How much do you care about "truth" in nonfiction?

[Fuck Yeah Dion]

Inspired by the recent controversy with Three Cups of Tea and the not-so-recent controversy with A Million Little Pieces, what is everyone's opinion on nonfiction works that fudge the truth a little bit?

Personally, I feel like as long as the author isn't completely fabricating a story, I'm pretty much OK with it. Life doesn't come in a narrative form, so I'm fine with a writer fabricating a small event, exaggerating things, or approximating conversations to create a logical narrative.

[devilishlybookish]

I think truth is important in nonfiction. Of course I don't mean to suggest that no amount of exaggeration is appropriate, humans are prone to exaggeration in stories all the time, but that the factual integrity of the story be upheld.

To use the A Million Little Pieces example: there is a huge difference in having numerous root canals without any sort of pain relief and having one or two with Novocaine. The first provokes a response of pain and sympathy when really...tons of people have had root canals with pain medication and felt nothing. Go ahead and make the girl you had a crush on at the clinic your girlfriend, who cares about that bit?

With Three Cups of Tea, it seems to me there's a significant amount of money that may be unaccounted for if Mortenson is lying about the number of schools and such. And it's really just stirring the pot to say you were kidnapped by the Taliban if you really weren't. But I wouldn't care if he said the schools were the most beautiful things ever built even if in reality they were little more than straw houses because maybe to him it was a perfect result in his hard work.

Does that make any sense?

[andy]

I didn't really mind A Million Little Pieces, although, to be fair, Frey didn't just fudge the truth a little bit, he consciously changed big chunks of the truth to make his book more marketable, but with Three Cups of Tea, it's completely different. I don't understand how somebody would be capable of using a charity which is supposed to build schools in Afghanistan for personal gain - it's just appalling.

[Marina]

When you're telling a story and adding things you might have said, but didn't, that would be okay with me. Or if you're saying how things would have gone down if you said something or did something but didn't. As long as you actually say what did happen.
But when you're lying and talking about things that haven't happened or been said, than it's wrong. It's not non-fiction if most of it is... fiction.

[embonpoint]

Jun 19, 2011 10:04:32 GMT -5 Marina said:

It's not non-fiction if most of it is... fiction.

This is pretty much how I feel. If I'm going to read a non-fiction book, it's because I want to learn something, I want to know things about the topic. I don't want a story that is mostly true but with bits added in; if that were real non-fiction, I guess Disney films are almost documentaries.
If a book is a fiction book, but based on a true story, that's fine, because I know that I'm not getting factual information out of it, just a good story. But don't pretend that you're writing non-fiction if you've made some of it up.

[Eternal Lobster]

However, with nonfiction or history you can never get the complete truth. Bias, from the author and the ideas of the period in which it was written, affect the outcome. I chose to write my term paper for my Asian history class on Empress Wu, a woman for whom there is not a lot of information out there. What I could find were books written in the 1940's and 50's by "scholars." It was hilarious and somewhat upsetting to read all the woman-hating comments by the author. And yet he was an "authority" on the subject. I was able to find a biography written in the past couple years on her and the tone had completely changed: instead of a skanky whore who murdered her family she was a feminist. It all really depends on the reader and her/his ability to decipher the text.

As for A Million Little Pieces, I read the book after the controversy was revealed. I approached it as partial truth and partial fiction. I absolutely loved the book and really wish that the controversy didn't stop people from reading and liking it. While it was unfair of James Frey and to publicize it as nonfiction, I do think that readers shouldn't be too shocked to find out that things were exaggerated or completely altered. When I tell a story I don't relay all the facts, I embellish it. It just wouldn't be as interesting.

I've not followed the Three Cups brouhaha so I can't comment.

[cyanea]

I think it depends on what kind of non-fiction we're talking about.

I'd prefer the writer stay as close to the truth when writing about, say, the Battle of Yorktown, for example.

[Sabazius]

It depends, really. Any narration of a sequence of events will emphasise some of those events over others, and how a timeline is divided up into units of significance (lexemes, for any other Barthesian post-structuralists out there) is inevitably determined by the biased beliefs and perspective of the author. That's fine. I also don't mind if a work is based on a true story but fudges the facts a little, as long as that is acknowledged. Dave Egger's A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius (which I will continue to mention until the world has read it) is a semi-fictional autobiography, and a great deal of humour comes from the character of his brother-at-age-12 breaking the fourth wall - or since he's interacting with the writer and not the audience, 'breaking the ceiling' - and commenting on the fact that Dave-the-writer has lied to make Dave-the-character look better.

I've not read either of the two books which specifically provoked this discussion thread, but as far as I can see the issues are quite different. James Frey has come under fire for misrepresenting the truth, whereas the main issue with Mortenson is that he screwed over a charity, and then lied to cover up that fact. In Frey's case, the attack seems to have been at least in part a move by Oprah to save face and generate publicity through the drama. I'm sure it's just as good a book for being slightly untrue, because its value comes from the redemption story and the literary merit of the book and those aren't affected by the fact that he changed some details. With Mortenson, however, the value of the book comes from the fact that it raises awareness and helps out the charity and the girls of Afghanistan and Pakistan. If he and his co-author lied about it all, then the book is completely devalued.