People are never satisfied.
This guy called James Frey wrote a book called A Million Little Pieces, which is all about his life as an out-of-control, meth-taking, crack-smoking alcoholic, and his "journey to recovery." I picked it up in a bookshop once, and read the first few pages, because the guy I was going out with at the time was trying to convince me that I was an alcoholic (this was because he couldn't drink, because of the meds he was taking, so he didn't want me to, either). I found it quite hard going and not very compelling, so I didn't buy it.
Needless to say, it features plenty of outrageous anecdotes about the crazy shit he did while off his tits - graphic descriptions of his gruesome injuries (including tearing a hole in his cheek big enough to put his finger through); accounts of his assaults on police officers (including hitting one with his car) and subsequent arrests and jailtime; analysis of his failed relationships, etc etc. Pretty standard, for the "ooh look how fucked up my life has been!!!" genre.
So anyway, it sold really, really well in the States - 3 million copies or something - largely because Oprah Winfrey thought it was awesome and made it one of her book-club books.
And then it turned out that he'd made up a lot of the content - and people got really angry and self-righteous. Oprah got him on the show and gave him a lecture: "I have to say it is difficult for me to talk to you because I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers." His publishing house has agreed to refund anyone who feels that they were "defrauded" when they bought the book.
Duped? Betrayed? Defrauded?! What a load of shit! The people who bought the book got EXACTLY what they wanted: a ringside seat; a close-up of someone's car-crash life. They wanted to read about how totally fucked he was, and that's what they got. They derived enormous pleasure from reading all about his pain. They got a kick out of his desperation. Reading books like A Million Little Pieces is voyeurism, plain and simple. It's compassion pornography: "oh, yes! yes!! tell me how horrendous your life has been! make me feel baaaad for you!" It's people getting off on other people's misfortune - and as long as it has the desired effect, what difference does it make whether it all actually happened or not?
And furthermore, shouldn't his readers be glad, instead of pissed off, that most of it was made up? After all, if they were affected by the book, surely that's because they liked the narrator - so why exactly are they angry and resentful that he didn't suffer quite as much as they thought he did?
I don't see why anyone needs to be angry: the readers got their kicks, and the writer wasn't having as bad a time as he might have been - everybody wins.
This whole episode reminds me: my friend Ana and I have been planning for ages to write one of those "my parents abused me - wanna read all the details?" books. It'll be called Butterfly Lost or Too Young... or Still My Courage Burns or something similarly dreadful. We're going to make the abuse in it super-terrible, and it's going to sell millions to people who get off on reading about the sexual torture of children - in a totally respectable way, you understand.
Needless to say, it features plenty of outrageous anecdotes about the crazy shit he did while off his tits - graphic descriptions of his gruesome injuries (including tearing a hole in his cheek big enough to put his finger through); accounts of his assaults on police officers (including hitting one with his car) and subsequent arrests and jailtime; analysis of his failed relationships, etc etc. Pretty standard, for the "ooh look how fucked up my life has been!!!" genre.
So anyway, it sold really, really well in the States - 3 million copies or something - largely because Oprah Winfrey thought it was awesome and made it one of her book-club books.
And then it turned out that he'd made up a lot of the content - and people got really angry and self-righteous. Oprah got him on the show and gave him a lecture: "I have to say it is difficult for me to talk to you because I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers." His publishing house has agreed to refund anyone who feels that they were "defrauded" when they bought the book.
Duped? Betrayed? Defrauded?! What a load of shit! The people who bought the book got EXACTLY what they wanted: a ringside seat; a close-up of someone's car-crash life. They wanted to read about how totally fucked he was, and that's what they got. They derived enormous pleasure from reading all about his pain. They got a kick out of his desperation. Reading books like A Million Little Pieces is voyeurism, plain and simple. It's compassion pornography: "oh, yes! yes!! tell me how horrendous your life has been! make me feel baaaad for you!" It's people getting off on other people's misfortune - and as long as it has the desired effect, what difference does it make whether it all actually happened or not?
And furthermore, shouldn't his readers be glad, instead of pissed off, that most of it was made up? After all, if they were affected by the book, surely that's because they liked the narrator - so why exactly are they angry and resentful that he didn't suffer quite as much as they thought he did?
I don't see why anyone needs to be angry: the readers got their kicks, and the writer wasn't having as bad a time as he might have been - everybody wins.
This whole episode reminds me: my friend Ana and I have been planning for ages to write one of those "my parents abused me - wanna read all the details?" books. It'll be called Butterfly Lost or Too Young... or Still My Courage Burns or something similarly dreadful. We're going to make the abuse in it super-terrible, and it's going to sell millions to people who get off on reading about the sexual torture of children - in a totally respectable way, you understand.