you want pathos?

[rone]

Oprah's latest book club selection seems to not deserve its non-fiction billing.

I wonder how Oprah will react to this information, not because i give a crap about Oprah, but because i wonder if she thinks it matters enough to make a fuss about it.

Comments

[eagle]

Jeez, the stink over that book is still going on? I guess I'm not too surprised, since it's exactly the sort of thing that makes me cynical about the human race and not believe pan-handlers. I think Salon did an article on that book a month or two ago, and there's been some discussion of it in the LJ book communities as well.

I didn't realize that Oprah was pushing it as well.

The whole thing makes me want to go off on a rant about drama queens, the people who feed them, and the various ways in which we reinforce and reward this sort of behavior. The growth of the "true confessional" autobiography, the "endless parade of human debris" talk shows, and the innumerable LJs that are all devoted to telling one-sided stories about one's life with great exaggeration and thereby getting dozens of near-strangers to feel sorry for the poster all feel like they're part of the same trend.

There's some sort of coherent summary that should go here, but at 1am it's escaping me.

fuckheads

[lammah.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Anybody who pawns such a set of lies for millions deserves a very unkind fate. Of course, now that he's successful, I hope he "relapes" and finds himself crack-addled and penniless when he dies.

Maybe this will kill the Oprah book club done good. My wife still hasn't forgiven her for the recommendation for "THe Deep End Of The Ocean", which she found unreadable. But then again, there's nothing better that people love than being lied to. It's too bad I value the ability to be able to sleep at night. I like to think Oprah's had at least one sleepless night for unleashing "Dr." Phil McGraw on the world.

*spit*

[sabinablue.livejournal.com]

I read that stupid book for a book group (don't ask), hated it, and wanted my money back before I even knew it was faked. I'm gullible, though, so the outrageousness didn't strike me as, uh, made up. I'm just glad I didn't pass it on to my ex-husband, who is a real addict struggling with real addiction -- and who also taught me not to trust an addict. Oh, the irony.

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

Dude, James Frey? Better fear for his life.

Because he made a fool out of Opes.

[thedarkages]

IHNJH, ILJS "Jonathan Franzen was right."

Phony-sounding prose

[thingamarob.livejournal.com]

The excerpts from the book are beyond lame. I don't know how representative they are of the entire book, but I doubt I could slog through that much goofy bravado. I wish I had read it (or begun to read it) before I knew about this to find out if I would've seen through the bullshit. It'll be interesting to see if Oprah is proud or principled.

[cda.livejournal.com]

Nobody should be surprised... that guy sounded like a world class turd burglar when the book first got press. Go, Oprah's ninja assassin team, go!

Too bad he's so white

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

Otherwise he'd be such a perfect target for her "Dark Crusaders (http://www.livejournal.com/users/glitter_ninja/161509.html)."

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The Way he randomly capitalizes Nouns like he's a Hunter S. Thompson Wannabe drives me up a Wall.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Eh, he was just worried that his Art would be Devalued by being listed, and in the end he regretted making a public stink about it.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The first hit for 'salon "million things"' is actually a puff piece (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/04/19/frey/print.html) from April 2003. Refining the search to 'site:salon.com "million things"' yields a much more critical review (http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/10/11/frey/print.html). I'm wondering what changed at Salon in 2½ years.

As to why the book is still being talked about, well, i think we can blame Oprah for that. As the guys at TSG said, they just wanted to get a mugshot of the guy to add to their gallery.

I eagerly look forward to your drama queen rant, if that paragraph is any indication of what you have brewing.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

People who want to read Salon who aren't subscribers and want to skip the stupid ad should hit this link first (http://salon.com/news/cookie756.html).

I'm more amused about the child whore who wasn't....

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

and was a 40 year old woman instead.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

That's very insensitive towards Germans in general and Nazi war-criminal descendants in particular!

Re: fuckheads

[glitter-ninja.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Anybody who pawns such a set of lies for millions deserves a very unkind fate.

Fiction is a set of lies. Are all fiction writers fuckheads? Or just the ones who make millions?

Celebrities aren't really the way they appear in interviews, movies, and magazines. Fuckheads, one and all?

Re: Too bad he's so white

[glitter-ninja.livejournal.com]

I love that website so much. The first reading just blindsided me the moment it got insane, and I respect that.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I think he meant peddling lies as truth. For millions or for chump change, it still deserves punishment.

Yes, celebrities are fuckheads if they cultivate public personae that are far removed from who they really are. Just like anyone else.

There's a difference between "I was one of the people..."

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

...this bad thing happened to and other people have had it worse" and "this bad thing happened to me and it's just awful and I am the martyr." I'm thinking of why I could actually come to like Stephen Boursy and could end up having no patience for Scott Abraham.

If one must be a drama queen, half of the dramas should be comedies.

I figure I might be one of your example drama queens. I shouldn't have posted what I did a couple of weeks ago.

Re: There's a difference between "I was one of the people..."

[eagle]

You're not, actually. And I think I should explain why since it's a good illustration of what I'm getting at (and not getting at).

The LJ drama queen problem is hard, because LJs are also personal and people are fully allowed to bitch in their personal journals about the stuff going on in their life that they don't like. I don't mind that at all, and I think people should be able to post whatever comments they feel like making about their life.

There are two key differences, I think, between normal bitching about things going on that aren't what one wants and being a drama queen. One is that the drama queen (and really, I should find a different term, since it's not gender-linked and it's also not tied to any of the other meanings of queen) says what they say specifically to evoke a response, specifically to get sympathy. In other words, just getting it off their chest isn't the point; the point is creating a particular reaction in the listeners that specifically supports them and reinforces their decisions already made. Second, they rarely take any concrete action to fix the problem and often get quite huffy about people who offer any. One gets a definite impression over time that they're intentionally not fixing the problem so that they'll have something to complain about.

When people started doing stupid things in your LJ, you banned them and started making friends-only posts so that you wouldn't be pestered by it. That's a productive way of solving a problem. The sort of people that I'm complaining about would instead escalate the situation in public so that more people would jump in and defend them, and then post their sympathy pleas and other commands friends-locked to encourage the piling on. I've seen this happen tons of times, and it's not at all the approach you took.

Forum shifting is another typical tactic of the sort of person I'm complaining about, and in fact the book that sparked this thread is an excellent example. If one isn't getting enough sympathy and mindless support (as opposed to productive suggestions) from one's current circles, write a biased take on the situation and post it somewhere completely different where you can get sympathy without regard to the other side of the story. It feels like that's what this book was, and I've seen it happen tons on LJ. People post things to public blogs or communities, and then when some argument starts, they go selectively cut and paste the argument into a friends-locked LJ entry so that they can get sympathy and support.

Re: There's a difference between "I was one of the people..."

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

Um, understood. I still feel I dumped some stuff on friends that should have been between me and my secular confessor (not over the thing you're talking about but a later post).

Empathy leeches, perhaps, might be a better term for what you're talking about. If a reasonable person in a bad spot needs some mindless support, it's generally over in fairly short while as the person gets some distance and perspective on the bad thing. The empathy leech won't take advice and can't put what happened in perspective or use it to build bonds between people who've had something like that happen to them, much less forgive anyone or understand anyone who has wronged them.

It's fairly obviously either a way to get a good outrage going (that appears to be addictive to some people) or to get attention, or both.

A friend of mine said something about how much goes in both directions -- is the other person as much there for her as she is for the other person. I've found out I helped her when I wasn't even particularly trying, just telling her what worked for me in a similar situation. And she helped almost effortlessly when I had to deal with some things in my life. She has an empathy leech in her life and really appreciates people who aren't.

Empathy leeches don't have to be that melodramatic about it, they can be. Maybe those people are empathy vampires.

[dpk.livejournal.com]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002760247_frey25m.html

"The latest thump on the controversial best-seller "A Million Little Pieces" is a Seattle federal court lawsuit seeking damages on behalf of consumers for the "lost time" they spent reading the book."

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I wonder if I can sue over the lost time I spent reading about this book. Hmmm!