ripe, I tell you, RIPE
One of my students did me such a big favor yesterday: she brought in a copy of James Frey's "note to the reader" that bookstores are now giving out with copies of A Million Little Pieces. I'll give you an excerpt here because it's too long to reproduce in its entirety (and I'm sure it's somewhere online, but I haven't checked). One thing that's noteworthy about the very materiality of the note is that it looks like a poem. The title "a note to the reader" is all lowercase and each of the subsequent paragraphs is centered. The entire note is about the size of a third of a regular 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, and it's printed on both sides in very small font--8 or 9 point maybe. a whisper.
A Million Little Pieces is about my memories of my time in a drug and alcohol treatment center. as has been accurately revealed by two journalists and an Internet Web site, and subsequently acknowledged by me, I embellished many details about my past experiences, and altered others in order to serve what I felt was the greater purpose of the book. I sincerely apologize to those readers who have been disappointed by my actions.James Frey, writing with a smoking gun to his head. The passive voice in that first paragraph is loved by me.
....
I made other alterations in my portrayal of myself, most of which portrayed me in ways that made me tougher or more daring and more aggressive than in reality I was, or I am. People cope with adversity in many different ways, ways that are deeply personal. I think one way people cope is by developing a skewed perception of themselves that allows them to overcome and do things they thought they couldn't do before. My mistake, and it is one I deeply regret, is writing about the person I created in my mind to help me cope, and not the person who went through the experience.
posted by aerobil @ 7:04 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I've been a long-time critic of Frey, as I've told you before. Less because of the misrepresentations in the book than the approach while discussing his book way back before Oprah knew who he was. He was arrogant and offensive and whatnot.
But, and this is a huge disclaimer, but I completely relate to what he says in this statement of coping with troubles by "developing a skewed perception of [himself] that allow[ed] [him] to overcome..." That's a wonderful, and I think quite accurate, way of explaining how people cope with things such as alcoholism or depression. I really, really hope that Frey is given a second chance. (Although, it'd be nice to see him do something other than just whisper a note.)
And part of this hope come from an author I think a lot of: Stephen Elliot. Who, on his blog, wrote a nice piece about Frey. He didn't make excuses, but he did talk about how in the midst of all of this hoo-haw, the fact that Frey is a very nice and generous and sincere person has gotten lost. To people who know him, he never has been that arrogant person I first took him to be.
I have no point here. Just sayin'.
Oh, I hear ya, my friend. After all, I fell in love with the persona he developed in the book, and I don't doubt that he really is a good person. Can't say I would've done any better in his whole situation. The note ends with this: "I hope these revelations will not alter their [readers'] faith in the book's central message--that drug addiction and alcoholism can be overcome, and there is always a path to redemption is you fight to find one. Thirteen years after I left treatment, I'm still on that path, and I hope, ultimately, I'll get there."
nevertheless. The passive voice in that first paragraph is chuckled at by me.
I'm looking forward to the next layer in this kafkaesque onion of reflectonarrativizedmemoirish writing: the book about all of this, reflecting on the constructing of the reflective self as refracted in the funhouse mirrors of american literary pop culture, writ large as OPRAH.
hooray for him.i think he done good
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