Oprah + James Frey = Elie Wiesel?
Published January 18, 2006
Instead she announced her next book: Night by Elie Wiesel, 77. The editorial review on Amazon puts it this way: "Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's wrenching attempt to find meaning in the horror of the Holocaust is technically a novel, but it's based so closely on his own experiences in Birkenau, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald that it's generally — and not inaccurately — read as an autobiography."
That paragraph is of the sort that can cause conniptions right now, especially at a time when readers are berating writers to just get the damn facts right. So it was that this book, which has been referred to by the New York Times and in college literature classes as a novel is, according to Wiesel, not a novel.
Thus Your Constant Reader - aka me - had a double take today. I read the story by the Associated Press about Winfrey's new pick, an article that ran in many newspapers today. The article referred to Night as a novel. Oh, I recall thinking, "Good move, Oprah. Pick a memoir labeled a novel instead of a novel labeled as a memoir."
Then I read today's New York Times which contained a lovely quotation nugget from Wiesel himself, which made me go back to re-read the Associated Press story to see if my cold medication had been replaced with crack or something that could explain my confusion. But no, I read it again and it stated quite definitively that Night is a novel, which just made Wiesel's comments all the more interesting: "But it is not a novel at all. I know the difference. I make a distinction between what I lived through and what I imagined others to have lived through," he told the Times.
Oprah, for her part, had this to say, according to a Reuters piece:
"She acknowledged Wiesel may have used some literary license but insisted that Night is still a memoir.
"Although some facts vary slightly from his own personal and familial history, Night should be considered an autobiography," Winfrey's Web site said."
Listen. Can you hear it? If you pick up a book right now and listen hard enough you can hear the people sticking the Oprah endorsement sticker on Wiesel's book turn as one to their bosses to ask the million dollar question of the week: "Um, do we stick this book on the non-fiction shelf or the fiction shelf?"
Stay tuned for the answer to that question, as well as who gets the last say — the author? the publicist? Oprah? — on what is and is not a novel.
In the meantime, don't believe anything you read, especially if it has an Oprah sticker on it.
Your constant reader
Scott
- Oprah + James Frey = Elie Wiesel?
- Published: January 18, 2006
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Culture
- Part of a feature: Media Reality Check
- Writer: Scott Butki
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- Scott Butki's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
Right on, Scott. At this point Oprah seems almost as dishonest as Frey, doesn't she?
The Washington Post ran quite an op-ed about it yesterday, if you're interested...
The Wiesel issue came up years ago when at the bookstore I was working at when a directive came from the head office to move "Night" from Biography to Fiction, causing confusion and consternation with customers. So we took ourselves out of the categorization equation and put it in both sections.
great post - Oprah has invoked, obliquely, Godwin's Law on the James Frey situation:)
Thanks for the compliments.
Do you have a link to that W. Post piece so others - and me - can read it.
That'll be fun, picking apart a book on the Holocaust to decide how true it is.
Jonathan Franzen is rising in my estimation.
I guess the question is, where is the culpability? You purchase a book that you're lead to believe is a true story. Maybe you're stuggling with addiction and you're drawn to what's-his-name's book. Turns out it's a sham. Can you return the book and get your money back?
That's what I think consumers should do, just to teach authors and publishers not to dupe the public. Return the books, and as the bean counters tally the sales losses we can claim another victory for literary integrity.
Good points. And yes I bet Night is a great book. I think he's competely faultless in all this.
The irony of the Smoking Gun in all this is that it is a site best known for running mug shots of celebrities. And this all got a bit crazy when someone suggested the site get Frey's mug shot since he spoked about lengthy jail time.
When a job that usually takes 30 minutes began to stretch into days the site grew increasingly interested in what was going on.
Or at least that's how an editor explained the situation here at NPR's On the Media
Here is the transcript:
They had a good package of stories on the issue including comments from book critics and others.
Oh, and did anyone catch Frank McCourt last nite on the Stephen Colbert show?
This is becoming the story
that just won't die, with this latest one on the status of adding disclaimers to the
book.
It seems to me there are three issues:
His writing of the book
and what happened post-publication.
I'm less bothered by how he wrote it than how things were handled after it came out when
people raised questions about the book and were essentially ignored.
As that Slate piece notes, the publisher knew there were serious questions about
some details of the book, starting with the very first paragraph of the book.
It's one thing for a memoirist to capture the essence of their story in their own
way. It's another to lie about whther questions have been raised about the book.
And if you're going to lie, don't do it to Oprah!
Anyone see the coverage of this last nite on the Daily Show and the Colbert report? Both
were hilarious, especially the former where they contrasted the softball questioning
of reporters of President Bush with Oprah's tough questions for Frey.
it shouldn't matter if a book is a memoir or a fiction..."night" is still a very informing piece of work and u shouldn't boycott it for the fact that some parts are untrue...in ur life have u NEVER lied?
Good point.
I've been thinking about this piece lately as I start reading Dave Eggers new book which is labelled both a novel and an autobiography
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One could say Kudos to the publisher for labels Wiesel's book a novel. If there is any real doubt about the veracity of the story, it should be labeled as fiction.
Just as, of course, Frey's book should have been.
Most fiction contains semi-autobiographical elements. So? Why Oprah is insisting that these aren't fiction is puzzling.
Great article, thanks!