Saturday, February 24, 2018
Week Seven Prompt - Book Controversies
I vividly remember the scandal of A Million Little Pieces. It affected me in a big way. I had read the book and was blown away. I loved it! It was one of those masterpieces that you can't stop thinking about and wish it never ended. And then, Oprah. I was appalled that the memoir had been published as a true story when it was mostly made up and embellished! I thought to myself, "How can we possibly know what's true and not true if this is the way publishers are working?" I was deep into the memoir craze at that time and suddenly wondered what was real and what was fake. To this day, I don't really trust anything I read. I suppose it's good that the scandal happened, though, because it put publishers who don't fact check or publish material they know is not true on the line. No one wants to get called out on Oprah like James and his publisher did! I saw the show. She was merciless! I actually felt kind of bad for James. It seemed to me that he was trying to say (when Oprah let him speak, that is) that he had told the publisher that the book was not totally accurate, but that the publisher decided to market it as a memoir anyway. Either way, the public was duped by someone, and it seems to me that the publisher was responsible for making sure they were putting out a memoir that wasn't made up. Because it was an amazing book and would have been just as good as a novel.
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This is a big problem nowadays. I don't know if you ever heard about the scandal surrounding Louise Linton's book (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/gap-year-in-africa-book--telegraph-statement/), but it was pretty much the same thing: it came out that a lot of the information was factually incorrect, not really a memoir, stuff like that. I think the big issue with this stuff happening is that people have begun to malign other people and places in order to get their book marketed, which is not only deceiving but is also polarizing. It's so sad that we can't just be honest with each other anymore, especially since some of the beauty of books is their ability to allow that honesty to take place.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/07/06/484810475/-lintonlies-how-zambians-are-using-social-media-to-talk-back
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting. Emma, I'm glad you brought up the Louise Linton scandal as well, it raises another aspect of how these frauds impact actual human beings. Frey's readers felt betrayed and hoodwinked, imagine how those who've had their lives impacted by loved ones who are addicted to drugs might have felt! Linton in her case, self-published a self-aggrandizing "white savior" narrative, painting herself as this lady bountiful figure, and mischaracterizing and lying about entire countries full of people. She was so arrogant, she couldn't' even be bothered to look at a nap or do a simple Google search to get her fake facts right! What's interesting about her case is that the people she misrepresented and condescendingly lied about were able to clap back and tell their own version of events, AKA reality. The NPR article I linked to covered this aspect, of people from the Congo responding on social media to her ridiculous yarn. The arrogance of thinking you can get away with that!
With these fake memoirs being published as truth I think this can be very detrimental because like you mention, it can make readers untrusting of what they read, which is a shame, especially if a real memoir could have helped them or have been something they enjoyed reading.
ReplyDeleteGreat prompt response! I too almost felt bad for Frey because Oprah RIPPED into him. I don't agree with what he did, but I also feel that his publisher has some of the responsibility. Full points,
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