a good story that non-fiction will "traditionally" not possess. And, they want it to be true. Why? I don't have a clue. Maybe you do. I don't know that much about non-fiction, mainly because "This really happened!" rides so high in the mix, no one cares about the writing, even the author.
But, seriously, why do we have this obsession with veracity? And how and when did we aquire it? I think of American literature as the gleeful passing along of tall tales, those genius, stopless yarns Mark Twain made such fun of.
People frequently talk about not making babies, because the world is too fucked up. I don't share this approach to bringing life into the world.
I am beginning to find a corollary though in writing. I don't want to bring my thoughts into this world. It's not you. It's them.
Society should be charged with fraud.
This dipshit asshole is #1 on the NYT non-fiction list. That's like giving a chemist the Nobel Peace Prize; the idea is so-so, the classification is absurd.
And when did fiction become such a pariah? My grandmother always hated fiction; I assumed it was, because she was old. And as my friends get older, I see this much is true: Old people hate fiction. But those readers still want the mechanics of a good story that non-fiction will "traditionally" not possess. And, they want it to be true. Why? I don't have a clue. Maybe you do. I don't know that much about non-fiction, mainly because "This really happened!" rides so high in the mix, no one cares about the writing, even the author.
But, seriously, why do we have this obsession with veracity? And how and when did we aquire it? I think of American literature as the gleeful passing along of tall tales, those genius, stopless yarns Mark Twain made such fun of.
People frequently talk about not making babies, because the world is too fucked up. I don't share this approach to bringing life into the world.
I am beginning to find a corollary though in writing. I don't want to bring my thoughts into this world. It's not you. It's them.
Society should be charged with fraud.
posted by J Wilson at Tuesday, January 10, 2006
10 Comments:
The difference between fiction and nonfiction is complete blatherskite.
A girl tried to give me her copy of A Million Little Pieces after we'd shared a plane ride from Chicago to New York. Before I left on that trip, I'd noted that I never see any hot girls on a plane. I see hot girls in the airport all the time, but something happens when I walk down the jetway. Or maybe it happens to them. The hot ones evaporate, or the dessicated air of the plane and the stress of takeoff makes them ugly. This all, of course is tied to everyone's fantasy of meeting an attractive stranger on a plane and then boning them in the restroom.
So I sat next to this woman and while she wasn't hot, she wasn't ugly either. She worked in theater management and had interesting things to say about interesting things.
I thought about this while she was doing coke off my cock in the bathroom later. It was a deep moment, looking down at the top of her homely head and wondering afterall if I ever would share a plane ride with a hot girl.
This is good enough, I said to myself.
No one talks or writes about books anymore. They write about the authors. We look to authors as inspirational figures. Frank McCourt, David Sedaris, JT Leroy, Dave Eggers, James Frey and even JK Rowling are all positioned as plucky Horatio Alger characters who pulled themselves up from their particular debasement by dint of their honesty and insight and to a certain extent--imagination.
We've all heard the stories about JK Rowling the single mother scratching out the first Harry Potter books on a notepad while she pushed the pram around the block until her kid slept. I am willing to bet that this story is an exageration. Maybe she did it once or twice. Maybe she was never on the dole. Maybe she is solidly middle class. But that's not a good story to tell.
Nor would any of us be interested in the redemption story of a garden variety college binge drinker (some girl from Syracuse published just such a work last year and it bombed). We certainly wouldn't read Frank McCourt's story if he'd been born to the wealthy Protestants he's always jealously speaking of in his books.
Folks in the book business are all aware of this. So are the writers. James Frey certainly was. And here's the choice that was presented to him when the publisher said "We want to go with this as a memoir": He could
A). Say, no it's straight-up fiction, and then go back to some lame day job for sure.
or
B) He could go along with it, and stand a chance to make a gaggillion dollars and meet Oprah Winfrey. His book slandered no other person, so there will be now lawsuit.
What would you choose?
No one talks or writes about books anymore. They write about the authors. We look to authors as inspirational figures. Frank McCourt, David Sedaris, JT Leroy, Dave Eggers, James Frey and even JK Rowling are all positioned as plucky Horatio Alger characters who pulled themselves up from their particular debasement by dint of their honesty and insight and to a certain extent--imagination.
We've all heard the stories about JK Rowling the single mother scratching out the first Harry Potter books on a notepad while she pushed the pram around the block until her kid slept. I am willing to bet that this story is an exageration. Maybe she did it once or twice. Maybe she was never on the dole. Maybe she is solidly middle class. But that's not a good story to tell.
Nor would any of us be interested in the redemption story of a garden variety college binge drinker (some girl from Syracuse published just such a work last year and it bombed). We certainly wouldn't read Frank McCourt's story if he'd been born to the wealthy Protestants he's always jealously speaking of in his books.
Folks in the book business are all aware of this. So are the writers. James Frey certainly was. And here's the choice that was presented to him when the publisher said "We want to go with this as a memoir": He could
A). Say, no it's straight-up fiction, and then go back to some lame day job for sure.
or
B) He could go along with it, and stand a chance to make a gaggillion dollars and meet Oprah Winfrey. His book slandered no other person, so there will be no lawsuit.
What would you choose?
thanks for the infomation
Class action lawsuit. Moooo.
"People frequently talk about not making babies, because the world is too fucked up. I don't share this approach to bringing life into the world"
this, my friend, is good news for me and dabney....
you gonna be in Big D this weekend?
WHERE THE F ARE YOU???
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