2.03.2006
Addicted to Oil
A lot of folks I know or read were irritated last month over the Oprah-Frey flap. I read, and heard, variations on the theme of 'what is the big deal?' about 50 times after smoking gun revealed that bestselling memoirist James Frey is at best, a writer of fiction, and at worst, a big, fat liar.
As an 'is it a memoir' debate, BIB thought the Frey flap was authenticity lite. A real, academic examination of the issue (BIB was having a snobby moment) would focus on something like Binjamin Wilkomirshi's similarly titled, 'Fragments,' a memoir of dubious veracity retelling Wilkomirshi's childhood experiences in a concentration camp.
Similar to BIB, Andrew Sullivan started looking for the 'original Frey' - in his case, Robinson Crusoe. Christine Bauman took the 'Fake but Accurate' stance - and blamed the publishing industry for recasting a fictional tale as memoir in order to sell more books. Oprah, intimately familiar with the publishing industry, took a similar stance. Her first response, here excerpted from Larry King live, was that, " the underlying message of redemption in James Frey's memoir still resonates with me and I know that it resonates with millions of other people who have read this book and will continue to read this book...to me this is much ado about nothing..."
But the public didn't follow that particular fork in the path, and in the end, neither could Oprah. The question of whether the locus of truth is equally present, but falls differently based on where the line of authenticity is drawn, never satisfied the question because that wasn't the issue. What, then, was the issue?
My read of the Frey-Oprah kerfluffle is an allegory for America's growing mistrust of George Bush, not a literary discussion of authenticity and memoir. The alteration to the broadly held belief that Bush is a straight-talking Texan is following the narrative structure of the dry-drunk. A Michele Malkin reader sums up the dry-drunk narrative nicely:
As an 'is it a memoir' debate, BIB thought the Frey flap was authenticity lite. A real, academic examination of the issue (BIB was having a snobby moment) would focus on something like Binjamin Wilkomirshi's similarly titled, 'Fragments,' a memoir of dubious veracity retelling Wilkomirshi's childhood experiences in a concentration camp.
Similar to BIB, Andrew Sullivan started looking for the 'original Frey' - in his case, Robinson Crusoe. Christine Bauman took the 'Fake but Accurate' stance - and blamed the publishing industry for recasting a fictional tale as memoir in order to sell more books. Oprah, intimately familiar with the publishing industry, took a similar stance. Her first response, here excerpted from Larry King live, was that, " the underlying message of redemption in James Frey's memoir still resonates with me and I know that it resonates with millions of other people who have read this book and will continue to read this book...to me this is much ado about nothing..."
But the public didn't follow that particular fork in the path, and in the end, neither could Oprah. The question of whether the locus of truth is equally present, but falls differently based on where the line of authenticity is drawn, never satisfied the question because that wasn't the issue. What, then, was the issue?
My read of the Frey-Oprah kerfluffle is an allegory for America's growing mistrust of George Bush, not a literary discussion of authenticity and memoir. The alteration to the broadly held belief that Bush is a straight-talking Texan is following the narrative structure of the dry-drunk. A Michele Malkin reader sums up the dry-drunk narrative nicely:
"Among the worst facets of Oprah's "fake but accurate" defense is this: recovery requires HONESTY. Until a person can be honest about what they were and what they are, they are still addicts. This book is a pattern for a failed, incomplete recovery; written by a still-lying addict and promoted by a huckster who uses America's hunger for authenticity to enrich herself."Its just a hunch I have - that this national discussion about addiction and lies in some way alters the collective neural pathways to and from our honesty-challenged president, George W. Bush. I was happy to see today that the (liberal) media response (copied and culled from Froomkin's helpful summary here) to the second Oprah-Frey interview seems to confirm what my gut says:
- Norman Solomon wrote in Huffingtonpost.com on Sunday: "During the 'Oprah' show, while lecturing a powerful book-publishing executive who had served as an enabler for the author's mendacity, Winfrey declared: 'That needs to change.' But what about the powerful news-media executives who keep enabling the president's mendacity?"
- Eugene Robinson wrote in his Washington Post opinion column on Tuesday: "If there were justice in the world, George W. Bush would have to give his State of the Union address from Oprah's couch."
- Here's cartoonist Mike Luckovich on Monday, imagining just such a scenario.
- Margaret Carlson wrote in her Bloomberg opinion column Thursday: "What a waste of Oprah's time exposing the likes of James Frey when there are so many government liars who need exposing. To cite one not-so-trivial example: If we had to pick one person to interview the president, and the choice was between Oprah and the New York Times editor who approved all those stories about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, I'd choose Oprah any day."
- Here, from the Crooks and Liars blog, is a video clip from Jon Stewart's show Monday night, which juxtaposes Oprah skewering Frey, and a softball interview with Dick Cheney.
- Greg Mitchell wrote a column Wednesday in Editor and Publisher, imagining Bush in the Frey role.
