Not seeing the forest, or the trees
I've been withholding comment on this whole James Frey/memoir debacle because I've been having a hell of a time trying to articulate comment, in my head or on a keyboard.
It bothered me the first time I heard about it; it's still bothering me now–but as always, the hard part is figuring out why.
As you may or may not know, I'm wrapping up my last semester of journalism school training to be a reporter/editor/future token female New York Times columnist when Maureen Dowd retires, and I've been working (OK, slave labor interning and freelancing) on various publications and for state government in that capacity for the past few years. At every step, the constant refrain coming from all sections is that accuracy is everything. Your personal integrity depends on it, your career depends on it and the credibility of whomever you work for depends on it. It's certainly not hyperbole to say you basically live in perpetual fear of taking down the wrong name or the wrong detail, of choosing the wrong word or even making the wrong typo, and without even realizing you did so, having falsity put into print. At least you don't kill people when you make lawsuit threat-worthy mistakes, but it pretty much feels like it when you do.
When "journalists" make an error, people snatch up one more piece of evidence to strengthen their conception of us as incompetent at best, malicious liars just a few rungs above used car salesmen at worst–for if we can't even spell someone's last name correctly, how can we be trusted to get anything right?
Yet when "authors" like Mr. Frey make an error, they get the benefit of the doubt, the contention that the details aren't as important as the overarching meanings and even epistemological ruminations on the nuance and fallibility of human experience and memory. (Keep this reaction in mind the next time a prestigious reporter is caught "embellishing" a quote.)
Sure, we're all human beings and we all err. But both journalists and non-fiction authors are supposed to be, to the best of their abilities, conveying their parts of the truth.
When you put an argument into print, if it's worth the distinction, you can't make up the evidence that founds it. Just as journalists can't misrepresent or fabricate information (or their own credentials) to make a more effective news article or column, authors can't write a memoir claiming key aspects of their lives/narratives were influenced by events that never happened. Either way, it's claiming expertise and experiences the writers do not and did not have to support their ideas and bolster their persuasive power.
Imagine if everything I'd written in the third paragraph above was a lie–or, for the Frey defenders out there, imagine if I'd remembered it with less than perfect clarity and given perhaps undue weight to that facet of my life–and in reality, I'm a D-student who works cleaning offices and only picks up a newspaper to keep up with friends and family via the police beats. You wouldn't really give a flip what I had to say on any of this, and you'd probably be more than a little peeved that I wasted your time and consideration, because you'd feel lied to.
Likewise, if in your "memoir" recounting your fall into and and redemption from a life of drugs and crime you say you spent months in jail but actually spent no time there at all (as you must very well know and as would be revealed by a simple public records search), that's a lie. If you did that in a newspaper, even by accident or based on bad information you didn't know was bad, there's a solid chance you would get sued for libel and fired from your publication in an instant, and best of luck to you in finding work in your field again even if everything else you've put to page is correct.
I did not know and could not believe that major publishing houses don't fact-check their non-fiction. I don't buy that the sheer volume of work that funnels through them makes it practically impossible. Last I heard, publishers were a bit better off financially than newspapers, yet somehow daily papers manage to crank out the equivalent of a novel from scratch every day and at least try and enforce a standard of accuracy.
To that end, in the reporting world, you receive constant feedback. If you get something wrong, you hear about it, in terms decidedly less than constructive, until your ears bleed and you just want to shoot yourself out of shame.
But in books, apparently no one bothers to check, and writers like Mr. Frey, who originally trolled his book around as fiction but couldn't hook any takers, seem to be banking on it. (And that, potential future employers, is what happens when you hire English majors to do journalists' jobs.)
Lies on newsprint are unacceptable, but apparently it's OK to lie, about real people and real events, and publish it in a purportedly non-fiction mass medium more people will likely read and view as credible... especially when it's festooned with the venerable seal of Oprah's Book Club, whose patron saint speaks out in your defense to boot, if only to salvage her own credibility by rationalizing yours.
In light of all this, I find it more than a little unnerving that Oprah has taken Elie Wiesel's "Night" as her next book club selection. Is she daring people to try and nitpick the accuracy of a seminal Holocaust testimonial, whose author is still alive? Or is she picking one she knows is effectively immune to such criticism? Either one is disturbing–not to mention disappointing coming from a woman who wields such a disproportionate amount of power over what passes for intellectual discourse in this country.
Arguing over truth and memory plainly leaves us going in circles. The Holocaust and the themes it conjures are among the absolute most difficult subjects to address honestly, meaningfully and affectingly through any of the humanities–but many creative, intelligent people have had the guts to put something down and put something out there that does not attempt the impossible of capturing the definitive, collective truth. Why not give at least one unknown among them some recognition?
I took a class last semester on theatre of the Holocaust, prior to which I had no idea enough material even existed to fill such a class.
If you've already read "Night" like most of my generational cohorts have, or are just looking for a different view of the Holocaust that will hopefully unsettle you and thereby get you thinking new thoughts (or just stick it to Oprah), I have two plays to recommend: "Auschwitz," which is the second part of Peter Barnes' double bill "Laughter!" and Wallace Shawn's "Aunt Dan and Lemon."
(If you know me and want to borrow either, just ask, but you will have to read around my compulsive underlining and occasional margin commentary.)
The unpleasant fact is that the issues surrounding the Holocaust have enduring and immediate relevance. We don't need Ms. Winfrey reaping self-aggrandizing praise for inspiring more apathetic readers to shake their heads, wipe their eyes, marvel at the human spirit and vow a hollow "never again" while people continue to commit atrocities against their fellows, perhaps less grand in scale and systematic brutality but no less unjust, all around them, unexamined and unchallenged.
It bothered me the first time I heard about it; it's still bothering me now–but as always, the hard part is figuring out why.
As you may or may not know, I'm wrapping up my last semester of journalism school training to be a reporter/editor/future token female New York Times columnist when Maureen Dowd retires, and I've been working (OK, slave labor interning and freelancing) on various publications and for state government in that capacity for the past few years. At every step, the constant refrain coming from all sections is that accuracy is everything. Your personal integrity depends on it, your career depends on it and the credibility of whomever you work for depends on it. It's certainly not hyperbole to say you basically live in perpetual fear of taking down the wrong name or the wrong detail, of choosing the wrong word or even making the wrong typo, and without even realizing you did so, having falsity put into print. At least you don't kill people when you make lawsuit threat-worthy mistakes, but it pretty much feels like it when you do.
When "journalists" make an error, people snatch up one more piece of evidence to strengthen their conception of us as incompetent at best, malicious liars just a few rungs above used car salesmen at worst–for if we can't even spell someone's last name correctly, how can we be trusted to get anything right?
Yet when "authors" like Mr. Frey make an error, they get the benefit of the doubt, the contention that the details aren't as important as the overarching meanings and even epistemological ruminations on the nuance and fallibility of human experience and memory. (Keep this reaction in mind the next time a prestigious reporter is caught "embellishing" a quote.)
Sure, we're all human beings and we all err. But both journalists and non-fiction authors are supposed to be, to the best of their abilities, conveying their parts of the truth.
When you put an argument into print, if it's worth the distinction, you can't make up the evidence that founds it. Just as journalists can't misrepresent or fabricate information (or their own credentials) to make a more effective news article or column, authors can't write a memoir claiming key aspects of their lives/narratives were influenced by events that never happened. Either way, it's claiming expertise and experiences the writers do not and did not have to support their ideas and bolster their persuasive power.
Imagine if everything I'd written in the third paragraph above was a lie–or, for the Frey defenders out there, imagine if I'd remembered it with less than perfect clarity and given perhaps undue weight to that facet of my life–and in reality, I'm a D-student who works cleaning offices and only picks up a newspaper to keep up with friends and family via the police beats. You wouldn't really give a flip what I had to say on any of this, and you'd probably be more than a little peeved that I wasted your time and consideration, because you'd feel lied to.
Likewise, if in your "memoir" recounting your fall into and and redemption from a life of drugs and crime you say you spent months in jail but actually spent no time there at all (as you must very well know and as would be revealed by a simple public records search), that's a lie. If you did that in a newspaper, even by accident or based on bad information you didn't know was bad, there's a solid chance you would get sued for libel and fired from your publication in an instant, and best of luck to you in finding work in your field again even if everything else you've put to page is correct.
I did not know and could not believe that major publishing houses don't fact-check their non-fiction. I don't buy that the sheer volume of work that funnels through them makes it practically impossible. Last I heard, publishers were a bit better off financially than newspapers, yet somehow daily papers manage to crank out the equivalent of a novel from scratch every day and at least try and enforce a standard of accuracy.
To that end, in the reporting world, you receive constant feedback. If you get something wrong, you hear about it, in terms decidedly less than constructive, until your ears bleed and you just want to shoot yourself out of shame.
But in books, apparently no one bothers to check, and writers like Mr. Frey, who originally trolled his book around as fiction but couldn't hook any takers, seem to be banking on it. (And that, potential future employers, is what happens when you hire English majors to do journalists' jobs.)
Lies on newsprint are unacceptable, but apparently it's OK to lie, about real people and real events, and publish it in a purportedly non-fiction mass medium more people will likely read and view as credible... especially when it's festooned with the venerable seal of Oprah's Book Club, whose patron saint speaks out in your defense to boot, if only to salvage her own credibility by rationalizing yours.
In light of all this, I find it more than a little unnerving that Oprah has taken Elie Wiesel's "Night" as her next book club selection. Is she daring people to try and nitpick the accuracy of a seminal Holocaust testimonial, whose author is still alive? Or is she picking one she knows is effectively immune to such criticism? Either one is disturbing–not to mention disappointing coming from a woman who wields such a disproportionate amount of power over what passes for intellectual discourse in this country.
Arguing over truth and memory plainly leaves us going in circles. The Holocaust and the themes it conjures are among the absolute most difficult subjects to address honestly, meaningfully and affectingly through any of the humanities–but many creative, intelligent people have had the guts to put something down and put something out there that does not attempt the impossible of capturing the definitive, collective truth. Why not give at least one unknown among them some recognition?
I took a class last semester on theatre of the Holocaust, prior to which I had no idea enough material even existed to fill such a class.
If you've already read "Night" like most of my generational cohorts have, or are just looking for a different view of the Holocaust that will hopefully unsettle you and thereby get you thinking new thoughts (or just stick it to Oprah), I have two plays to recommend: "Auschwitz," which is the second part of Peter Barnes' double bill "Laughter!" and Wallace Shawn's "Aunt Dan and Lemon."
(If you know me and want to borrow either, just ask, but you will have to read around my compulsive underlining and occasional margin commentary.)
The unpleasant fact is that the issues surrounding the Holocaust have enduring and immediate relevance. We don't need Ms. Winfrey reaping self-aggrandizing praise for inspiring more apathetic readers to shake their heads, wipe their eyes, marvel at the human spirit and vow a hollow "never again" while people continue to commit atrocities against their fellows, perhaps less grand in scale and systematic brutality but no less unjust, all around them, unexamined and unchallenged.
posted by Holly at 2:30 AM
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