Faryaal Zindani
Blog Post #7
May 24th
How true does a book have to be in your mind to be considered non-fiction? Why?
A non-fiction book in my mind has to be mostly true at least 90% because if the other doesn’t exaggerate a little bit on some parts then people wouldn’t want to read it as much or just loose interest. I think the author shouldn’t lie about big events that happen in their book that will affect the entire book like James Fray did in A Million Little Pieces; he took the main events in his life and made it into something that wasn’t exactly true, which impacted the book greatly. There should be a certain extent/amount of what authors can write about of their life to become a memoir.
Are half-truths okay if it’s still a good story? Does it matter if Frey or Mortenson bent the truth to tell their stories?
I don’t think half-truths are okay even if it’s still a great story because those types of authors like Frey or Mortenson make the readers believe that their whole book is true until people actually go and research and see that it’s not which becomes disappointing to some of the readers. Frey and Mortenson had great books until we found some of it wasn’t true. If authors write books that are overly exaggerated from the truth like in Frey’s book, then they should write on the book that it was based off a true story. That way Frey wouldn’t get blamed about not having the book entirely non-fiction.
Is David Shields right? Do we need lines between genres—do we need to label something fiction or non-fiction? Why does it matter?
I think David Shields is wrong. It’s important to have lines between genres because people should know when a book is true and when it is not. Lines between genres is important because some people just want to read non-fiction because they might think that it is more interesting and some people just enjoy fiction. If there was no way to tell whether a book was true in the past about let’s say the holocaust, then how would the people of today know what it was like?
I agree it shouldn't have to be 100% true but I think maybe a little more true than 90%.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it shouldnt be all true but it should be majoritifly true. But not just because of the loss of interest but because we many just remember things not the way someone else in this event.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you only because i believe that they are only doing it for the sake of the story.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a nonfiction book doesn't have to be 100 percent true but I think it might need to be more than 90 percent true, maybe more like 98 or 99 percent true.
ReplyDeleteI agree with it all. What Frey did was change the major details. There's a difference between the lie, "The coat was red" (it was really blue) and "I killed the girl" (I was just there when she died). Great points.
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