Read somewhere that oprah's upset with frey for lying abt bits in his memoir. but me wonders why take it so personally? haven't we all fibbed, concocted, imagined bits of our life at some point of time. Romanticizing our childhood, good old bachpan ke din, waxing lyrical abt how it was when we were young and without care. Were we, really?
And after all, its just a book. He wrote it. He imagined bits happening to him. Bad ppl and evil stuff. Became a bestseller bcos he writes well and convincingly enough, so much that it broke thru the bestseller roof. So, the ppl who read it turn out to be suckers, oprah one of them. Big deal. Seems he apologized and grovelled. Funny. Humans.
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I see what you are saying, the problem though is it was published under the category of Memoirs - its like Mr. Jayson Blair who concocted stories for The New York Times - its okay to romanticize parts of our lives, and God knows I am guilty of it, but then call it a Novel for crying out loud!
Oprah, you know, has created for herself a position of curious responsibility -- due to fact of she says "hey cool" at a book, it sells vast quantities (and makes the author rich) overnight. She feels (I think rightly) some seriousness goes along with that sort of situational power. There are questions of principle involved -- because (for one thing) there are karmic waves that flow out from actions that effect so many people in one way or another (not least among them, authors & publishers). We're talking big bucks, literary reputations, etc. The essential point (further) involves the sort of redeption story that Oprah has made a career out of popularising. Think about it. If the basic premise is: be honest to yourself, be honest to the world, take responsibility, face reality [etc.], then this premise, as the engine of narrative, cannot really afford to skimp on little things like . . . etc., you get the idea.
[mind you, I didn't see her spiel or even read it; I'm either talking thru my hat -- or giving a kind of analysis of the situation as it strikes me ;-)]
There's ground for fuss where powerful forces are involved, no?
If, say, a big food producing company marketed something as "high protein" and it turned out to be "lotsa sawdust" . . .
Good storytelling of course is involved in both the inventions of fiction, and the imagination involved in framing lived experience. Still, lived experience has certain bedrock dimensions to it -- as any rent-payer, air-breather, child-bearer, or parent-knower (among others) might aver.
[okay, now I step down from the orange crate, smile, wrap the shawl around shoulders, and traipse off into the night scene; thanks! it was fun]
d.i.
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