Stealing Stolen Property
So my opinion piece is in the Spec today. Columbia people can read it there, or here. Non-Columbia people could do both as well, but I'd suggest just clicking the link.
Acutally, I'll just put it here and make it easy.
Stealing Stolen Property
By Sam Roberts
January 24, 2006
So it turns out James Frey made up some parts of his book “A Million Little Pieces”. This is apparently a big problem. Not only was it last year’s best-selling book that wasn’t about wizards, it was also Oprah’s Book Club selection. Most importantly, it’s a memoir.
The thing about memoirs is that they’re supposed to be true, but they also represent a personal and inherently biased account of part of the author’s life. As opposed to an autobiography, which strives for an objective retelling of events, the memoir aims to present the author’s musings and a tell a good story. Prior to The Smoking Gun’s debunking, everyone really liked “A Million Little Pieces;” they found the plot compelling and the style refreshingly raw. In short, it told a good story. Presumably, that’s the reason it enjoyed so much success. Or not. The book hasn’t changed at all, yet people are suddenly up in arms because some portion of it turned out to be false.
The film industry never had this problem. I mean, every time they make a movie based on a true story, they beef up the drama, conveniently downplay any controversial aspects of the protagonist’s personality, and make everything fit into a neat story arc. Remember Russell Crowe’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech at the end of “A Beautiful Mind?” Nobel Prize winners don’t actually make acceptance speeches. John Nash wasn’t even allowed to make the customary lecture that they do make because of his mental illness! The film is full of historical inaccuracies. It also won best picture.
The problem with books is that they’re so much more direct than movies. With a movie, there’s the screenwriter, the director, the actors, and all sorts of other people creating the story. A book, on the other hand, comes straight from the author to us, so the author’s “lies” feel more personal than the movie makers’ do. Thus, the double standard. However, this does nothing to explain why we prefer the truth. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a movie or a book, most people will choose a true story over fiction every time.
The obsession with the true story is pretty new. A lot of fancy philosophical types would argue that it stems from the tremendous amount of information we have available coupled with a growing detachment from that same information. It’s possible, I guess. More likely, we are drawn to the true story because it reminds us that we too can be part of great things. We connect with the authors, but really we steal from them. We steal a bit of Frey’s drug addict and Criminal (always with a capital “c”) credit when we read “A Million Little Pieces”. It makes us feel better about ourselves. Too bad it turned out we were stealing stolen property.
We would be a lot better off if we all remembered that a book should be a good story, and a good story is good regardless of whether it’s true or not. A book’s quality rests on the authenticity of its ideas not its facts. I hate to agree with Oprah, but in this case she’s right.
Speaking of Oprah, she just announced that her book club’s next selection will be Elie Wiesel’s “Night”. Presumably, this will allow her to avoid the sort of controversy “A Million Little Pieces” caused. After all, nobody could possibly argue that the Holocaust didn’t happen.
Acutally, I'll just put it here and make it easy.
Stealing Stolen Property
By Sam Roberts
January 24, 2006
So it turns out James Frey made up some parts of his book “A Million Little Pieces”. This is apparently a big problem. Not only was it last year’s best-selling book that wasn’t about wizards, it was also Oprah’s Book Club selection. Most importantly, it’s a memoir.
The thing about memoirs is that they’re supposed to be true, but they also represent a personal and inherently biased account of part of the author’s life. As opposed to an autobiography, which strives for an objective retelling of events, the memoir aims to present the author’s musings and a tell a good story. Prior to The Smoking Gun’s debunking, everyone really liked “A Million Little Pieces;” they found the plot compelling and the style refreshingly raw. In short, it told a good story. Presumably, that’s the reason it enjoyed so much success. Or not. The book hasn’t changed at all, yet people are suddenly up in arms because some portion of it turned out to be false.
The film industry never had this problem. I mean, every time they make a movie based on a true story, they beef up the drama, conveniently downplay any controversial aspects of the protagonist’s personality, and make everything fit into a neat story arc. Remember Russell Crowe’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech at the end of “A Beautiful Mind?” Nobel Prize winners don’t actually make acceptance speeches. John Nash wasn’t even allowed to make the customary lecture that they do make because of his mental illness! The film is full of historical inaccuracies. It also won best picture.
The problem with books is that they’re so much more direct than movies. With a movie, there’s the screenwriter, the director, the actors, and all sorts of other people creating the story. A book, on the other hand, comes straight from the author to us, so the author’s “lies” feel more personal than the movie makers’ do. Thus, the double standard. However, this does nothing to explain why we prefer the truth. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a movie or a book, most people will choose a true story over fiction every time.
The obsession with the true story is pretty new. A lot of fancy philosophical types would argue that it stems from the tremendous amount of information we have available coupled with a growing detachment from that same information. It’s possible, I guess. More likely, we are drawn to the true story because it reminds us that we too can be part of great things. We connect with the authors, but really we steal from them. We steal a bit of Frey’s drug addict and Criminal (always with a capital “c”) credit when we read “A Million Little Pieces”. It makes us feel better about ourselves. Too bad it turned out we were stealing stolen property.
We would be a lot better off if we all remembered that a book should be a good story, and a good story is good regardless of whether it’s true or not. A book’s quality rests on the authenticity of its ideas not its facts. I hate to agree with Oprah, but in this case she’s right.
Speaking of Oprah, she just announced that her book club’s next selection will be Elie Wiesel’s “Night”. Presumably, this will allow her to avoid the sort of controversy “A Million Little Pieces” caused. After all, nobody could possibly argue that the Holocaust didn’t happen.