Tolkien Was No Hobbit!
I recently pitched a book to a publisher entitled “A Billion Little Pieces.”
Because readers have grown suspicious of the memoir genre, I began my book with a pledge of honesty, referring vaguely to the controversial memoir with a similar (though numerically inferior) title.
My pledge read:
“In an age when authors embellish historical accounts for dramatic effect, and in so doing delude hope for recovery, the author of this book swears to be forthright in every turn.”
The first sentence of my book then read:
“The moist breeze woke me, and though my vision was tinged red through the bubble-blood rings round my left cornea, I squinted to see I was gripping the wing of a 747 landing at Denver International Airport. ‘How did I get here?’ I wondered to myself, and ‘Why does that building look like a circus tent?’”
And you are probably wondering how I could print such tripe, how I could lie to so many people who are already burdened, dejected even, over having been lied to by James Frey.
How could I do it? I have two answers.
One: When writing a book you don’t have to look people in the eye.
Two: It actually happened to me.
Convinced “A Billion Little Pieces” would sell “A Billion Little Copies” I explained to the publisher I would offer higher highs and lower lows at 200 less pages, larger words (not the kind made with more letters but the kind that are actually larger on the page) and the book would sell for half the price of Frey’s hardback. It’s a sure win, I said to the publishers.
But the big-wigs at Kinko’s wanted nothing to do with it, one of them going so far as to imply a spiritually submissive relationship to Oprah, saying (I think she was channeling her as she smacked her gum and flipped through the pages of People Magazine) I should be ashamed of myself, and that “Bigger. Badder. More True.” was a disgusting subtitle. They also said I got glitter jammed in their color copier when I tried to show them what the cover might look like.
I sat on the curb outside the publisher’s office and remembered the days when a guy could get a memoir published with ease, pouring his heart out, knowing somebody out there would identify with his story of growing up an Asian woman with ADD, or working as a cop overcoming a lisp, or living as a marginal Christian seeking God through the metaphor of jazz.
But the day of aiding the reader into suspended disbelief using the vehicle of deception is over. Frey went down first, then Nasdijj, and soon it will be you.
And so, from now on, our books will be filled with characters that work at coffee shops and ramble endlessly about music and the sort of dresses actresses wear to award shows. The dialogue will be never-ending and filled with um’s and long pauses and every book will be thousands of pages long, presenting incredibly vague conflict scenarios and even more vague expressions of climax and resolution. Let’s face it, reality stinks. And now our books will stink too.
The truth is I wasn’t surprised by the whole Frey incident. As a book insider, I’ve known for a few years that the stuff in books is made up. I’m not trying to sound condescending, which means to talk down to you, but it’s something I discovered in my mid twenties.
I remember how much I loved J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” for example, but was enraged when I finally saw a picture of the author, smoking a pipe wearing a hat and jacket, no floppy ears, no webbed and hairy feet, a complete con. Lying bastard, I said to myself, throwing the book across the children’s section of a bookstore. Hobbit my ass.
It isn’t just Tolkien, either. Luke Skywalker, who wrote the book Star Wars, doesn’t exist. And Calvin and Hobbes? Bull crap.
It’s fine for me to know these things. I’m an insider. But what about the reading public? Are they going to be able to handle it? And how are they going to respond when they realize most books are complete lies? Is bookdom finished?
No, my friends, it isn’t.
After consoling myself about the whole “Billion Little Pieces” rejection, I decided to visit a bookstore, just to remember the way it used to be, to walk the empty, cob-webbed aisles and recall the days when people trusted writers and were willing to fork over a few bucks for the bard’s tale.
I confess it had been a few years since I’d been to a bookstore, as I read most books when they come out as movies, and so I was shocked to find the shelves still full, the lights still on, human beings pacing the aisles, and money changing hands as fluidly as it does at McDonalds. All this was happening weeks after James Frey went down.
I couldn’t believe it. People were still willing to suspend disbelief.
Unable to contain myself, I approached a person looking at the very book where I first lost my innocence: “The Hobbit.” I broke it to him softly, requesting the book from him, then flipping it over to tap the back-cover picture of Tolkein, looking very unhobbitish.
“What are you trying to say?” The man asked.
“I’m just saying, that ain’t no hobbit.” I replied. And the man simply shook his head and smiled, and I watched him later as he bought the book anyway.
Amazed, I went to the counter and asked a clerk why they continue to sell books that aren’t true. Why is Tolkein allowed to sell his lies while Frey gets black listed?
And that’s when I stumbled upon a conspiracy as deceptive and dastardly as the Frey incident itself.
The Conspiracy That Will End Books As We Know Them
Posted on February 15, 2006 12:00 AM
