Also topping the list of outstanding things that happened this weekend? SUBMISSIONS! I'm very excited to bring you the first Glass Cases publication, an essay on (appropriately) writing. In the post-Oprah v. Frey and post-"reality" world in which we live, John Biscello brings up some interesting talking points in "True or False," particularly pop culture's acceptance of faux reality on television while holding literature up to higher moral standards. Is it not all forms of entertainment and escapism? Or do we expect more out of memoirs because readers are supposed to be "smarter" than watchers? Read John's essay below, pause and reflect, and then feel free to post your own thoughts on the matter.
But first, a bit about the author: John Biscello is a scribbler, poet and playwright, presently calling Taos, New Mexico home. He is at work on a collection of stories, set in Brooklyn, titled A Mutable Freeze. He can be contacted at jpips17@hotmail.com.
True or False?
By John Biscello
"Realism is, in a sense, a bad word I think. I see no dividing line between imagination and reality. There is much reality in imagination."—Fellini.
One of my least favorite questions: Did that really happen? Is that true?
In the case of a story I'd say: It's been written, so of course it's true. There was no story, now there is a story. The story is true. If someone were to ask me if it were factual, I might answer: It's a work of fiction. A true work of fiction.
In David Lynch's "Lost Highway," one of the detectives investigating the murder of [Bill Pullman's character's] wife asks him a question, to which Pullman responds, "I like to remember things the way I remember them. Not necessarily the way they happened."
That could be Pullman speaking for Lynch himself, an obsessive recontextualizer (Mixmaster D. Lynch if you will) of facts, dreams, parallel worlds, etc. Life, and "what happened," processed through the Imagination comes out reconfigured. Fiction. But, if you're true to the essence of the story, if that is captured and expressed, then I would never say: No, it's not a true story - because that minimizes the accomplishment, the thing itself. Dig it, cuz the opposite of True is False, and if you claim your work is False, that means you have not succeeded at capturing or expressing what makes it True.
Let's check in with Big Papa (Hem not Biggie): "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was."
When there was that debate raging about James Frey (the dude who wrote "A Million Little Pieces" and "My Friend Leonard," and had received a tap-tap blessing on the head from Oprah's magic wand coronating him Book Club Royalty) they found out that parts of his memoir weren't true, that he had lied. People were outraged, they felt duped and deceived, their trust had been violated, and all I could think was - Are you fucking kidding me? You mean to tell me, a writer "lying" in his writing, distorting and exaggerating "facts," this is what people are getting hysterical about? You can validly argue the point that the book shouldn't have been billed as a memoir, fine, but then the issue also becomes one of semantics - an issue, might I add, that gives everybody involved (the publishers, promotional team, reading public, critics) an opportunity to philosophically re-examine our very idea of what a memoir is, or should be. (One day I'd like to pen a memoir titled "Memoirial: One Man's Quest to Tell the Truth While Lying the Entire Time." Any takers? Oprah, a coming out party?)
Anyway, Frey wound up receiving a shitload of hatemail, was denigrated, and given the literary-scarlet-letter treatment, and at one point when he did reappear on Oprah, Queen Finger Wag confronted Frey with her ass suctioned to the Almighty High Horse, vindicating all the people, her people, who had been taken in by this scam artist. I've never read Frey's work (except in bits and doses), but I'm 100% behind him, and when he fought his way through the hard times by writing another book, a large fiction novel, “Bright Shiny Morning,” I thought, way to blow, maestro!
This need for "reality" to be authenticated - that really happened, right, that's a true story y'know - is where the problem lies (if you even want to consider it as such). Reality shows have become popular selling the idea of "reality," which is really a superficial facsimile from a low-grade template. These are real people really getting kicked off islands and really swapping their wife for another wife, and real dramas and friction are generated from these real people (we repeat, real people, like you and me, not actors). It's a scam, a hustle, and a sham, but ain't nobody shoutin' we've been had, we're being duped, and why's that? Because the illusion and the mirage of it all remains intact. "That's entertainment!" functioning as the new que sera sera. Frey was called out, exposed as a "fraud." The curtain was torn open and when they saw a man manipulating gizmos and pushing buttons to project a larger-than-life Wizard, they wanted to see the "Wizard" burned at the stake for pulling a fast one.
The way I look at it: anything I write about is filtered through my Imagination, and when it comes out the other side it is Fiction. People that read me can decide for themselves if it's true, real, unreal, or if any of that even matters to them. I'll stay out of it. The one thing I won't do: write a book allegedly based on my life and call it a memoir. I want all my works, including any "memoir" I might write, to be found in the Fiction section of a bookstore or library.
Let's check in with Big Papa (Hem not Biggie): "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was."
When there was that debate raging about James Frey (the dude who wrote "A Million Little Pieces" and "My Friend Leonard," and had received a tap-tap blessing on the head from Oprah's magic wand coronating him Book Club Royalty) they found out that parts of his memoir weren't true, that he had lied. People were outraged, they felt duped and deceived, their trust had been violated, and all I could think was - Are you fucking kidding me? You mean to tell me, a writer "lying" in his writing, distorting and exaggerating "facts," this is what people are getting hysterical about? You can validly argue the point that the book shouldn't have been billed as a memoir, fine, but then the issue also becomes one of semantics - an issue, might I add, that gives everybody involved (the publishers, promotional team, reading public, critics) an opportunity to philosophically re-examine our very idea of what a memoir is, or should be. (One day I'd like to pen a memoir titled "Memoirial: One Man's Quest to Tell the Truth While Lying the Entire Time." Any takers? Oprah, a coming out party?)
Anyway, Frey wound up receiving a shitload of hatemail, was denigrated, and given the literary-scarlet-letter treatment, and at one point when he did reappear on Oprah, Queen Finger Wag confronted Frey with her ass suctioned to the Almighty High Horse, vindicating all the people, her people, who had been taken in by this scam artist. I've never read Frey's work (except in bits and doses), but I'm 100% behind him, and when he fought his way through the hard times by writing another book, a large fiction novel, “Bright Shiny Morning,” I thought, way to blow, maestro!
This need for "reality" to be authenticated - that really happened, right, that's a true story y'know - is where the problem lies (if you even want to consider it as such). Reality shows have become popular selling the idea of "reality," which is really a superficial facsimile from a low-grade template. These are real people really getting kicked off islands and really swapping their wife for another wife, and real dramas and friction are generated from these real people (we repeat, real people, like you and me, not actors). It's a scam, a hustle, and a sham, but ain't nobody shoutin' we've been had, we're being duped, and why's that? Because the illusion and the mirage of it all remains intact. "That's entertainment!" functioning as the new que sera sera. Frey was called out, exposed as a "fraud." The curtain was torn open and when they saw a man manipulating gizmos and pushing buttons to project a larger-than-life Wizard, they wanted to see the "Wizard" burned at the stake for pulling a fast one.
The way I look at it: anything I write about is filtered through my Imagination, and when it comes out the other side it is Fiction. People that read me can decide for themselves if it's true, real, unreal, or if any of that even matters to them. I'll stay out of it. The one thing I won't do: write a book allegedly based on my life and call it a memoir. I want all my works, including any "memoir" I might write, to be found in the Fiction section of a bookstore or library.
I read this on the train this morning, and it beat the snot out of anything that could come out of the NY Times. Great writing!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is brilliant! Thank you for sharing this!
ReplyDelete