Friday, October 19, 2018

Do not take obvious fiction seriously

I can't find it now, but I once read a letter to the editor of a book review periodical that said:
I am surprised that the review of Million Little Pieces took the stories seriously. I don't know anything about the subject matter, but I am a novelist, and I know novels. The book is structured as a novel, and should be treated as a work of fiction.
The letter was correct, and the book was fiction that many mistook for a factual memoir. Many of the stories were wildly implausible.

I am reminded of this when I see people take seriously allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. This was a political hit, making use of a mentall ill woman. Why take it seriously?

Real life memoirs do not have the structure of a novel, and they don't have the structure of a politcal hit either.

Some people actually argued that the phony drug memoir should be taken as real, because it was an inspiring story. Some people tried to determine whether the events in it could have happened. But why? Don't those people know what a novel is?

Likewise, don't people know what a political hit is? Why would you even think that truth has anything to do with it?

I think similar things of a lot of MeToo stories. Most fit the pattern of a revenge seeker, a faker looking for a monetary settlement, or a disturbed person who foolishly believes that personal anxieties can be released by blaming others. Such people need not be taken seriously.

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