Fake Memories

I don't know what to take of this James Frey person, the one who gulled Oprah with his fake memoirs. I mean, I'm delighted with anyone who makes Oprah look bad. But if and to what extent what he did was awful, a crime against humanity, I don't know, and I'm too busy to get it figured out.

The great Mark Steyn wrote an article about it. As usual with him, he doesn't give any answers, but he's very entertaining getting there.

A quote:

As James Frey told Oprah's viewers, "I truly, truly mean it when I say if I can do it, you can do it" -- conquer his addictions, that is, not fake a big gazillion-selling book...

[P.G. Wodehouse's] fictional world is remarkably similar to James Frey's. In both, the protagonist is a young man prone to unhealthy living and getting into scrapes with coppers... The only difference is Bertie Wooster isn't available to go on Oprah and announce he's conquered his demons: "I say, old thing, dash it all, if I can do it, you can bally do it, what?"

Read the whole thing.

That reminds me: I read a collection of Jeeves stories and loved every second of it. I loved it so much, I decided it was too important to read any more of them. It's my "in case of emergency" reading. So, if I'm ever incapacitated and hospitalized, or have to do a year of chemotherapy or something, I want someone to buy me the whole Wodehouse ouevre. Just box it up and send it to my room. I'm sure I'll beat whatever terrible disease through the power of laughter.

"My father believed that laughter was the best medicine, which I guess explains why several of us died of chemotherapy." -- Jack Handy