01.31.06
Oprah Winfrey sold James Frey down the river. The self-important Mistress of the Midday called out the author of the abuse-and-recovery chronicle a Million Little Pieces -- a book which she recently named to her sanctimonious book club, thus ensuring that every at-home soccer-mom across America would read it -- to ask him if he "lied" in his book. Which seems like a pretty ridiculous question to ask, since he's an author; all authors lie, because it's what they're paid to do.
Every novel ever written was an absurd lie, because the events in a novel never happened explicitly in the order they were presented, if for no more reason than the name of the person they happened to in the novel is fictitious. The only diffrence seems to be that an author who freely admits that they're writing fiction -- Stephen King or J. K. Rowling, for instance -- is letting the reader in on the joke as well; fiction authors let their readers participate in the lie by asking them to make the conscious decision to pretend that the events they're reading -- events that they know to be false -- are actually real.
The real problem in this case seems to be that James Frey didn't let his readers in on the joke. In fact, that actually seems to be Oprah's complaint; she told America on Thursday that she felt "really duped." Her problem, then, is not with the content of the book specifically, but that she was allowed to believe that the content of the book was an accurate reflection of real physical history when some of it was not. The problem, then, is not one of content, or even of authorial intent, but of reader expectation.
The flaw here is that James Frey actually gives his readers ample indication that the content of a Million Little Pieces is not to be taken at face value. He writes in the present tense -- "I wake to the drone of an airplane engine," rather than the far more orthodox past tense -- without quotation marks to demarcate dialogue, indentations to delineate paragraphs, or standard punctuation to create conventional sentence structure. The reader is thus made immediately aware that this memoir is not a journalistic reflection of historical events by its very own literary structure.
Frey did not, after all, "wake to the drone of an airplane engine" at the exact moment that the reader read the line, despite the fact that the use of present tense implies exactly that. Clearly, then, the actions of the story cannot be unfolding when the story claims that they did, because the story is claiming that they are unfolding immediately as the reader reads the words. Frey's very conscious and conspicuous use of such markedly atypical techniques thus imply to any reader with even a rudimentary knowledge of literary history that a Million Little Pieces will not follow the standard memoir pattern. One can only thus assume that such complex literary metaphors are lost on Oprah Winfrey and her legion of devotees.
Oprah's complaint, apparently, stems from the fact that a Million Little Pieces was marketed as a memoir, which is described as "a narrative composed from personal experience." James Frey is not a journalist, nor does his book attempt to present itself as an historical document; the fact remains that he first shopped the book to publishers as a novel. It is, quite literally, "a narrative composed from personal experience." Personal experience, by its very nature, is subjective to the person encountering the experience. Personal experience is thus not composed simply of the real physical history of an event, but of the emotions associated with that event, the memories of that event, and the emotions associated with the memories of that event.
The phenomenon of personal experience is far more richly textured than simple historical reporting would allow; in the realm of personal experience, emotion, memory and interpretation are as equally real and important as physically historical events. It is not merely the physically tangible events of our past that makes up the individual personality, but the individual reaction to those events, the emotions that become associated with those events, and our on-going memories of those events as having happened in some previous period called "the past."
In fact, it is this distinct ability to differentiated between events as they happen and memories of events that have happened that gives humans the ability to perceive time in the first place. The notions of "past," "present" and "future" are purely theoretical constructs fabricated within the human consciousness as a means to separate what has happened from what is happening and what will or might happen.
In turn, it is our ability to classify mental images of events that have already happened as memories that ultimately gives rise to our sense of a "past;" the ability to then separate memories from mental images of events that are happening -- the "present" -- or from mental images of events that we know will happen -- the "future" -- or from mental images of events that we would like to happen -- the "imagination" -- is what creates the temporal continuum that human beings think of a "time."
But I digress. James Frey undoubtedly did not mean to address such far-reaching philosophical concepts as the human constructs of time and perception. He almost certainly just wanted to make his narrative more interesting, dynamic and engaging. But whether his reasons for fabricating plot points were deeply philosophical and psychological or simply narrative and superficial, the real question in all of this is why he should be condemned for doing it at all. Why does it matter if the events depicted in the book actually occurred as presented to an actual person or not?
But let us frame the issue in reverse; would anyone get offended if I wrote my own autobiography with all of the journalistic integrity and historical accuracy at my disposal, only to publish and market the book as a novel? The lie there is exactly the same as the one of which James Frey is accused -- namely, that the book is being misrepresented as something it categorically wasn't (in my case, fiction when it was not fictional at all). In turn, can any novel that includes episodes drawn from the author's own personal experience be considered entirely fictional? More importantly, would anyone actually care if a journalistic account of someone's life were presented as being a fictional story? If not, why does anyone care that exact same lie is taking place in reverse?
It is perfectly within the rights of a writer to experiment with forms of writing, and more specifically with the notion of "genre." It is also within the functions of the writer to question the notion of what we largely consider "truth" to be; in turn, it is within the rights of the writer to explore the often blurred line that attempts to separate that nebulous notion of "truth" from the equally nebulous notion of "fiction." Similarly, it is perfectly within my creative rights as an author to write a book entitled Rockford Phoenix: My Life under the pseudonym of the entirely fictitious Rockford Phoenix and present the story of Mr. Phoenix's life as if the man actually existed and actually lived through the events depicted in the book. Who is to tell me that my fictional account of a fictional man has to be presented as fictional?
Further, it is within the rights of the writer to engage in a metafictional experiment with the manipulation of reader expectation of the memoir form and genre. The book itself becomes only one part of a larger social experiment; the interplay between the reader, the book, and the expectations of the reader based on the preconceived notions associated with a "memoir" all become inextricably linked. The marketing of the book as a "memoir" instead of a "novel" represents just one piece of an experiment that forces the reader to consider the possibility that he has embellished and fabricated pieces of own life within the historic confines of his own memory. To admit that the book is fictitious, then, defeats the entire purpose of the experiment.
Because ultimately, the idea of "truth" is nothing more than the subjective version of events that most people are willing to agree upon in retrospect; when narrowed down to the single individual, who builds "truth" solely from their own uncontested and unverified perspective and memories, that "truth" becomes highly suspect. What we consider to be "true" today could easily be usurped by facts that come to light tomorrow, and one person's "truth" can and has differred from another person's "truth" merely because of differing perspectives, emotions, and interpretations of events. The "truth" is often based on only most of the evidence, while some of the evidence is ignored or, worse, covered up so as to preserve the "consistency" of the majority's "truth."
Pragmatically, then, all events in all literary books (fiction or nonfiction) that attempt depict reality -- that is, not science-fiction, horror, fantasy, et cetera -- have inevitably happened, over the course of 40,000 years of human history, to someone, somewhere. So even the "embellished" parts of Frey's book actually have occurred, if not actually in Frey's life. Who is to tell James Frey that he is not allowed to import actual events from someone else's life into his own book in order to make it more dramatic and powerful?
The question that is being raised is whether those events occurred, but the real question that seems to be at the center of this "controversy" is whether they occurred to Frey; because they undoubtedly did occur, whether they happened to Frey or not, whether they all happened to the same person or not, and whether Frey was aware of them ever happening or not. The truth of his book is thus not in question; everything presented did, in fact, happen, at some time, to someone.
It is not even Frey's presentation of the events as having happened to him that is in question; there is no conclusive proof that Frey did not write a book with a main character who shares his name with the author -- that is, that James Frey did not write a book about a fictional man coincidentally named "James Frey" who told his own story instead of author-Frey's story. It is, ultimately, the reader's automatic assumption that the realities portrayed in a Million Little Pieces all occurred, in order and exactly as physically presented, to the author-Frey who wrote the book. Frey cannot be held responsible for the reader who makes so many unsubstantiated presumptions simply because the book is labeled a "memoir;" but maybe that was the point.
Because on top of all of that, the "truth" of the book depends entirely on how the book is read. If a reader expects a book of the Realist tilt -- that is, a journalistic depiction of physical reality, as espoused by Rebecca Harding Davis or William Dean Howells -- they will inevitably miss, and ultimately feel betrayed by, any element that is not Realistic. This kind of misinterpretation of the text cannot be blamed on the author; it is solely the responsibility of the reader. For the reader to then expect the author to explicitly state how the book should be read is nothing short of laziness, and defeats the purpose reading altogether.
The philosophical implications of literature, however, are many and varied. Surrealism, for instance -- from the likes of René Crevel or Louis Aragon -- holds that real meaning is derived not from the literal interpretation of objects and events -- that, in effect, the Realist model is actually meaningless -- but in the metaphorical interpretation attached to those objects and events and the interactions between those metaphors. It is the character's interaction with the world that is in any way meaningful, because meaning is not an inherent trait of the physical world: meaning is created by humans.
Further, Postmodernism -- practiced alternately by Toni Morrison or Kurt Vonnegut -- holds that the internal reality of the individual -- by way of thoughts, feelings, desires, memories -- are qualitatively more real than the physical world with which the individual interacts. It is the internal reality that defines the individual as a unique agent, whereas the physical world is itself immutable. Each individual creates his own unique "truth" based on his interactions with the world, and it is ultimately this unique individual "truth" that is real.
By extension, if James Frey describes an incident in a Million Little Pieces in which he punched a police officer when he never, in fact, punched a police officer, is his desire to punch a police officer any less a tangible reality in his personal experience? Letting the reader knows specifically that the event was a desire and not a physical actuality seems a distant second to conveying the emotion of the moment; describing the physical act of punching a police officer like he wanted to do is far more effective than describing the emotion of wanting to punch a police officer.
Frey was rightly serving his own internal reality by being more loyal to the thought, desire and emotion of that moment than the actual physical history of the event. Who is to tell James Frey that he cannot write his own memoir as a Surrealist Postmodern account of the memories, thoughts, and emotions that he experienced? It is those memories, thoughts, and emotions, after all, that define James Frey -- character or author -- as a singularly unique individual farmoreso than any of the physically historical events that he experienced.
I just wish that Frey would quit floundering and tell all these haughty censorers to stuff it. He's the author; it's his book. The author is the sovereign authority concerning the contents of his own book, and that's the end of that. Moreover, I wish he'd turn the case around on all these haughty censorers and call them on the other book that's being pimped as non-fiction despite the fact that it presents a host of events that are categorically fictitious.
The Bible.
Let us focus on just one specific event presented as historical fact in the Bible. According to the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar, which is based on the dates and years given in the Old Testament, the Great Flood described in chapters 7 and 8 of the Book of Genesis occurred 4,354 years ago, in 2348 BCE. Archeaologist Ruth Shady, however, has established that the ancient city of Caral in Peru was consistently inhabited between 3000 BCE and 1600 BCE; if every living thing had been murdered in 2348 BCE, the city of Caral would show no signs of inhabitation after that date. But it does, thus proving that no global flood occurred at any point in history near when the Bible claims that it did.
Further, the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar sets the date for the Creation of the Universe at 4004 BCE, or 6,010 years ago. Unfortunately for James Ussher and John Lightfoot, archaeological evidence establishes that the plough was invented as late as 6,500 years ago, while the writing system of the Vinca culture was developed as late as 7,000 years ago. Ultimately, science has established that the Earth is at least 4.404 billion years old, while the Universe is about 13.7 billion years old, give or take 200 million years.
Additionally, biology has conclusively refuted the idea that all of modern humanity is descended from one man only 4,954 years ago. The notion of an individual man from whom all male human Y-chromosomes are descended is known in biology as the Y-Chromosomal Adam (the male equivalent to the Mitochrondrial Eve); according to the Molecular Clock and Genetic Marker Studies, the Y-Chromosomal Adam lived between 60,000 and 90,000 years ago, well before Ussher and Lightfoot estimate that the Biblical character of Noah is said to have lived (2948 BCE - 1998 BCE), or even the fictional event of theistic Creation is said to have occurred (4004 BCE).
Faced with these flagrant contraditions, Christian apologists often resort to the excuse that sections of the Bible are interpretive. The reason for this drastic measure is obvious; if we take the entire Bible as a literal document, then it becomes not only grossly historically inaccurate and thus worthless as an historical document, but it contradicts itself. Of course, Christians also claim that certain sections are literal, but they only seem to make this distinction when any given part becomes inconvenient to their political agenda.
There are several problems with the interpretive stance in regards to the Bible. One of the most obvious is that we have no indication as to which parts are to be interpretive and which are to be taken literally. Christians tend to take certain parts literally in order to further a given sociopolitical agenda -- slavery, oppression, or war, for instance -- and then claim that any part which contradicts their agenda is interpretive. Obviously, then, this kind of reading is based more on the pre-existing opinions of the individual than anything the book itself has to say.
A more fundamental problem, however, is that if we accept even parts of the Bible as interpretive, then we are forced to concede that it does not accurately reflect history; thus the entire enterprise is markedly fiction. And if the Bible is fiction, then it is by extension a novel. So either the Bible is a novel, or it is an attempt to record history that is so severely-flawed as to render it entirely useless.
How, then, can the Bible justifiably be classified as non-fiction? And why is no one famous getting up-in-arms publicly over this offensive miscategorization?
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