[lit-ideas] Re: fiction or non
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 09:33:21 -0500
I have not read the book and probably won't. I've done mountains of
psychologically-oriented reading/study/experience, whatever, so I kind of
burned out of that. But, I want to say that I think it's very possible for
someone astute enough to be able to write about the inner life of others.
Shakespeare did it. Good actors do it all the time. They study their subjects
and the best ones actually become their subjects. In the book/movie Sybil,
Sybil's doctor recognizes Sybil as being a multiple personality and goes with
it. This guy has to have an incredible amount of not only empathy but of
actually identifying with and entering into someone else's world, and then
being able to write about it. Maybe that distinguishes contemporary literature
from earlier literature. In Middlemarch (the BBC production) there are all
sorts of real-life emotional entanglements and enmeshments and motivations.
Today they go one step further and actually feel the feelings and think the thou
ghts of someone else. Maybe James Joyce started it with stream of
consciousness. He entered Molly's mind among all the others. He becomes
Bloom and Steven and the others.
You wrote:
"fractured thoughts of a bitter, angry, addicted, addled, sensitive,
intelligent man (yes, Andy there are some of us)"
I never doubted it for a minute. I think an argument could be made that
addicts might be the most sensitive people. Being sensitive needs to be
blunted sometimes. Too bad addictions are so damaging. Another of God's
little jokes. We need a daily flip calendar for each of God's little jokes.
And now, it's Friday! Fridays are always my busiest days. See ya.
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Stone
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 1/13/2006 9:00:50 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: fiction or non
At 01:59 AM 1/13/2006, you wrote:
So, is it 14-year old reading material?
Julie Krueger
still wondering and probably needing to read the thing herself
Is she ready for non-stop, unrelenting, bold statements that are completely
unfettered by any semblance of restraint? Is she ready to read a book written
by a very angry, young, male narrator who belligerently refuses to toe the
line? Is she ready for a non-stop assault of "profanity" that not only uses the
words as street-like modifiers, but also to describe intimate bodily functions
in all their splendour? If so, maybe it's for her.
I'm on page 250 now. I must say, against all suspicions, it's actually getting
BETTER as I read. Regardless of whether it's true AT ALL, it's certainly
prescient. I find myself reading it in the same kind of manner as reading
Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". It's an interior dialogue of a
panicked person who is at least figuratively going through something horrible,
but necessary.
Stylistically, Frey has got a really good thing going, capturing the fractured
thoughts of a bitter, angry, addicted, addled, sensitive, intelligent man (yes,
Andy there are some of us). Even before hearing about the 'controversy', I was
already thinking to myself, "there's no way that this all happened to this guy"
(the guy on the back of the cover of the book, the guy on Oprah) exactly the
way he tells it. But, I'm certainly all right with that.
Readers really need to have some sense I think. First of all, if he was
suffering the way he was, and I'm not doubting that he could have suffered the
ritual of the rehab -- probably did -- he would NEVER have remembered the kind
of detail and actual conversations, vivid characters etc. Even if it is purely
a work of fiction constructed after years of careful research into the
psychology of substance abuse, it's darned compelling. His ability to cut
through the shit and talk very directly about human relatioinships is very
interesting. The way "James" deals with things is the way a lot of us WISH
(including probably Mr. Frey) we could deal with things.
So... I propose, not to discuss the fiction or non-fiction as the problem, but
this particular book.
Has anyone else actually read it? Or is it the "Brief History of Time" (i.e.
book that everyone owns but no one reads) of 2005?
Paul
##########
Paul Stone
pas@xxxxxxxx
Kingsville, ON, Canada
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