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Brian_egeston
Regular Poster
Username: Brian_egeston
Post Number: 45
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - 11:01 am: | 
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I'm sure many of you have heard by now that Oprah's pick of "A Million Little Pieces" has been labeled as a fraud. Book frauds always seem to spark good discussions on the board.
Does the author's half-truths change the impact of the words?
Here's a link to the article:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0104061jamesfrey1.html |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3338
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - 01:00 pm: |
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To paraphrase ol Will Shakespeare, "a lie by any other name smells as bad." This book was on its way to being the ultimate inspiration for lawbreakers wanting to turn their lives around, but now it's morphed into being a motivation for writers to try and pass fiction off as non fiction in order to pen a best-seller. And this expose certainly doesn't reflect favorably on Oprah's judgment. As a "journalist" she should maintain a stance of healthy skepticism, and not be so quick to believe everything she reads. Because the book now seems like a caricature, I think its message loses its impact. |
Babygirl
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Babygirl
Post Number: 187
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - 01:06 pm: |
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Brian, at this point Frey's truths or lies won't change the million plus book sales he's already garnered. Had his character been questioned prior to it becoming an Oprah pick, then it would probably still be just a tired memoir a few folks may have read going unnoticed on Barnes and Noble's discount shelf. Either way, truth or lies, unless he plagerized the words from someone else, they are still his words, so he's either a sad soul or a creative one. At this point, he and his publisher have taken theirs to the bank and if need be, next week they'll just reprint the cover and add "Fictional Memoir" to the title.
I personally didn't enjoy the story and found it to be somewhat trite. But to each his own.
What I find interesting though is the growing public opinion that Oprah needs to justify her selection of it and take a stand for or against the allegations as if she herself held his hand when he wrote it, edited the pages without checking his facts and published it without regard for any of its more glaring pronouncements.
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Mrs_hart
Veteran Poster
Username: Mrs_hart
Post Number: 64
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - 07:07 pm: |
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I wasn't much impressed with Frey's book either. I didn't see what Oprah was so bowled over about.
She was more animated and excited than he was.
His book was a bland and boring read. There just was no there, there. |
Brian_egeston
Regular Poster
Username: Brian_egeston
Post Number: 46
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - 10:44 pm: |
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Okay, you know I'm his cheerleader so yes I have to resurrect him. We killed Jayson Blair after he told us he lied, embellished and deceived. Frey's extent of backlash is trying not to have a drink while he's got 3.5 million copies sold, another book at the printer and two more under contract.
Blair admits to alcohol and drug abuse as did Frey. So...is this thing a bit lopsided?
I promise I'm not related to Blair nor on his payroll.
Brian
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Michael_t_owens
Regular Poster
Username: Michael_t_owens
Post Number: 30
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 12:29 am: |
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I tried to read this book before Oprah even selected it--I didn't finish. Putting that aside, aren't all writers liars to an extent? Frey misleading the public is a moral issue, not a writing issue. Whether he lied or not, writing is just that...writing. If Oprah's name wasn't attached to this, it wouldn't be a huge issue. I honestly think he'll sell even more copies because of this. Time will tell. Lucky: A Memoir by Alice Sebold--now that's a memoir for ya! If something came out about it being only half true, I'd still think it was an excellent piece of literature.
Michael T. Owens
http://www.michaeltowens.com |
Enchanted
Regular Poster
Username: Enchanted
Post Number: 27
Registered: 11-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 12:58 am: |
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OPRAH has now spoken.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Powerful TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey threw her support to embattled author James Frey on Wednesday, saying a national uproar over whether he fictionalized parts of his best-selling memoir was "much ado about nothing."
Appearing as a surprise caller on CNN's "Larry King Live" after King had gently quizzed Frey for nearly an hour, Winfrey broke her silence over whether his "A Million Little Pieces" was still a choice of her book club and had her endorsement.
She said that even though the facts of the account of Frey's drug and alcohol addiction were being questioned, the book "still resonates with me" and called the controversy "much ado about nothing" because, as Frey told King, the disputed passages make up less than 5 percent of the book.
Talking to King on the phone just minutes before the show was to end, Winfrey said, "Everyone has been asking me to release a statement, and I first wanted to hear what James had to say and I didn't want that colored by any personal conversation that I've had.
"He's said he's had many conversations with my producers who do fully support him and obviously we support the book because we recognize that there have been thousands and hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been changed by this book."
It was Winfrey's selection of the memoir for her book club that helped make it the biggest-selling nonfiction book in the United States last year, with more than 1.7 million copies sold in a paperback edition.
JAIL TIME?
But she had been silent following weekend charges made by The Smoking Gun Web site that Frey had made up an account that he had spent three months in jail after trying to run over a policeman while on drugs.
The Smoking Gun said it could find no evidence of his having spent that much time in jail and that his auto accident consisted of running his car up on a curb.
Frey refused to directly confront whether the incident was made up or not and insisted that while some elements in the book were embellished, the book's emotional core was true.
"I hope the emotional truth of the book resonates with (readers)," he told King. "I couldn't have written it if I hadn't been through a lot of the things I talk about." Continued ...
He added, "It's a memoir. It's an imperfect animal. ...I don't think it should be held up and scrutinized the way a perfect nonfiction documentary would be or a newspaper article."
Winfrey appeared to agree, telling King: "Whether or not the car's wheels rolled up on the sidewalk or whether he hit the police officer or didn't hit the police officer is irrelevant to me."
She added, "What is relevant is that he was a drug addict, spent years in turmoil, from the time he was 10 years old and tormenting himself and his parents, and out of that history to be the man that he is today and to take that message to other people and allow them to save themselves. That's what important about this book."
As for Frey, he insisted "The essential truth of (my) drug and alcohol addiction is there. The emotional truth is there. .... I think you will find people who will dispute every memoir ever written."
Readers calling publisher Random House's customer service line were told they could receive refunds if they had bought the book directly from the publishing house. Random House, a unit of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG, issued a statement saying that such refunds were standard procedure.
Bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc. also said it is standard practice to offer refunds for returned books.
But Publishers Weekly Senior Editor Charlotte Abbott called the Random House refunds unprecedented.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3345
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 01:03 am: |
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Well I hear Oprah called in during Frey's appearance on Larry King's show and stood by him, - probably trying to cover her big ol muscle-bound booty. Poor Jayson Blair was abandoned by the black journalistic community because its members were all protecting their own credibility and jobs. I'm sure that behind closed doors they emphathized with him to some degree. Truth is stranger than fiction but strangeness may have to be "enhanced" in order to produce a best seller. |
Kris_broughton
Newbie Poster
Username: Kris_broughton
Post Number: 3
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 08:46 am: |
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Jayson Blair is a *uck up who *ucked up while he was ostensibly researching and reporting verifiable facts to be printed alongside other presumably researched and verifiable (?) facts in a publication that bills itself as the "newspaper of record".
James Frey is a *uck up who wrote about being *ucked up in a manner that purports to adhere to factual events, but is filtered through the writer's own self consciousness, which is rarely capable of recreating any event we've lived through with one hundred percent accuracy.
Both of them are full of *hit - but if I was a black journalist, who had struggled to do the right thing, who had struggled just to stay in the game, especially if I worked in the flyover states where my editor probably felt he had too many of us on staff if there was more than one of us, and somebody asked me why I wasn't supporting Jayson Blair when HE was the one who sold me out, I would tell them this - "if I ever ran into Jayson Blair, I would pimp slap him until the skin came off of his expense account cheeks."
James Frey doesn't get any sympathy from me, but unlike the black journalists, who have jobs, Oprah has a franchise to protect. Being the face of her business, its easy to forget that she's also the CEO - whether Frey makes five or ten million because he's an accomplished liar who has bamboozled his own publisher, who are really the ones with their credibility at stake, is much, much less important than ensuring that Oprah, Inc. keeps churning out cash.
The real question is, if James Frey was a black guy who had grown up in identical circumstances, and had "endured" the same make believe experiences, what would she do? As white America's electronic Mammy, she has been "uppity" before, but it is usually when the black person she goes to bat for has a track record of success.
Both men are in the wrong for substituting fictional events for factual ones and presenting them as a version of the truth. Beyond that, the circumstances are so different a comparison between them doesn't really make any sense.
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Blklitreader
Newbie Poster
Username: Blklitreader
Post Number: 5
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 10:51 am: |
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There isn't much difference between the two writers. Both claimed what they wrote was the truth, when they knew that were writing lies. Memoirs are expected to be true, as it's nonfiction, and new articles are expected to be true, as well. The only difference is the response of both men coming clean after proven to be liars, of course, after some investigating of the facts and being challenged. Oh, and yeah, one is white and the other is black.
I don't think writers who claim to have written factual works (memoirs, news article, ...) should be expected to be liars. |
Kris_broughton
Newbie Poster
Username: Kris_broughton
Post Number: 4
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 11:42 am: |
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A memoir, whether or not it carries the distinction of being categorized as non-fiction, is "selected moments from my life as I saw them."
An autobiography is "how I recall the story of my life."
A biography is "what I (the writer) have researched and uncovered about the subject's life."
Varying degrees of accuracy accompany each genre - we expect some romantic gloss in a memoir, some burnishing in an autobiography, and a certain level of objectivity in a biography.
The difference between Jayson Blair and James Frey is the same as the difference between Chris Matthews of "Hard Ball" and Brian Williams of NBC News - one purportedly presents the facts as they occur, the other gives us his opinion of what they might mean.
The view that Chris Matthews and James Frey have are those of unabashedly self serving martinets. Jayson Blair and Brian Williams have to contend with the ethics of their profession - in the end, what they report is ultimately more important than who they are as individuals.
But how I feel about Blair and Frey personally has nothing to do with these differences - they are both lying sacks of *hit as far as I'm concerned, neither of whom is worth the time we are wasting talking about them.
And if you really want to get down to it, i don't give a *uck about Frey - delusional white boys are a dime a dozen, and if they're from wealthy families like he was, he never really had anything to worry about anyway.
What really burns my ass is when Jayson Blair feels his actions warrants having those black journalists who have come before him waste their political capital in their workplaces on some sorry assed shit like that. If you're going to be man enough to abuse the opportunity you have, you should be man enough to take the shit you get as a result instead of crying about what "white folks" and "the system" are doing to you. Blair wasn't high enough on the totem pole to count to the white folks that mattered.
But Howard Raines was. To be an African American editor of The New York Times most be the workplace equivalent of The Little Shop of Horrors.
I'm no holier-than- thou do-gooder, and there are many, many things that are yet to be solved as black professionals struggle to advance within the ranks of America's corporations. But when a mother*ucker like Blair puts a hole in the bottom of his own rowboat, blames the hole on racism, then wants me to yell at white folks for MAKING HIM DO IT - my job as a responsible black man is to tell him he is ass out.
Meanwhile, Flyover USA still won't hire more than its quota of minority reporters because - guess what? - we don't have any energy left to pressure them into taking action, because we've exhausted ourselves trying to beat a dead horse for one stupid ass sum bitch in NYC.
You guys can put any label on this attitude you want, but until we can measure each other within our own community objectively rather than emotionally, we will be stuck at this plateau we currently inhabit in America for years to come.
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Kris_broughton
Newbie Poster
Username: Kris_broughton
Post Number: 5
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 12:50 pm: |
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Frey Backs Book, Winfrey Backs Frey
by Rachel Deahl & Jim Milliot,
FROM Publisher's Weekly Daily Edition -- 1/12/2006
Although he acknowledged on the Larry King Show last night that he changed certain details in his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, James Frey insisted that the essence of his story of how he overcame years of addiction was true. That stance was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey who called the King show just before it went off the air to say she viewed the controversy "as much ado about nothing." She said that while some details may have been altered, Frey's message of redemption "still resonates with me and I know it resonates with millions of other people who have read the book." Winfrey somewhat distanced herself from the uproar over the book's authenticity by pointing out that she relies on publishers to vouch for the accuracy of their works. She challenged publishers to more closely examine what they classify as fiction and nonfiction.
There is no agreement in the industry, however, on whether memoirs, or certain types of other nonfiction, need to adhere firmly to facts. Geoff Shandler, editor-in-chief of Time Warner Books's Little, Brown imprint, said, more than anything else, he was disheartened to see support for Frey's work continuing, despite the now overwhelming evidence that key elements of it were greatly exaggerated and/or entirely fictionalized. "As someone who works on a lot of nonfiction to hear folks say this is OK because that's the nature of memoir, that's upsetting," Shandler said. "There is a huge difference between subjective recall and flat out fabrication," he added, noting that those defending A Million Little Pieces by saying Frey did what any author does, embellish the facts to make for a better read, are essentially offering up "an ends justify the means argument."
Perhaps the most off-put of those interviewed was author Mary Karr, who has written two memoirs including Cherry and The Liars' Club. Karr said Frey took liberties no memoirist ever should, or be allowed to, take. "This is not a subtle distinction between what is fiction and nonfiction, and anyone sitting at a typewriter knows it." When asked if she thought Frey's trespasses could be equated with those of recently disgraced journalists like Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass (both of whom were caught making up stories and sources for their respective publications, The New York Times and The Nation), Karr replied with an emphatic yes. Gearing up to write an op-ed piece for the Times on this topic, Karr finally said that Frey's publisher, RH imprint Doubleday, needs to make a drastic statement. "They oughta yank [the book] off the shelf," she said. "That's what they do with plagiarism; they pull a history book if it has false information."
At HaperCollins senior v-p and executive editor David Hirshey had a slightly different take. An emigre of the magazine world (Hirshey was on staff at Esquire before moving to book publishing), he was less angered by the uproar than Karr or Shandler. "The former journalist in me thinks it's inexcusable that [Frey] fabricated stories without informing readers," he said. "But the book editor in me thinks that the writing speaks for itself." When asked if he thought that the scandal could potentially diminish the popularity of the genre at large, Hirshey said he thought it was unlikely. "There is a long history of blending fact and fiction from Capote's In Cold Blood to Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. But I do think this puts authors on notice: The more outlandish your life story, the more scrutiny it will face."
Among agents, the feeling was that the scandal wouldn't have too much effect on the popularity of the genre or the way houses handle similar manuscripts. Robert Gottlieb, of Trident Media Group, said he thought this event is something of "an anomaly" and that, in spite of it, publishers still need to rely on "the truthfulness of an author" as opposed to teams of fact-checkers. Erin Hosier, of the Gernert Agency, echoed Hirshey's sentiments that Frey's work continues in a long tradition of non-fiction novels. "When it comes to narrative nonfiction, I don't care if it's 60% true, as long as it strikes a chord with people, which A Million Little Pieces has."
Among booksellers the consensus seemed to be that, if anything, the scandal might help the already-strong sales of A Million Little Pieces and its follow-up, My Friend Leonard. As Tom Steadman, owner of The Book Depot in Mayetta, NJ, put it, "the more controversy, the better it will sell." Steadman pointed out that the first he heard of the scandal was from a customer who bought AMLP explicitly because of the media coverage it's now getting.
Karen Corvello, manager of R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, CT, said she knew of some colleagues who were upset by the news. "Some bookseller who read it were disappointed to hear that he'd fabricated a lot of it, but it's been selling itself at our store."
Interesting commentary - similar in many ways to our discussion here.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3349
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 12:51 pm: |
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I wasn't aware that Jayson Blair expected black journalists to come to the his rescue. And I don't think they should have. But I can certainly imagine more than a few of them shaking their heads, thinking that "there, but for the grace of resisting temptation, go I". I'm sure they had all at one time or another, experienced burn-out or writer's block, and wanted to take liberties with the truth. And racism did figure into this episode which blemished the face of black journalism inasmuch as Blairs's editors lowered their standards and condescended to his ineptitude because he was black. They gave him enough rope to lynch himself.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3350
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 12:57 pm: |
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Who said there is no such thing as bad publicity? I'm sure my vow to not buy or read kola boof's book inspired many of my detractors to do just the exact opposite. I should ask for a kick-back for my negative endorsement. LOL |
Snakegirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 69
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 01:43 pm: |
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Kris,
I really resent you calling OPRAH a "mammy".
On close inspection of this "one woman conglomerate", there's nothing Mammy-ish about her.
The fact that White people LOVE her and the fact that she PIMPS THEM...and does it so smoothly.....does not a Mammy make.
I think people like you are JEALOUS of Oprah's success and you also harbor negative stereotypes about Black women in general---for instance if Oprah was the exact same woman but high yellow with gray eyes, you would call her a "Sell out" instead of a "Mammy".
I've noticed after living in this country for many years, that you AAs have a HATRED for your "mother image"----doesn't matter what she does---you find and excuse to scape goat, disrespect, dishonor and kill her image. It's a sickness you have that comes from the plantation.
You really lost a lot of credibility in my eyes----reducing this complex, self assured ICON to one plantation slur and not batting an eye.
It shows your bad judgement....and believe it or not, I have a LOT of complaints about Oprah myself, but I'm not stupid enough to sum her up as a "Mammy".
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Blklitreader
Newbie Poster
Username: Blklitreader
Post Number: 6
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 01:48 pm: |
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**A memoir, whether or not it carries the distinction of being categorized as non-fiction, is "selected moments from my life as I saw them." **
How can one recall or report to have seen select moments from their life that never existed? Should it be concluded that Frey also have some form of mental illness? Or should the book now be listed in fantasy genre? So readers should expect writers to fill a book with lies, half truths, or "romantic gloss" and call the result, my memoir?
**but until we can measure each other within our own community objectively rather than emotionally, we will be stuck at this plateau we currently inhabit in America for years to come.**
I agree, no emotions involved whatsoever -- Blair lied just as Frey did.
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Snakegirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 70
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 01:50 pm: |
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As for Jayson Blair:
Sure, he's an asshole---but I still have sympathy for him.
There were SEVERAL "White" newspaper writers who were caught doing the same thing; they got fired and were scandalized.
But guess what? Their reputations are being rehabilitated by the newspaper industry---they've had HUGE book deals (Blair had to sign his with a little known California publisher and was a flop, because of lack of distribution and promotion)----and his White "brothers" are smiling, still writing SOMEWHERE and are constantly profiled in major magazine glossies--the literary kinds like NEW YORKER where they do the same interview over and over again.
I don't care for Blair, but I see him as a troubled person who had personal demons and was NO WORSE than his White counterparts who have been turned into romanticized outlaw darlings.
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Schakspir
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 82
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 02:09 pm: |
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"Kris,
I really resent you calling OPRAH a "mammy".
On close inspection of this "one woman conglomerate", there's nothing Mammy-ish about her.
The fact that White people LOVE her and the fact that she PIMPS THEM...and does it so smoothly.....does not a Mammy make.
I think people like you are JEALOUS of Oprah's success and you also harbor negative stereotypes about Black women in general---for instance if Oprah was the exact same woman but high yellow with gray eyes, you would call her a "Sell out" instead of a "Mammy".
I've noticed after living in this country for many years, that you AAs have a HATRED for your "mother image"----doesn't matter what she does---you find and excuse to scape goat, disrespect, dishonor and kill her image. It's a sickness you have that comes from the plantation.
You really lost a lot of credibility in my eyes----reducing this complex, self assured ICON to one plantation slur and not batting an eye.
It shows your bad judgement....and believe it or not, I have a LOT of complaints about Oprah myself, but I'm not stupid enough to sum her up as a "Mammy"."
Hey, Kola's back. Anybody want to throw the first tomato?.... |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3351
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 03:23 pm: |
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I, for one, agree that Oprah is a mammy figure. She doesn't pimp white folk, she offers them her ample bosom to lay their dysfunctional heads on while she scolds them for bein naughty chillun. And if dey aks nice, she praises dem to high heaven. And, Lord, does she curry favor with the massa. |
Snakegirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 72
Registered: 05-2005
Rating:
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 03:44 pm: |
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Oprah is MORE.....in the mold of a Benevolent QUEEN MOTHER.
She is regal, folksy, intelligent, attractive and SHREWD.
She is the most famous woman on the planet, and as for POWER---only another black woman, Condoleeza Rice----can rival her.
Stanley Crouch IS a Mammy.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3358
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 04:24 pm: |
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Let me assure you, kola, I wouldn't read your book if my dear departed mother offered it to me. And wassa matter? You don't know the African name Jill goes by???? Get real. And I don't care how many prayers you offer up to God, I ain't readin the piece of crap you wrote. LOL |
Snakegirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 75
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 04:28 pm: |
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My responses really have NOT been about you reading my book.
I could care less.
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 820
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 09:22 pm: |
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I just started a new thread about the liberties taken with and by jazz musicians in the stories of their lives that is relevant to this discussion:
http://www.thumperscorner.com/discus/messages/1/9311.html?1137118839 |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1739
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 01:43 pm: |
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This morning a guest on the Lizz Brown radio show stated that this book is supposed to be about redemption--so if he lied about everything his redemption is a lie. |
Solomonjones
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Solomonjones
Post Number: 86
Registered: 02-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 02:43 pm: |
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Schakspir -
You refer to us as "You AA's." I'm curious. Where are you from and what is your ethnicity? |
Snakegirl
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 76
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 04:02 am: |
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For those claiming that Oprah Winfrey is a "MAMMY"---the following snipet regarding this scandal is from a story by Hillel Hitalie, ASSOCIATED PRESS:
"I think it changes nothing," Jane Friedman, chief executive of HarperCollins, said of the Frey scandal.
Grove/Atlantic president Morgan Entrekin said: "It's impossible to establish with certainty the factual accuracy of every piece of nonfiction we publish; we would grind to a halt. "I don't know what we could do. It's just the nature of the beast."
For days, Frey had been intensely criticized – and defended – by publishers, authors and readers. Winfrey's endorsement last fall made the book a million-seller, and her rejection could have finished it off and made publishers wary of the whole genre.
"I know a lot of us were nervous about what Oprah was going to say. It was a dramatic moment," Entrekin said.
SO NOW....with the ENTIRE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY nervously awaiting Oprah Winfrey's all powerful "nod" or "nay"----this woman is clearly a "QUEEN" and not a Mammy.
No multi-billion dollar WHITE industry would ever allow itself to be cow-towed by a mere "Mammy" figure. A Mammy does what she's told to do.
Mammy's don't DONATE tens of millions of dollars to BLACK institutions like "Morehouse" and Mammys don't build MULTI-million dollar Educational Complexes in SOUTH AFRICA so that African youths who would never otherwise be educated...can be educated.
This woman is a QUEEN MOTHER.
She is not a Mammy.
You guys need to get rid of some of these horrendous stereotypes about Black Women who happen to be PLUS SIZE and outrageously successful.
In retrospect....I see LENA HORNE as far more of a "Mammy" figure than Oprah Winfrey could ever be.
People go to Oprah's bossom, because---she's a WOMAN.
They do the same with Dr. Joyce Brothers and Rosie O'Donnell. Only those broads aren't as rich and glamorous as Oprah.
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Kris_broughton
Newbie Poster
Username: Kris_broughton
Post Number: 6
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 08:58 am: |
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I believe this is an OPINION board - however forcefully we present them, the individual conclusions any one of us may infer from the information we have access to is just that - our individually held opinion. In a country where the freedom to think what we want to think and say what we want to say is the bedrock of our constitution, this medium should be the most diverse in terms of thought, given its lack of economic and geographical boundaries.
To encourage groupthink on a writers site makes no sense. The better sites I participate in have so many off the wall points of view that I sometimes forget to switch back to "normal" in real life. If I can't honestly share MY opinion in a place like this, what's the point of coming?
All that being said, there are times when a poster may have an opinion about a topic that is offensive to another poster. While I am an ardent user of metaphors and symbols in all the things I write, their use is always with the intent of creating a visual image in the mind of a reader who is in most cases more acclimated to the medium of television or film. And I will be the first to admit that the difference between a statement made with malicious intent and one that is forcefully worded may only be maybe the inversion of a few key syllables.
But not in this case.
I stand by my opinion, the same way I stand behind the things that come out of my mouth in real life. There are very few times I don't think intensely before posting - years of experience in cyberspace have taught me to write what you mean the first time. If the way I look at Oprah, or any other subject, upsets the way you look at the universe, I am always open to a dialogue, so long as it is actually an exercise that engages the sharpness of our wit or the depth of our knowledge.
Namecalling is a waste of time.
I'd like to find a website that has a group of black writers interested in producing literary fiction with whom I can interface regularly in a free-for-all atmosphere, where we are not bound to espouse any particular party line. It doesn't have to be an all black site, just one with enough minority members to keep me from feling like Sidney Poitier.
I thought thumper's corner might be that place. We shall see.
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1748
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 11:24 am: |
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I don't hate Oprah. I hate the idiots she is forced to pander to that result in her show being mindless pap and her constantly putting her foot in it. I also hate the crass cynical advisors that surround her--but I guess I hate them for being right so often.
If that audience were more receptive to something intelligent the show would be better.
C'est la vie. |
Schakspir
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 97
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 02:53 pm: |
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Solomonjones: Schakspir -
You refer to us as "You AA's." I'm curious. Where are you from and what is your ethnicity?
Schakspir: it wasn't me who said that. I'm Afro-American, by the way. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3379
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 08:43 pm: |
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Kola boof is like a cat. If you feed her, you got a friend for life. Her opinions of celebrities are grounded in emotion, and when anybody strikes an emotional note in her, her sentiments become sated and the object of her affection can do no wrong in kola's bleary eyesight. Oprah took off her hazel contacts kola had an orgasm. When Oprah stops wearing make-up that lightens her skin, takes out her hair extensions and unglues her false eyelashes, then maybe she'd be worthy of such adulation. To me, Oprah is too full of herself, and she is slowly becoming drunk with power. Now, I'd be the last one to deny that she has power and it is understandable why she is evolving the way she is. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1236
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 08:52 pm: |
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Cynique...for your information...Oprah Winfrey DOES NOT LIKE Kola Boof. I can promise you that.
TO ME...Oprah is colorstruck.
She can be snobby--
and TO ME---her "type" of femininism is a little unrealistic as to how men should behave, because I've learned that there are SOME territories in men's behavior that we just have to accept as part of their masculinity...
and there's a few other things I don't like about OPRAH
....but the fact remains----SHE IS NOT A MAMMY.
Nowhere near it.
That's just how JEALOUS High Yellow women like CYNIQUE would like to brand her...and how colorstruck Black men GO ALONG WITH IT (because they hate dark, fat black women like Oprah and think all negroid-featured women darker than a paper bag are Mammy's in general.
This may come as a shock to people like CYNIQUE---but before the slave plantations----there were women who looked like OPRAH who ruled vast kingdoms and were feared (ie. Queen TinkaTekur II) by White slavers as much as any Shaka Zulu could be.
OPRAH is in the tradition of those Black women.
She's a QUEEN MOTHER.
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Snakegirl
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Snakegirl
Post Number: 77
Registered: 05-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 08:53 pm: |
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AND...Iyanla Vanzant doesn't like me either.
And it's rumored greatly that Maya Angelou doesn't either.
As they all know-----I could give a shit.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3381
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 09:02 pm: |
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Hummmmmm. Why don't all of these intelligent women appreciate you inasmuch as you were sent here to rescue them? I still think Oprah is a mammy. Mammy's wielded a lot of power because they were very wily and knew how to manipulate people. |
Solomonjones
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Username: Solomonjones
Post Number: 87
Registered: 02-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 11:42 pm: |
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Schakspir -
My bad. |
Blklitreader
Newbie Poster
Username: Blklitreader
Post Number: 7
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 08:21 pm: |
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To read the entire article "The truth about memoirs"
http://www.calendarlive.com/books/cl-et-memoir13jan13,0,2945452.story?coll=cl-bo oks-features
Quotes of interest:
Samuel Freedman, professor of journalism at Columbia University, disagrees. "To me, the memoir should mean nonfiction. To say that a memoir written in the first person has a subjective point of view is perfectly all right, but that's a million miles away from what Doubleday is saying. Frey gets to invent things that never happened and pass them off as truth. Memoir has become in publishing circles widely accepted as a synonym for 'Make it up if you want to, we don't care as long as it sells.' "
Freedman is not the only one who takes issue with the notion of playing fast and loose with the facts. (He believes that nothing short of "Saudi justice, in which you could cut off [the writer's hands], will do.") "Memoirs," says Mary Karr, also offer a kind of "survival testimony" that novels cannot. Karr, who has been teaching creative nonfiction for 20 years, is angry about how writers like Frey call into question the credibility of all nonfiction writers. "This is outrageous," she says. "I think he's reprehensible. In fiction you make up events to support interpretation. In memoir you inherit the events and make up the interpretation." For Karr, it's a matter of the erosion of authority in memoir writing as well as the erosion of objective truth. "The reader understands that memoir is a corrupt form, but that doesn't mean you can make [it] up," she says. "This damages writers who don't break the ethical code," Freedman argues, "because it means that if you try to write a book of this sort, within the venerable standards of journalism and history, your book may suffer a presumption of fabrication."
"You can't put out false things," says Michael Hoyt. "Am I old-fashioned? You work hard for veracity. I don't think facts are fungible." "It's fiction if you make stuff up," Gutkind adds. "It's nonfiction if you don't. I know that fact checking is very difficult, but the writer has an obligation to the reader. The publisher also has an obligation to the reader. So does Harpo Productions [Winfrey's company]."
For many, it boils down to a question of faith: A writer should work hard to get the facts right, even though, in the end, they may be elusive at best. "There is no objective reality," says New Yorker writer Lawrence Weschler, "but that is no excuse for knowingly obfuscating and confabulating." |
Prettybabygirl
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Username: Prettybabygirl
Post Number: 88
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 08:50 pm: |
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It's pretty widely acknowledged that the autobiographies of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes were like 50% made up.
Has anybody here besides me read those books and what do you feel about them in retrospect?
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Schakspir
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 110
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 09:09 pm: |
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Henry Miller is another one. Who in here actually believes he really slept with all those women?
Ralph Ellison also pointed out that particular passages in Wright's Black Boy were fabricated. So, the moral of the story is: don't rely on STORY-TELLERS for the truth. They tell stories.
End of story. |
Prettybabygirl
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Username: Prettybabygirl
Post Number: 91
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 09:14 pm: |
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"Black Boy" is my all time favorite book.
Bar none.
Don't care what nobody say. To me, every black child should be made to read that book.
If it's part fabricated, I could care less.
So that adds intensity to my first question:
It's pretty widely acknowledged that the autobiographies of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes were like 50% made up.
Has anybody here besides me read those books and what do you feel about them in retrospect?
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3406
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 09:22 pm: |
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I didn't know that Langston Hughes wrote an autobiography but the 2-book biography of him written by Arnold Rampersad is considered to be definitive and accurate. |
Prettybabygirl
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Username: Prettybabygirl
Post Number: 93
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 09:26 pm: |
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The Big Sea by Langston Hughes is an autobiography.
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Babygirl
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Babygirl
Post Number: 202
Registered: 04-2005
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 16, 2006 - 12:11 am: |
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I believe Langston diminished some aspects of his autobiography, as well as embellished some aspects but my sense is that his retelling of his early years was just that, a retelling, and the embellishments were not to sensationalize or dramatize his life but to simply engage the reader in those moments that were more meaningful to him. His story was warm and charming and resounded with much integrity.
And as he wrote, "literature is a big sea full of many fish." I guess we are discovering that some of our "fish" don't mind swimming in stagnant water and cesspools.
The standards that individuals are held to today, differ substantially from Zora and Langston's time period. As well, what the Frey's in this world can get away with and be excused for will always be far greater than the Jayson Blairs. Black writers will be held to a higher standard, readers will be more critical and more skeptical, which is why our integrity needs to be beyond reproach. It only took one Jayson Blair to put the integrity of all black journalists under a microscope whether they deserved to be there or not. Just because someone else may have done it and gotten away with it, doesn't make it right for those who come behind them to think they can or should do the same thing.
And as Kris posted earlier, "until we can measure each other within our own community objectively rather than emotionally, we will be stuck at this plateau we currently inhabit in America for years to come."
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Prettybabygirl
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Username: Prettybabygirl
Post Number: 96
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 16, 2006 - 12:37 am: |
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Excellent post, Babygirl.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
I loved Langston's "Big Sea", it inspired me so much. But I did think that some of the adventures were a little "embellished" and "fabricated", but it's funny--I didn't mind one bit. The book really filled me up and inspired me.
I also flat out love Zora Hurston's book, even though she lied about so much of her life. I still received a powerfully uplifting and important message, I felt, from reading "Dust Tracks", even if half of it wasn't true. I still find myself referring back to that book.
This is my theory for why the readers don't seem to care about Frey's scandal. His book is selling even stronger now and it's baffling the media.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3413
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 16, 2006 - 11:46 am: |
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H.L. Menken, the legendary pundit and newspaper columnist once said something to the effect that nobody would ever go broke betting against the intelligence of the American public. Film critics pan a movie and it becomes a huge box-office success, an inept oaf like George Bush is re-elected president. Sensationalism sells and the more sordid the better. Literary integrity carries no weight with the hoi poloi. And if anybody ever watches Jay Leno go out in the street and randomly question passers-by, people who don't know when the war of 1812 was fought or who is buried in Grant's tomb, black students on a black campus who don't recognize a picture of Booker T. Washington, whites planning to major in psychology who aren't sure who Sigmund Freud is, Pre-law students who don't what the bill of rights guarantees, then it's easy to see how ignorant and gullible the average American is. This is not the age of enlightenment. It is the era of the instant gratification and sound bytes provided by TV, of computers and electronic gadgets and, last but not least, of commercialzed fiction. And when millions of people allow a talk-show host to dictate what books they should read, then we know we're in trouble, especially when said host endorses a fabricated memoir. |
Aglae
Newbie Poster
Username: Aglae
Post Number: 5
Registered: 09-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 02:28 pm: |
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IMO, this is a pattern with Oprah and her bookclub, and why I choose not to buy/read anything she promotes through it. She could do so much for black/ethnic authors, but she doesn't. Unless you've won a Pulitzer or Nobel prize, you can't be black and in Oprah's bookclub. Has there ever been any black authors other than Walker, Morrison, and Angelou? I remember one of Harry Belafonte's criticism's of Sidney Poitier was that Sidney never made white folks mad or uncomfortable. I think the same could be said of Oprah. |
Thumper
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 448
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 09:53 pm: |
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Hello All,
I'm back for a minute. I just heard about Oprah having Frey on her show and she crucified him. Here's the link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060126/en_nm/frey_dc. Now what kind of sh_t is this!! Oprah has a lot of damn nerves. Now why back the book and the author only to chop him down ON HER SHOW? Now I can not fault Frey for his so call "lies" that he wrote in his book. Anybody that has a working brain cell knows that writers will make up stuff,ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO TELLING THEIR LIFE STORIES! The treachery is on OPRAH! She look like a straight back stabbing, bootlicker idiot! It's not Frey who made Oprah look bad, it was Oprah who made herself look like a goddamn FOOL! |
Thumper
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 449
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 09:56 pm: |
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Oh and by the way, Langston Hughes wrote two biographies, The Big Sea and I Wonder As I Wander, and he was critized for not telling all of the truth in either one of them. And the same was said for Hurston's Dust Track, as was already mentioned. So, it sounds like to me that Oprah, and her white women charges, should go in a corner, read another damn book and shut the f_ck up! |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3580
Registered: 01-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 10:15 pm: |
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I agree. Oprah crucified this man in order to resurrect her image. She was a fool for endorsing him after he was outed, and then to do an about face, and blame him for her stupdity was totally self-serving. |
Babygirl
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Babygirl
Post Number: 219
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 27, 2006 - 08:12 am: |
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Oprah was damned-if-she-did and damned-if-she-didn't. Would she have looked better not saying anything at all? She tried that. Didn't work. Then she gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried to stand behind him and her selection. Folks were up in arms. That didn't work. Then she confronted him just as publically as she endorsed him, in front of the cameras, playing it out where it started from the get-go. Now folks got a problem cause she made poor, poor James the crack addict look like a crack addict. Big, bad Oprah picking on the sad little liar. She can't win, no matter what she does or doesn't do. Oprah has more juice than James and suddenly this is about her being wrong and not about him.
And Thumper, you're right. Authors may well embellish their life stories, but I think the expectation from readers is if you ate bacon and eggs for breakfast and you write about it to make them eggs look like a five-star meal, then that's one thing. The reader still knows you ate bacon and eggs. But when you write about your bacon and eggs breakfast being a five-star meal when in actuality you really ate oatmeal or you didn't even eat at all, that's a whole other animal.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3585
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 27, 2006 - 09:31 am: |
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To me, this was never about anything but Oprah maintaining her image - about covering her own back. I don't know that she even cares whether Frey was sincere or not. Oprah, herself, embellishes her oral memoirs every time she talks about her betrodden childhood which relatives have claimed she exaggerates about. But I'd be the first to agree that Frey is a wimp who got what he deserved, mostly because he allowed himself to be intimidated by the great noble Oprah. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 833
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 27, 2006 - 11:12 am: |
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SPeaking of literary frauds, has anyone been following this story?
http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lawcontent&task=view&id=12468&Itemi d=47
Wow, must be something in the water. (Or is it harder these days to not get caught?) |
Kris_broughton
Newbie Poster
Username: Kris_broughton
Post Number: 9
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 09:54 am: |
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Oprah is probably the first person to tell him that he is a bullshit fuck up who he is totally powerless against. Posturing with an angry sister is a quick way to get your feelings hurt, ESPECIALLY if she's got a couple a dollars.
My mother had a student like him years ago - cocky, lazy, indulged rather than parented by attorney parents. He refused to take directions. He pouted. He moaned and groaned.
So my mother, whose resemblance to Donovan McNabb's mom means she has a little more heft than Oprah, called the boy's mother to set up a conference. She was too busy. She had to go to court. She was in the middle of a divorce. She was going to change his medication.
The boy came to school the next day, fully aware of what had transpired by phone. When my mother asked him to stop talking, she said he turned around and said, "I'm going to sue you. My momma's a lawyer and my daddy's a lawyer and they can sue you."
My mother said she asked the class to be quiet. She asked the boy to follow her. He had been to the principal's office many times, so he wasn't fazed by the prospect of one more visit.
But they didn't go to the principal's office. They turned the corner into a little used hallway opposite her room. My mother says, (I wasn't there, so I don't know, but she's done this to me too when I was fucking up) "I jacked his ass up against the wall. 'Son, I've been teaching for almost thirty years. You are not the only kid in this class with problems. We all have problems. I got problems. But that doesn't mean I come in here and show out like you do. That's my classroom in there. I run it. You don't. Neither does your momma or your daddy. And if they'd like to try, they can sue me, but that's why I pay my NEA dues every month - so I can have a lawyer on call just for stuff like this. Act up in my classroom again and I'll give you a reason to sue me.' Then I leaned in close, so he could see my eyes. So he could feel my breath. Didn't have no more trouble out of him."
His momma called my mother later in the school year. "What did you do?," she asked. "He's calmed down so much." My mother said, "I wanted to whip that woman I was so mad. Here she is, with all these degrees and all these advantages, and she can't raise one little boy."
I hope Oprah jacked his ill mannered, overindulged ass up. I hope she snorted at him through those broad brown nostrils. I hope she reminded him that she came up from the absolute bottom, living with so many cockroaches she saw them as her friends, being shunned by her own parents, being taunted because she was too god dammed black and too god dammed ugly and too god dammed nappy headed to amount to much, according to the black people who had amounted to something.
One of the seminal phrases I heard during my youth was, "don't let your mouth write a check your ass can't cash."
I believe Mr. Frey is about to run out of ass.
Or as they say in the hood, where the REALLY REALLY fucked up people who have had holes in their cheeks have scars, whose missing front teeth are not going to be replaced by implants - "dat mu'fucka ass out."
Well, as ass out as you can be with a few million.
The point about not promoting little known or unknown black writers, especially us males, is a very, very good point. So while they are feeling contrite over at Oprah, Inc., I think I will zip off an email asking them why she can't seem to come up with any black male authors for her club, since we know they really read their emails.
I might even enlist the help of some of my writer friends.
Any of you guys in on this? |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1787
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 11:11 am: |
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She ain't gonna come up with any black male authors because her audience is white women. Stupid mostly suburban ones, to boot.
Face it. We ain't her audience. |
Steve_s
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 222
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 04:56 pm: |
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Hello All, I'm back for a minute. I just heard about Oprah having Frey on her show and she crucified him. Here's the link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060126/en_nm/frey_dc. Now what kind of sh_t is this!! Oprah has a lot of damn nerves. Now why back the book and the author only to chop him down ON HER SHOW? Now I can not fault Frey for his so call "lies" that he wrote in his book. Anybody that has a working brain cell knows that writers will make up stuff,ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO TELLING THEIR LIFE STORIES! The treachery is on OPRAH! She look like a straight back stabbing, bootlicker idiot! It's not Frey who made Oprah look bad, it was Oprah who made herself look like a goddamn FOOL!
I think that's exactly right, I watched it and thought it was an injustice to this kid, privileged or otherwise. I'm almost finished with the book and I've gotta say something.
This may not be the best example, but everyone knows that James Weldon Johnson published "Autobiography of an Ex- . . " in 1912 (?), although he started writing in 1903 when he got tired of the music business and enrolled as a grad student at Columbia.
Of course, it was an anonymously-published novel, but part of its impact was that it was read as a factual account of life on the color line at the turn of the century. In other words, creative people in all the arts often push the boundaries of form, genre, and style, and that's how we get new styles, hybrid forms, and all that.
I'm currently 2/3 through Frey's book and while he's neither a Fitz or a Hemy, it's not a bad book at all, I'm telling you. I'd call it a fictionalized memoir of a 23-year-old's 6 weeks in a rehab clinic. If Frey had called this an autobiographical novel there would have been no problem, but he doesn't think of it that way, he considers it a memoir. Although I haven't reached the part where the main character supposedly kills someone (?), I think it's her responsibity, not the publisher's, to have her staff fact-check it before choosing it as a book club selection. Because she's the one responsible for it selling 3 million copies.
Ever read Beneath the Underdog by Charles Mingus? It's a biography but a lot of it is fictionalized. Is that more common with narratives of addiction? I don't really know, but of those I've read, I'd say that Straight Life by Art Peppper, the saxophonist's 620-page torturous biography, contains a lot of fictionalization. It's also more about addiction than music.
To get back to the original point, I think Oprah and everyone else felt in their gut that this book was saying something. She should have just let it go. Instead, she put together this inquisition show with all these hacks and hustlers from the NY Times who couldn't form a consortium to write a novel as good as Frey's.
Besides, how can you fault a white guy who creates a black character, a circuit court judge who turns to alcohol to ease the pain of putting people away, and calls him Miles Davis, a clarinet player?
Anyway, I thank you, bye, see ya later!
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Blklitreader
Newbie Poster
Username: Blklitreader
Post Number: 8
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 07:40 pm: |
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Thumper posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 09:53 pm:
It's not Frey who made Oprah look bad, it was Oprah who made herself look like a goddamn FOOL!
I agree. For one who claims to be all about truth, she originally said, all the fuss about his lying, was much ado about nothing, which she said because her viewers wrote her and said, they got the essence of the book, as well as herself, despite the embellishments, then she started to get mail from those on the other side, then she jumped across the fence. I suppose, it all depends which way your viewers sway and your opinion and belief, about the value and importance of truth and honesty. |
Aglae
Regular Poster
Username: Aglae
Post Number: 26
Registered: 09-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 01, 2006 - 04:07 pm: |
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some interesting comments here about oprah--
http://lainad.typepad.com/writing_is_fighting/2006/02/women_sexuality.html#comme nt-16615620 |
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