Comments on: New York Times Book Reviewer Invites Your Shock, Outrage

By: Tim Elhajj

Tim Elhajj — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:06:22 +0000

Interesting point about Bock’s background, Richard. I knew he was a writer in his own right, but I hadn’t given much thought to how that might have influenced his motives or the fact that he writes fiction. Perhaps he felt duty bound to offer this hyper scrutiny of the truthfulness of the book in light of all the recent liar-liar scandal.

I agree that D’Agata’s confluence of dates seems silly—it’s still unread in my book pile, but it doesn’t seem to make for a clearly better or worse story. I wonder how he feels about it now, in hindsight.

By: Richard Gilbert

Richard Gilbert — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:23:16 +0000

This is an interesting post about a vexing issue. But one of the most surprising things about it to me is that Bock is a fiction writer who’s decided, in this case at least, to police nonfiction. He may have been functioning as a journalist in writing that review, but he is the author of an acclaimed novel, which took him like ten years to write. I have thought about this aspect of the review more than what D’Agata did, which seems silly, because using the actual date would not have undercut his emotional linking of events and is the type of thing Joan Didion has done famously in her literary journalism.

By: Tim Elhajj

Tim Elhajj — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:44:54 +0000

Michelle, RE: Bock playing with us is exactly what I thought. This seems similar to an attempt, a few years ago, to discredit David Sedaris, which elicited a huge ho-hum from most people, who could care less about his stories being held to some high standard of technical accuracy, as long as he keeps us chuckling. Like you, I do think it's important to be truthful in nonfiction, and I think it's a distinction most people make easily and intuitively, yet -- like pornography -- is very difficult to nail it down with a precise definition. Maybe I am being too cynical but I feel as if some journalists take advantage of this paradox to generate publicity. There was a very interesting discussion on (Brevity editor) Dinty Moore's Facebook page about this issue and one of the commenters suggested that D'Agata's footnote itself may have been a ploy to get people talking about his book. I'm not so cynical (yet) that I would believe this, but it's an interesting (and not too far-fetched) idea. Look at all the sustained discussion!

By: Michelle Elvy

Michelle Elvy — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:00:51 +0000

Interesting. Seems Bock was playing with his review much as we like to play with our stories. Stretching it a bit, don’t you think? Calling for “outrage” is a cheap way to draw readers in, though it ultimately leads down a path where the reader no longer takes him (the reviewer) seriously. All the other points of his review seem well articulated, but his hang-up on the footnotes (which are there, obviously, in the name of full disclosure) makes him seem whiny and nitpicking.

Meanwhile, the question of veracity remains a sticky topic, as you point out. Ever since the Frey debacle, we can’t seem to get over it, and reviewers are on the lookout for another “gotcha!” moment. Although I don’t agree with D’Agata’s choice to conflate dates (because what good does it really do in the end?), good for him for setting the record straight in the first place (trained as a historian, I find it annoying to read a piece of non-fiction which fails to provide clarification or further discussion or references where necessary).

Really, it comes down to two things: 1)how well written is the story in the first place and 2)to what degree do you trust the voice?

It seems one could judge D’Agato’s work favorably while at the same time pointing out the problematic nature of the conflation of dates — something we might all agree on while still trusting the overall narrative/moral voice. Given that Bock offers up no further reasons to mistrust D’Agato, his supposed “outrage” over this footnote seems all the more petty.

As always, good to read your thoughts here.