A million Little Lies...

Many of you may have heard all the hoolala (thanks for the word Cindy) around the book A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey. Quick synopses: James was a addict. He gets clean. The book is his recovery.

Oprah was a huge advocate toward this book and sent his books sales through the roof. She, and her staff, were hooked by the books amazing feeling and sadness. Then comes the day the Smoking Gun website discovers there are few inaccuracies in the "memoir" regarding his stay in jail. Oprah was Frey'd (pardon the pun). She brought James Frey back on her show, and essentially forced him to explain himself. How could he lie to her, Oprah Winphrey? And ultimately her viewers.

I am in the process of reading the book. And frankly, I don't give a rats ass about whether its "true" or not. Any book or movie that comes out that is "based on a true story" I take with a grain of salt. The book, to me, is good. Its not something I would normally read, and reminds me, albeit a bit too much, of high school English class reading Hemingway. That aside, its enjoyable to me.

BUT - when I started to think about what we, as a society, put stock in, I realized that we, as a society, really put a lot of stock in entertainment. We fall victim to believing just about everything we read or hear. Reality TV is a good example. "Real" ity? Really? I think not. My reality has nothing to do with Donald Trump, the jungle, or being the next top model. A CNN writer quoted it the best and I think it explains exactly how I feel when it comes to how our world is today.

"The question is not why the writer would inflate his exploits so, but why readers went for it all so eagerly. The simplest answer, I suppose, is that we like drama. White hat, black hat, beginning, middle, end. This stands in opposition to real life, which is mostly middle, with no hats at all. It's sometimes hard to come to terms with that, which is why my uncle Charlie used to replay his time in the South Pacific during World War II over and over again. His life had to be more than the room in the nursing home, and once it had been, much more." - Anna Quindlen