Category: The Dish

Here’s a tart defense of blurring the lines between fact and fiction in a memoir:

This is the second volume of my unreliable memoirs. For a palpable fantasy, the first volume was well enough received. It purported to be the true story of how the author grew from infancy through adolescence to early manhood, this sequence of amazing biological developments largely taking place in Kogarah, a suburb of Sydney, NSW, Australia. And indeed it was a true story, in the sense that I wasn’t brought up in a Tibetan monastery or a castle on the Danube. The central character was something like my real self. If the characters around him were composites, they were obviously so, and with some justification. The friend who helps you dig tunnels in your back yard is rarely the same friend who ruins your summer by flying a model aeroplane into your mother’s prize trifle, but a book with everybody in it would last as long as life, and never live at all.

I still don’t buy it, actually. It seems to me perfectly possible to write a memoir that does not use composite characters, or change people’s names, without going on for ever. In my own memoir passages in my three books, I make nothing up, create no composite characters and tell the truth as far as I can recall. Yes, it’s subjective – but it’s not a fantasy. I’m somewhat befuddled why this was beyond the talents of the extremely gifted Senator from Illinois. But then I’ve never been angling for a political career.

Historian Alistair Horne talks here about the parallels between France’s doomed counter-insurgency campaign in Algeria and our current morass in Iraq. The most obvious parallel is the way in which the U.S. has copied what Horne calls "the vile hand of torture." Horne’s book on the Algeria debacle, "A Savage War," is currently being read by the president. Horne sent the book to former defense secretary Rumsfeld, with passages on torture underlined. Rumsfeld sent him a "fierce" note back, and then apparently relented and agreed with Horne. Horne’s conclusion from Algeria:

"As far as torture is concerned, the answer must be never, never, never."

Too late, alas. Too late.

From Novak’s column:

"Iraq is a black hole for the Republican Party," a prominent party strategist told me this week. What makes his comments so important is that he is not a maverick Republican in Congress but one of Bush’s principal political advisers.

Here is a fascinating if grim illustration of a punishment used in Auburn State Prison, New York, in 1858. The description reads:

"The convict, More, was a negro. He is certified to have been a man of naturally pleasant temper, but violent when crossed … he was dragged by main force, and after many violent struggles, to the shower-bath; all the water that was in the tank — amounting to from three to five barrels, the quantity is uncertain — was showered upon him in spite of his piteous cries; a few minutes after his release from the bath he fell prostrate, was carried to his cell, and died in five minutes."

This page adds:

The use of the shower-bath as a means of coercing criminals into submission to the orders of prison authorities began to be general about the year 1845.

This is not torture, then, because it isn’t used to extract information, just to crush a human spirit and body. But it is awful nonetheless.

I touched a nerve:

That was a shitty, cheap shot. Obama writes in his intro that he uses composite characters, and then does. An "investigative journalist" investigates and finds a character actually lives up to his description. But others might not because she didn’t investigate them? And readers may not investigate?

This is your "scandal"? This makes him like James Frey who had more holes than cheese? This is a hack job smear, and today you’re a hack enabler.

I didn’t use the word "scandal." When a candidate for the president gets serious, questions like this are raised. His autobiography is a non-non-fiction "memoir," based on his own recollections, not on empirical truth. This new genre of non-non-fiction that isn’t fiction is a strange hybrid that deserves scrutiny, and the book is now likely to get that scrutiny. I understand why a writer cannot recall everything in his past. But I fail to understand why a writer has to change the name of an individual in his past from "Marty Kaufman" to "Gerald Kellman," especially when that person confirms the accounts of verbatim conversations. It suggests that the autobiography was written to create an image not to tell a true story. It’s not fraudulent in the James Frey way. But it is odd. If Obama gets touchy about this, he’s got a lot to learn. Not everyone is a fan either:

Why on earth do you like Obama? Not that there is much to hate about him, but do you truly like him as a presidential candidate?  How is he even remotely qualified?  Aside from his Monday-quarterback judgement of the war in Iraq (as he wasn’t there to make the mistake of voting for it in the Senate in 2002), what can be said for him in exact terms?  He’s a powerful speaker? This is the problem we confronted with Robert Kennedy (or even his older brother – but to a lesser extent).

Has Obama said one word about global strategy that isn’t in reaction to the beliefs of others? Like Kennedy he’s quite skilled at pointing out what is wrong with the world, but that’s only the first step towards solving it, and the rest are all uphill. All I know is what Obama does not like, what he doesn’t believe in. I can’t simply assume that the rest is what he does believe in. Not that I think Obama is another Bush, but let us for just once demand an intellectual showing from our presidential candidates. We have 300,000,000 people in this country. Surely there are men and women better suited for the position of president than the stooges we’ve been offered. Isn’t it about time to change the presidential search paradigm a bit? Isn’t it time that we ask Obama to step up and exhibit his Weltanschauung?  The early allegiance I’m seeing for Obama, Edwards, Giuliani makes me worried that we haven’t learned our lessons. None of them are actually qualified for the Oval Office, so we should really make them earn it!

Agreed. The sole reason I have for liking Obama is his multi-racial, multi-cultural heritage which I think is a great advantage in today’s global climate; and his extremely impressive speeches, particularly on religion and politics. I need to know more. Much more. We all do.

A victim speaks.

An instant classic.

The Bush administration had everything it wanted for four years: both Houses of Congress, vast loans from Chinese bankers, the right to tear up habeas corpus, tap phones without court warrants, detain citizens without charges for years, authorize torture. It had hefty public support at the start and a superbly trained military … but the failure in Iraq is still somehow the fault of the treacherous media. John Cole sees the meme spread and deepen.

Here’s a striking quote from Senator Clinton:

"I am cursed with the responsibility gene. I am. I admit to that. You’ve got to be very careful in how you proceed with any combat situation in which American lives are at stake."

An excuse for politicking? I wouldn’t be so tough. I’ve followed Senator Clinton’s positions on the war these past few years and since they’ve pretty closely tracked my own, I’m not going to attack her for caution and prudence. Wars are dynamic things; they can take unexpected turns, even for the better. This one keeps getting worse, but the stakes are still very high. I take the minority view therefore that Clinton’s position on the war might in the end help her (even with primary voters). And her description of her stance as the product of a "responsibility gene" is a little piece of genius.

Americans often pick a president repairing the glaring flaw in the last one. The most powerful theme of Bush’s presidency has been wanton irresponsibility: fiscal, military, diplomatic, political. The recklessness of the past has deeply alienated many small-c conservatives who regard politics as an exercize in secular caution not religious zeal and frat-boy carelessness. If Hillary frames herself as the school-marm disciplinarian, she’ll find an opening. It’s also an image more suited to her actual personality than anything resembling charisma.

(Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty.)

Sam Harris’s latest blog epistle to me can be read in full here. Money quote:

How does one "integrate doubt" into one’s faith? By acknowledging just how dubious many of the claims of scripture are, and thereafter reading it selectively, bowdlerizing it if need be, and allowing its assertions about reality to be continually trumped by fresh insights‚Äîscientific ("You mean the world isn‚Äôt 6000 years old? Yikes.."), mathematical ("pi doesn’t actually equal 3? All right, so what?"), and moral ("You mean, I shouldn’t beat my slaves? I can‚Äôt even keep slaves? Hmm …"). Religious moderation is the result of not taking scripture all that seriously. So why not take these books less seriously still? Why not admit that they are just books, written by fallible human beings like ourselves? They were not, as your friend the pope would have it, "written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost." Needless to say, I believe you have given the Supreme Pontiff far too much credit as a champion of reason. The man believes that he is in possession of a magic book, entirely free from error…

Religious moderates—by refusing to question the legitimacy of raising children to believe that they are Christians, Muslims, and Jews—tacitly support the religious divisions in our world. They also perpetuate the myth that a person must believe things on insufficient evidence in order to have an ethical and spiritual life. While religious moderates don’t fly planes into buildings, or organize their lives around apocalyptic prophecy, they refuse to deeply question the preposterous ideas of those who do. Moderates neither submit to the real demands of scripture nor draw fully honest inferences from the growing testimony of science. In attempting to find a middle ground between religious dogmatism and intellectual honesty, it seems to me that religious moderates betray faith and reason equally.

Read the rest here. Sufficiently provoked, even irritated, I’ll reply tomorrow. He has raised several big questions and I need a little time to think (and pray) about them.

(Painting: Pietro Perugino (c. 1450-1524) Scenes from the Life of Christ: The Giving of the Keys to Saint Peter.)