Memoirs: Facts or Fictions?

[swanflake]

mszoid said:

Also, Otto Frank edited out certain things, mostly having to do with Anne's blossoming into a sexual woman. Which is something that I'm not shocked over-I'm sure my father would do the same thing.

In 8th grade when we read that, the school had just purchased new books, and so many of us were so intrigued by the part where Anne Frank talked about some lesbian experience that when we were done with the unit and had to turn the books back in, the teachers were made because half the books would automatically open up to that specific page when you layed them on a table because everyone had it opened up to that page so disproportionately much.

[tinyshoes]

With memoirs, I don't mind so much if the author embellishes a bit. Basically, with a memoir, the author is a storyteller first. Sometimes you don't remember conversations verbatim, and just telling what happened in chronological order can get very very dull.

That said, just straight out making shit up a la James Frey takes the story out of memoir and into fiction. Thanks to him, future authors who plan to write a memoir now will be called lying SOB's for making even the smallest embellishment and using creative license, and now will have to write chronological "Just the facts Ma'am" autobiographies.

[hobocamp]

Ditto when I found out Wade Davis' Serpent and the Rainbow was mostly bullshit.

Really? I googled this, and I can't find anything about it. I'm studying zombies for my PhD and would love to find some evidence that supports this.

[fflover]

This may seem very late to the party but after I learned at the back of the book that Memoirs of a Geisha was in fact fiction, I considered it a bit letdown, for I had already had a connection with these characters as real people who lived long ago. I thought that Chiyo was really talking to me, instead of this guy that only went to Japan, studied Japanese and just talked to former geisha. I just think it takes away from the genuine feel of the novel, and it makes me question the books real knowledge about the geisha and what they had to go through and their purpose in life because all he has is sources, he has personally never lived that life or lived in the time where geisha was the most celebrated. The author even questions himself in his notes in the back of the book about the accuracy of the life of a geisha in his book. Maybe I should have researched it before I read the book, but now that I know that the story is fictional, it has left me very dissapointed. I know that the book is good on its own merits, but it lost the magic with me a great deal.

[tinyshoes]

When I'd first read Memoirs of a Geisha, I thought it was fiction, so maybe that's why it hasn't been ruined for me.

[fflover]

Yeah, I actually wasn't too too surprised when I read that it was fiction. There were WAY too many metaphors in the text. I didn't think anybody would talk like that. But a part of me hoped that it would be real, but I had my doubts from the beginning, and was still dissapointed that it was confirmed at the end of the story.

[Deleted]

I sort of hope the Spy Wore Red by Aline, Countess of Romanones (sp?) books are factual, because I like to think someone really led such a life of glamour, intrigue & romance.
Someone should make it into a movie, really.

[chonies]

I think the problem with The Serpent and the Rainbow may stem from the book being "source material" for the film, when really all they seem to share is a title and being in the vicinity of zombies.

I picked up a few months old copy of Time and was delighted to find Sherman Alexie's column in it where he slams Nasdijj for plagiarizing his life. Awesome.

I recall being deeply suspicious of the Esther Williams biography but found it nonetheless entertaining.

[kafka]

stargirl said:

I sort of hope the Spy Wore Red by Aline, Countess of Romanones (sp?) books are factual, because I like to think someone really led such a life of glamour, intrigue & romance.
Someone should make it into a movie, really.

I read one of her books back when I was a teen and then later, when writing a thesis on the SS, came across another. From the impression I received, her books are autobio-fictio-graphy. IOW, generally inspired by true events but with enough fudging and blurring of the lines to almost be a novel. Underscoring that conclusion is that fact that the details of many of the covert military operations of WWII have only recently been released to the public under the UK's 50-year rule (and many times, they extend that even further).

My parents actually met this woman once back in the early 80s and they said she was a complete character and a fascinating, almost mesmerising act. They seemed to mean it more in the sense of someone who was putting on a show and trying to live up to an image, which is probably what her books are when all is said and done.

[Deleted]

That's sort of what I figured, though it is shelved in the non-fiction section of the library. Reading her books really made me curious about her life after WWII, but I've never really come across any information about her, except once where her name was mentioned in a book about female spies during WWII.