As a caveat, I am not an Oprah basher, I dont watch her show and sure, I get pissed when I go to buy a book and it has the Oprah Book club Pick sticker on it (which I promptly remove). But, it has little to do with her, and more to do with the lame-asses that only read stories that some bitch tells them to. I mean, come on

Anyway, with that out of the way - I was perusing through tv channels last night looking for something mundane that I would not pay too much attention to so I could finish my homework and I came across the Larry king Show. They mentioned the book A Million Little Pieces by James Frey and his grueling guest spot on Oprah earlier that day. I watched in horror and amazement as she practically ripped this guy to shreds. It just seems so, um, inane I guess. Seriously!

I cannot comprehend why Oprah felt compelled to rebuke James Frey on national television with such veracity and outright disgust. I certainly understand that she was embarrassed and disappointed, but a little blurb at the beginning of the show stating she regretted defending him on the Larry King show two weeks ago and apologizing to her viewers for recommending the book (even though she was not aware of the discrepancies) would have sufficed. It would have been the more practical solution. I fail to see why it was necessary to lynch the poor man on her show in front of her millions of followers/viewers. She was clearly upset and not handling it with any form of tact or diplomacy; she essentially ganged up on him with experts and insinuated some crazy shit that I do not know how she could have possibly extrapolated from the facts. Essentially she brutally humiliated this man to save face. James Frey had already publicly acknowledged fabricating parts of the novel and been under attack on Larry King.

In all of this I have to wonder, did this stem from some sort of publicity stunt to sell more books? I know if I did not already have the book, I would have run out to buy it and see what all the controversy is about. Honestly, this supposedly came from the Smoking Gun wanting to post a mug shot of him because they thought it was be amusing given that fact that he claimed to have been arrested 12 or 13 times. When they did not readily find anything, they researched it further. That sounds a tad suspicious to me. Perhaps his publicist knew all along, and when sales started slowing down leaked the story and created the media frenzy we are currently experiencing. Hell, maybe Oprah is in on it too and what we witnessed yesterday was all a shame so she could get cut in on all the profits. ;) Sure, I am joking, but I have to wonder about the wisdom of her being pissed that she helped this guy make so much money by duping her viewers into buying the book, and then turned around and gave him even more publicity. We all know that negative publicity often creates greater results.

I know the man embellished, or to use a less euphemistic term lied. But the truth of the matter is, his book is still good. I just started reading it this weekend, but it is great so far. The book was already a bestseller before Oprah got her hands on it. Why is it that simply because parts of it were fabricated, the book loses all of its intrinsic value?
On Larry King last night, they had a literary critic on and he defended Frey by stating it was touted as a memoir and memoirs are subjective accounts of events. Obviously the author went way beyond slightly embellishing or fabricating a bit here and there, but it is not like it said in big ass bold letters on the front of the book THIS ENTIRE FUCKING BOOK IS ABSOLUTELY, UNEQUIVOCALLY FACTUAL AND THE HONEST TO GOD TRUTH. Maybe I am nave, but Autobiography to me represents a more fact based account of ones life while Memoir implies a more embellished account.

I do understand people being offended, but outraged?

Am I the only one that thinks this whole thing is ludicrous?

While I feel for the poor guy and think this whole thing is ridiculous and going way too far, that does not mean I wont laugh at all the hilarity being created at his expense. I thought this was great.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/44479