Imposter?

The reality of Reality Hunger is that it is all plagirized. David Shields got a bunch of text that is not his, organized it in a crafty way, and then makes it all stream. If you read this book, you will find that the chapters are by letters and in each chapter there is a bit of historical information. There are sections which explain how a form of writing came to be and then it switches to something someone said about it or even a definition about what is being discussed. It kind of feels like a book filled with facts for you to discover.

Such said facts are in the book for a reason. It is not simply a crazy guy trying to trick the system but rather, someone who is trying to prove a point through others proving the point for him. For this reason, the author uses allusion throughout the book. One second a movie is being mentioned and then there is a bit of text explaining how the Bible and Odyssy came to be so reprinted. It is a bit ironic that the writer writes about the creation of copyright when he himself is breaking it from every angle possible. All this. All these jumbles of seeming disorganized information are bits and pieces that make up allusions to the different texts.

There is a mention of James Frey in chapter D. What caught my attention and made me want to investigate who he was, was the following:

"I mean, I knew I'd never be the football star or the student council president and, you know, once people started saying I was the bad kid, I was like, "All right, they think I'm the bad kid. I'll show them how bad I can be."

Looking up where this passage came from, it was James Frey who said it. So I wanted to know who he was and why Shields was making him such an important part of this chapter. Along with this google search, came mug shots that only seemed to affirm what Shields put in his book. Yet, it was about memoirs in the end.

It turns out that the books written by Frey are memoirs. One especially, A Million Little Pieces, told the story of Frey spending eighty-seven days in prison. The story itself was well like but this "memoir" was surrounded with controversy. Frey has admitted to making up parts of this memoir and saying he only wanted it to flow and have a little more action. Oprah interviewed him and got him to admit to the truth in this controversy. After it all blew over, Frey continues to write and gets both good and bad reviews.

Chapter D in Shields book is about memoirs. It is interesting that he would choose a fake memoir writer to open the topic. Maybe Shields believes that its ok to embellish your writing a little bit and add something else into this genre. He might also just be criticizing Frey for having done what he did. The fact that this particular memoirist was mentioned and not any other, just seems odd and can be looked at from many perspectives. 

It might also just be the call for acceptance of writing without really labeling it. Is genre something absolutely necessary when it comes down to it? It is because we put such an emphasis on it that "scandals" like the one Frey faced occurred. Shields might be wanting a middle ground. Where all genres can meet and no sort of scandal need occur for damage to writing itself to be taken in such a way.