James Frey in GQ
[QUOTE=mirka]well, it wasn't "a little bit". In fact it was quite a lot. There's more to the issue if you care to read through the thread.[/QUOTE]
oopsy! the thread was too long to read the whole thing. i guess that is a big deal.
[QUOTE=ally]oopsy! the thread was too long to read the whole thing. i guess that is a big deal.[/QUOTE]
yeah, and I didn't mean you [I]should[/I]. I just didn't want to repeat myself because I do agree it's [I]just a book[/I]. It's also sparked a lot of interesting discussion about fiction, publishing and accountability. Interesting to me, anyway.
Who's this "Oprah" everyone keeps talking about?
[QUOTE=jase]Who's this "Oprah" everyone keeps talking about?[/QUOTE]
Some member with no avatar and one [url=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showpost.php?p=61148&postcount=40]post[/url].
[QUOTE=mirka]Some member with no avatar and one [url=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showpost.php?p=61148&postcount=40]post[/url].[/QUOTE]
What a bitch!
[QUOTE=ally]i agree. oprah is SO irritating. and I don't understand why people care so much about her? She is nothing special and she so does not deserve to be as rich and powerful as she is.[/QUOTE]
I think people just need to be told what to do, and made feel like they're special when they're told to do it.
She has some creepy, cult-like power over her fanbase, and frankly it scares me a little.
.jpg "Dr.Jekyll8Mr.Hyde's picture")
[QUOTE=moe.ron]i'll tell you why he did it: he wanted to sell books!! it was shopped around as a novel and rejected several times. someone suggested he call it a memoir, maybe his agent? and BADDA-BING, shit's flying off the shelves.[/QUOTE]
That's what it comes down to. The controversy is interesting for reasons Mirka burns about. Good writers get passed over and shit is published: again and again.
Now that it's in my head that [I]Pieces [/I]is fiction I can't finish it because the writing is bad, and the story is nothing I haven't read or seen in some shape. Perhaps it's interesting to people that have no knowledge of rehabs and recovery.
What did he admit to on opraH? Are only [I]pieces[/I] bullshit, or is the whole thing one flaming heap of sewage? Whose to say he's not a bearded woman?
[QUOTE=ally]i agree. oprah is SO irritating. and I don't understand why people care so much about her? She is nothing special and she so does not deserve to be as rich and powerful as she is.[/QUOTE]
I agree that she is very annoying cause she's just everywhere but I'm not going to go as far as saying she's not special or that she doesn't deserve to be rich.
I mean this was a very poor southern black girl who is now nearly a multi-billionaire. She didn't reach the top based on her good looks, athletic skills, or because she was connected to anyone important. She worked her ass off.
Give the sista some credit yo!
[QUOTE=mirka]well, it wasn't "a little bit". In fact it was quite a lot. There's more to the issue if you care to read through the thread.[/QUOTE]
from what ive gathered, its supposed to be like 8 pages out of however many hundred, that give false info
but i admit not being interested in the subject enough to bother looking into that
[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde]
Now that it's in my head that [I]Pieces [/I]is fiction I can't finish it because the writing is bad, and the story is nothing I haven't read or seen in some shape. Perhaps it's interesting to people that have no knowledge of rehabs and recovery.
[/QUOTE]
how does finding out something is fiction all of a sudden make the writing bad? fact or fiction it still would have been "the story is nothing I haven't read or seen in some shape."
what was it that made you interested in it in the first place?
[QUOTE=karbunkle]from what ive gathered, its supposed to be like 8 pages out of however many hundred, that give false info
but i admit not being interested in the subject enough to bother looking into that [/quote]
I'm done with someone saying that pretty much once every page of this thread.
i dunno i didnt bother reading all the other pages in this thread either
[QUOTE=MinervaG2]I agree that she is very annoying cause she's just everywhere but I'm not going to go as far as saying she's not special or that she doesn't deserve to be rich.
I mean this was a very poor southern black girl who is now nearly a multi-billionaire. She didn't reach the top based on her good looks, athletic skills, or because she was connected to anyone important. She worked her ass off.
Give the sista some credit yo![/QUOTE]
i just think that there are people out there who are just as talented and smart as Oprah is and they don't have nearly as much power as she does. she is not that great of an actress and she is not that intelligent. i just don't see why she has so much power and why people seem to worship her??
[QUOTE=ally]i just think that there are people out there who are just as talented and smart as Oprah is and they don't have nearly as much power as she does. she is not that great of an actress and she is not that intelligent. i just don't see why she has so much power and why people seem to worship her??[/QUOTE]
image is everything
Oprah is powerful because her story is that of the American dream, poor girl molested and abused grows up to greatness because she believed in herself and worked her ass off. She is relatable due to her "honesty" about weight issues and health issues and so on and so forth. And for women in the suburbs who pop pills and drive their kids to soccer games (just a random stereotype don't bug out) she is someone who offers hope through her shows.
she's a small factor in everything that's wrong with america.
[QUOTE=ally]i just think that there are people out there who are just as talented and smart as Oprah is and they don't have nearly as much power as she does.[/QUOTE]
So, why are you bitching? You should be happy.
[QUOTE=ally]she is not that great of an actress and she is not that intelligent.[/QUOTE]
I'm not a fan of Oprah but man I think it's so lame that you bring up her acting. What a cheap shot. I mean she's not rich and powerful because of her acting.....c'mon.
[QUOTE=ally]i just don't see why she has so much power and why people seem to worship her??[/QUOTE]
It's America sweety. It's the land where poor hard working minorities can grow up to become powerful media moguls.......what a fucking nightmare.
[QUOTE=karbunkle]from what ive gathered, its supposed to be like 8 pages out of however many hundred, that give false info
but i admit not being interested in the subject enough to bother looking into that
how does finding out something is fiction all of a sudden make the writing bad? fact or fiction it still would have been "the story is nothing I haven't read or seen in some shape."
what was it that made you interested in it in the first place?[/QUOTE]
My take of it is, and I'm taking a lead from an article I read in a newspaper a few weeks back, is that the rules, the standards, for writing fiction are higher than that for memoir.
As fiction, A million little pieces couldn't cut it. It was rejected an awful lot by agents and publishers. Hence the repackaging and resubmitting as a work of 'memoir'. Bad writing is forgivable if we believe in the story being told to us as truth. Eg, Pelzer et al. Once that barrier is broken though, we look at the langauage and style, and frankly, A Million little pieces really is written poorly. It is not an original story and or set of circumstances, and it is written without grace, poise, or style. It reads like a memoir from somebody who led an interesting life, but never learned the basics of crafting believable fiction. Now we know he didn't lead that life, so he has lost our trust.
On a side note, I remember reading an interview with him in London when the book came out. He really did come across as an atypical arrogant, I am the best at everything asshole, not too unlike Troy Duffy from the documentary 'Overnight' . I think he said something like 'I want to be read in a hundred years...like Faulkner, like Kerouac..." Well he may be remembered, may even be talked about, but only in the same breath as Milli Vanilli.
On another side note, given the Americans crazy penchant for law suits and the like, is there any chance of him being sued for damages, for misrepresentation or something? He's lost his agent now, and as we al know the publisher will only drop him when the sales figures drop, is there a realistic chance thyat he could salvage anything from his career as a writer? Hope not.
[QUOTE=dannymc]...On another side note, given the Americans crazy penchant for law suits and the like, is there any chance of him being sued for damages, for misrepresentation or something? ...[/QUOTE]
[URL=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002760247_frey25m.html]we crazy americans never dissappoint!![/URL]
[QUOTE=moe.ron][URL=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002760247_frey25m.html]we crazy americans never dissappoint!![/URL][/QUOTE]
That's a shock.:rolleyes:
[I]Little pieces[/I] is one of the few books I've started and couldn't finish. The writing had always dried my skin and given dandruff:[I] I[I][/I] go to the toilet. I take a shit. i go to the sink. I brush my teeth. It feels good. I eat some beans. It feels good.[/I] But i got through that when i thought this was a guy telling his true story. When i went back to it after the controversy i'd get through three or four sentences nursing a bleeding frog in my stomach untill it croaked, "you're full of lettuce shit!" Had to permanently throw that one in the attic. Sorry Sonya.
I found it was lame that Oprah ripped him apart on television for making shit up.
I mean, yeah, it is supposed to be non-fiction, but if you get down to it anything ever writen is pure-fiction. Even the most truthful of memoirs is just a story based on real events, unless the author was taking notes on how he felt, what he said, who was there, what they said, etc...
I figure he helped people out with his story, so who cares how much of it is true?
He is pretty dumb for unleashing the lawsuit against TSG, but, hey, Oprah has done much dumber things.
Like asking an Etheopian supermodel why everyone in her country has such nice skin and are all so thin.
BTW, I haven't read the book.
[QUOTE=ally] And it is just a book. It doesn't really matter if he exaggerated a little bit. people do it all the time.[/QUOTE]
well, it wasn't "a little bit". In fact it was quite a lot. There's more to the issue if you care to read through the thread.