Letters to the Editor
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No sympathy here
I didn't feel sorry for Frey. I felt sorry for Oprah, who had to sit there and listen to his unapologetic rationalizations.
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Public pile-on unworthy of Oprah
As I watched the public caning of James Frey, I couldn't help but see a broken, sick man being humiliated by pundits eager to elicit laughs at his expense. If Frey actually listened to some of the tenets of AA or NA, he would have come clean and admit he embellished anecdotes for the sake of sensationalizing his story. It's the way to make his nightmare end. My only hope is that he doesn't sink back into substance abuse as a coping mechanism or, worse, reach for the gun as he had grimly joked (one hopes) to Oprah.
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Flogging is called for
What Oprah did was 100% correct. Public apology by her and public flogging of that outrageous liar is exactly what was called for.Part of the rot of the culture is the the jokey, ironic semi-acceptance of these frauds by the news and infotainment establishment, such as the reaction to Ashlee Simpson's faking on SNL. This stuff isn't really very funny it's corrupting and only the celebrity culture run amok we have now can tolerate it.
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Baloney
It's all baloney. Oprah probably never even read the book in the first place--maybe some kind of executive summary--and you really have to wonder why Frey came back on her show to take a shellacking. Surely this has sunk his chances of getting the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I don't suppose, that possibly, no surely not, that either Frey or Oprah stands to profit from this crap?
Just a thought.
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oprah's revenge
As Frank Rich seemed to point out, Frey is symptomatic of our current cultural malaise regarding reality and fantasy. To see him called up short in front of a national audience was appropriate and unusual. More of this could only be good, I think.
Before seeing this show, I had nothing but contempt for Frey. But seeing him face the music changed my opinion of him. He seemed contrite in a sincere way. He withstood withering attacks without flinching and without lashing back. And yes, there were moments when he was still evasive and slippery. Not to mention the fact that he only had to remind himself of the fortune he has made from his sham of a book. But in the end what he did - taking the scorn and criticism directly - was gutsy, and surely very difficult.
By contrast, some of the commentary from the guests - especially the journalism professor sitting in the front row - was cheap, opportunistic, and reeked of egotism. Odd as it sounds, if I were giving points for integrity, Frey would definitely rank above some of these guests.
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What I find sad.
I find it sad that people care as much as they do and how much media attention this is getting. Seriously, how has this affected any of our lives in any way? Oprah has a genuine gripe with this guy, but the rest of the country? Please. This is nothing more than national sadism.
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Please, people, Please
Don't hesitate because doing the right thing gets a little bloody. Frey was a cynical exploiter of damaged, naive people with addictions, flagrant liar, morally bankrupt charlatan, and worst of all, an ATROCIOUS writer who damaged American letters. He deserves to be humiliated and sent into total oblivion.
The jokey, smirky, snarky "accept everything so as to see more empathetic and liberal" than others disease is something Salon and other liberal writers need to get over. Bad people are bad people, and they deserve to be punished. Anyone who felt pity for Frey is a joke.
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Not accepting of him.
I just don't care, and I want to know why everyone else does.
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Beat On the Head With the Book Club
What's shameful here is the lack of literary knowledge or context shown by Oprah or any of her readers. Oh my God! A literary memoir that's full of exaggeration and questionable facts. Yeah, that's never happened before.
Imagine Oprah's absolute mind-bending horror when she picks up books like "The Autobiography of Ben Franklin" or Mark Twain's "non-fiction." I reckon she'd be SHOCKED! DISILLUSIONED! BETRAYED! to find that there's a little more than 100% Gospel Truth going on between those covers. And while poor pathetic Frey ain't by any means Twain or Franklin, just picture those authors on her show, as Oprah lectures them about "truth."
Anyone who's "outraged" or "betrayed" when they find that a memoir writer didn't tell them the full truth is sort of like a guy who's so much of a rube that he cries into his pillow for two weeks when he discovers that David Copperfield doesn't really have supernatural powers and doesn't really make the Statue of Liberty disappear.
If you want an attempt at objective facts, read a historian. As for anyone who trusts a memoirist in the first place as anything more than a somewhat more self-obsessed novelist, well, I've got some nice swampland in Florida for sale. It's good land-- my family had a successful farm there for years and years. You can trust me about that, and I know you will: It's in my memoirs.
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Oprah: smug, egotistical, indignant, self-absorbed, self righteous diva.
Letter to Oprah
Oprah, you have probably precipitated a drug and alcohol relapse in James Frey whom you are attacked, and bullied and publicly shamed today.
Whether a book is a 'memoir' or a 'memoir based on real life' is simply just semantics.
I am astonished James Frey allowed himself to be beaten down by you and was pressurised into saying he was a liar. He isn't. The style of his book is so different it actually lent itself to alterations and embellishments. The guy was an addict. The writing style on its own is a cathartic attempt by the author to express dramatically what was going on in his life. 'Memoir' or 'Memoir based on truth?" Doesn't matter. It's semantics, you stupid woman. The only reason you devoted a whole show to this issue is because your public image (not the real you) was affected by an (unjustified) scandal. Are you a liar?
I cannot believe you have shown such indignance and the only reason you are being so self righteous is because you are doing your own PR and that is just as 'questionable' as what you are accusing JF of.
You hold yourself up on a pedestal and paint a picture of yourself as a paragon of virtue and you are just like everyone else. Are you, therefore, lying?
I used to love you as a presenter/talk show host and I cannot stand you now.
Get off the damned TV, you self righteous old bag.
You don't give a damn about the ethics of truthfulness in a memoir.
You are clearing up your own reputation which you (mistakenly) think has been tarnished. The only way you tarnished your reputation was when you launched your attack on James Frey today.
Its UNBELIEVABLE that you care whether it's a bona fide memoir or a memoir with names changed to protect the other recoverees. It is perfectly acceptable to prtoect the anonymity of suicides and alcohol/drug recoverees. Tweaking the details of ones life in an autobiographical piece of writing is something that happens all the time.
It is so pious and pathetic of you and your idiotic guests to step up on their soap boxes and insist on such banality. People are creative. That's what writing is all about and anyway people are dying in Iraq. Get a life and focus on something important instead of ranting on about how unjustifiably embarassed you are by something that really doesn't matter.
The only reason you care is because of your monumental ego and self satisfied, smug need to be perceived as perfect. You are a narcissistic old b***ch.
I was so disgusted at your performance today and furthermore if you were candy you would eat yourself.