Brisbane Writers Festival Day 1: James Frey, Lloyd Jones and John Hughes on the biography.
Well I promised happy_melody that I'd take notes on the James Frey talk for her since she couldn't go today (Though he has got a talk tomorrow that you could attend, and another one on Saturday I believe about his new book 'Bright Shiny Morning' so you should check those out) and so here is the basic summary of the talk, and what I liked about it, topics that intruige me, etc.
Basically the theme of the discussion, from each Author, though they all said it different ways, was that it is deceitful for any book to label itself 'non-fiction', when it has an author, because no matter how faithful someone tries to be when telling the story, or relating the facts, the author is going to have their own take on it, and they will consciously or unconsciously affect the book in that matter. All three acknowledged that before they wrote their respective novels, and have worked in the "boundary" area, between non-fiction and fiction, all for similar purposes.
Jones talked about his book 'Biografi', which I think I might buy, as it looks terribly interesting, and how in order for him to tell the story to the best effect, he needed to have a fictionalised account of his experiences in Albania, because if he'd tried to do it from his own perspective, or from a completely journalistic point of view, it would've lost the meaning and the intrigue. He saw his character as a metaphor for the rest of the story/tale, rather than a fictitious creation.
Frey talked about how he set out to break every rule in the book when writing A Million Little Pieces, because he wanted the book to "fuck the reader up", his words... And he didn't mean it in the dishonest deceitful way, but in a way that caused the reader to stop and think and consider, and that would affect the reader in some profound way. The facts he changed/altered in his book were done to serve the effectiveness of the story, and to push the messages he wanted to push, rather than to knowingly be untruthful. He also stated that he originally sold AMLP to his publisher as a novel, and it was the publisher's decision to publish it as a memoir, and he derided America's need for 'Rules' in Literature/Art, and the double-standards inherant within the system.
Apparently in Barack Obama's Memoirs, they have found equivalent factual discrepancies as the ones found in AMLP, but the media doesn't care about that, and they much more cared that the book the recovering addict wrote was factually accurate, which he found incredibly scary. Which I'll admit I do too. I think the issues of credibility in biography and memoir are important, but at the same time, are they completely necessary? I'm not sure. I think all three authors had persuasive reasons for the creative choices they made with their stories.
That's all I really have, just off the top of my head. On a more personal note, James Frey chews a lot of gum, and has a lisp, and the gum thing got really distracting for me, since I was in the middle and basically right in front of him. There are some interesting looking lectures on tomorrow I think I might rock up to. Best thing about the ones tomorrow is that they're free! John Marsden is giving a talk on his newest book: A novelisation of Hamlet aimed at teenagers/young adults, and most authors do a signing after their talks, so I'll take along some of my books and get his pen-marks on them hopefully :).
But right now? I'm going to make a salad for tea and watch Titanic. I'm in that sort of mood!
Basically the theme of the discussion, from each Author, though they all said it different ways, was that it is deceitful for any book to label itself 'non-fiction', when it has an author, because no matter how faithful someone tries to be when telling the story, or relating the facts, the author is going to have their own take on it, and they will consciously or unconsciously affect the book in that matter. All three acknowledged that before they wrote their respective novels, and have worked in the "boundary" area, between non-fiction and fiction, all for similar purposes.
Jones talked about his book 'Biografi', which I think I might buy, as it looks terribly interesting, and how in order for him to tell the story to the best effect, he needed to have a fictionalised account of his experiences in Albania, because if he'd tried to do it from his own perspective, or from a completely journalistic point of view, it would've lost the meaning and the intrigue. He saw his character as a metaphor for the rest of the story/tale, rather than a fictitious creation.
Frey talked about how he set out to break every rule in the book when writing A Million Little Pieces, because he wanted the book to "fuck the reader up", his words... And he didn't mean it in the dishonest deceitful way, but in a way that caused the reader to stop and think and consider, and that would affect the reader in some profound way. The facts he changed/altered in his book were done to serve the effectiveness of the story, and to push the messages he wanted to push, rather than to knowingly be untruthful. He also stated that he originally sold AMLP to his publisher as a novel, and it was the publisher's decision to publish it as a memoir, and he derided America's need for 'Rules' in Literature/Art, and the double-standards inherant within the system.
Apparently in Barack Obama's Memoirs, they have found equivalent factual discrepancies as the ones found in AMLP, but the media doesn't care about that, and they much more cared that the book the recovering addict wrote was factually accurate, which he found incredibly scary. Which I'll admit I do too. I think the issues of credibility in biography and memoir are important, but at the same time, are they completely necessary? I'm not sure. I think all three authors had persuasive reasons for the creative choices they made with their stories.
That's all I really have, just off the top of my head. On a more personal note, James Frey chews a lot of gum, and has a lisp, and the gum thing got really distracting for me, since I was in the middle and basically right in front of him. There are some interesting looking lectures on tomorrow I think I might rock up to. Best thing about the ones tomorrow is that they're free! John Marsden is giving a talk on his newest book: A novelisation of Hamlet aimed at teenagers/young adults, and most authors do a signing after their talks, so I'll take along some of my books and get his pen-marks on them hopefully :).
But right now? I'm going to make a salad for tea and watch Titanic. I'm in that sort of mood!