not much

in today’s NY Times (i guess, i dont check it every day and it’s the online version) there is a piece about a panel discussion featuring tony kushner and e.l. doctorow on the topic of the rosenbergs in fiction. i have always been fascinated by the rosenbergs’ story and doctorow’s fictional account of a couple based on juilus and ethel rosenberg, the book of daniel, is one of my favorite books. the movie kinda sucked, but timothy hutton…anyway, as doctorow is quoted in the times story, “I didn’t want to write about the Rosenbergs, I wanted to write about what happened to them.” so essentially this story just furthers the discussion about the furor surrounding primarily james frey (i dont think jt leroy has really caught on aywhere except on gawker.com, but i could be wrong)

i suppose the crux of this discussion should be, does it matter whether the facts are true? on another level, and this is evidenced on every episode of “top model” what is true? i mean, what i think happened i an argument and what i absolutely believe to be a true series of events may not be what the person i was arguing with thinks happened. who is right? even if a video camera taped the whole thing, would it necessarily reveal any facts? not necessarily. wheher or not james frey ran over a cop can be proved however. i suppose if he had just called it something besides a memoir, or if he had just written an “autobiographical novel” this wouldnt matter. thats what every male american writer has done since 1950, isnt it? females too, i guess, i just cant think of any. i suppose it’s so hard for writers to become famous that frey felt he had to make himself seem a certain way in order to gain the fame he craved.

so does it matter whether the facts are true? to me, no. i dont trust autobiographies (sorry, memoirs, affected much?) anyway, everybody bends the truth to make it the way they want it to be. as long as everybody listening keeps that in mind, we’re all set.

oh, and p.s. dont trust that wikipedia link above to the rosenbergs.