Author Topic: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books  (Read 108180 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

helenazar

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #105 on: February 29, 2008, 11:39:22 AM »
But at the same time I must allow that as long as it is called "fiction" and not "non-fiction" the author should have more leeway that the non-fiction author...

Certainly. But how much is too much...?


Well, this is why the non-fiction is so much more cut and dry. No inaccuracies should be allowed and it is the authors' responsibility to make sure that the editors (or whatever)  don't screw up. Because after all, their names are on it, which means they are responsible for what ultimately appears in print under their name... And they are the ones who will receive criticism for what was written because this information is credited to them.

With fiction it's hard to say where to draw the line. I suppose it's more subjective. Since I mentioned Philippa Gregory, let's take her as an example. There are readers who love her and find her books entertaining. And you know what, I can see how someone would find them entertaining... And then again, there are readers like myself who find her irritating because of all the blatant inaccuracies in her "historical" novels... But she doesn't claim that her books are historically accurate (as far as I know?). So it is up the reader to either accept it as fiction or accept that it may not necessarily be accurate because it is a novel after all... It's much harder to set up a criteria for non-fiction...
« Last Edit: February 29, 2008, 11:44:42 AM by Helen_A »

helenazar

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #106 on: February 29, 2008, 11:50:24 AM »
Helen and Annie,
Life is what it is.
Let it go.
Life is too short to be so negative.
Find something positive to do today, tomorrow, next week.
Do something nice for someone, it'll brighten your life.  

AGRBear

Not addressed to me, I know, but please don't assume Helen and Annie are not brightening their lives or passing on random acts of kindness in between posts. You may very well find the subject matter trivial and that's cool, but for me WORDS ARE LIFE so I am glad to read along as Helen, Annie and Sarushka hash it out...and with civility no less!

Thanks, Jenn, point well made. AGR, if this discussion is not to your liking, you are free not to participate... :-)

Annie

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #107 on: February 29, 2008, 12:30:13 PM »

Of course, fiction is by definition a made-up story.

This is why no nonfiction should ever have any 'made up stories' in it, even if they are more interesting than what really happened. Changing a word here and there can change the meaning of a story, such as, someone was left in peace, or was not. IMO, if the changes distort the view of what actually happened, then what that part of the book becomes is a 'made up story.'

Puppylove

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #108 on: February 29, 2008, 12:45:43 PM »
What then constitutes the "complete truth"?

I'm showing both my age and musical tastes, but whenever the definition of truth comes up I hear Pontius Pilate singing to Jesus: "And what is truth? Is it unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours?" (Jesus Christ Superstar). Love that song!

A couple of pages were devoted to truth in the original thread with respect to Kurth and the chasm between philosophical, scientific and personal truths. How do you define truth, Sarushka? Is the author obliged to spell out their definition before proceeding with the work in question?

Thanks, Jenn

helenazar

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #109 on: February 29, 2008, 12:53:23 PM »
What then constitutes the "complete truth"?

Well, technically speaking, only hard science - like DNA - can offer the "complete truth" as such. And it has many times over. ;-)


Puppylove

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #110 on: February 29, 2008, 12:56:41 PM »

I do not believe everything must be balanced on both sides. I believe you can choose only one side, as long as you don't change things around to suit your cause if the view presented is not what was actually stated in the original source. I also believe speculation and offering up possible scenarios are fine- lawyers do this in court all the time- BUT they need to be presented in a way that allows the reader to know that this is what it is and not confuse it with a source it didn't really come from.

Well said, Annie! There's nothing inherently evil about promoting one's side of an argument and not addressing the other side, but the book and the debate both flow more smoothly when opposing positions are also spelled out. Now if law or censorship prevents opposition, then you're in dangerous, Joseph Goebbels territory.

helenazar

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #111 on: February 29, 2008, 12:57:42 PM »

I do not believe everything must be balanced on both sides. I believe you can choose only one side, as long as you don't change things around to suit your cause if the view presented is not what was actually stated in the original source. I also believe speculation and offering up possible scenarios are fine- lawyers do this in court all the time- BUT they need to be presented in a way that allows the reader to know that this is what it is and not confuse it with a source it didn't really come from.

Well said, Annie! There's nothing inherently evil about promoting one's side of an argument and not addressing the other side, but the book and the debate both flow more smoothly when opposing positions are also spelled out. Now if law or censorship prevent opposition, then you're in dangerous, Joseph Goebbels territory.

Well said both of you!

Puppylove

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #112 on: February 29, 2008, 01:03:04 PM »
What then constitutes the "complete truth"?

Well, technically speaking, only hard science - like DNA - can offer the "complete truth" as such. And it has many times over. ;-)



St. Joan, er, Helen, please do not muddy up this thread with your tiresome recitation of cold hard facts.  ;)

helenazar

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #113 on: March 01, 2008, 08:53:22 AM »
Here is a timely news appropriate for this thread:  http://news.aol.com/story/_a/writer-admits-holocaust-memoir-is-fake/20080229161609990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001 and http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/02/29/holocaust.bookhoax.ap/index.html



Author: My best-selling Holocaust book is a hoax.

Story Highlights Misha Defonseca's book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," false. Defonseca maintained Nazis took parents, she was adopted by wolves. Author not Jewish, actually lived with relatives after parents' arrest.
   
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- A Belgian writer has admitted that she made up her best-selling "memoir" depicting how, as a Jewish child, she lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust, her lawyers said Friday.


Misha Defonseca's book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," has been made into a French film.

 Misha Defonseca's book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," was translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France.

Her two Brussels-based lawyers, siblings Nathalie and Marc Uyttendaele, said the author acknowledged her story was not autobiographical and that she did not trek 1,900 miles as a child across Europe with a pack of wolves in search of her deported parents during World War II.

"I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed," Defonseca said, according to a written statement the lawyers gave to The Associated Press.

Defonseca, 71, now lives in Dudley, Massachusetts. Her husband, Maurice, told The Boston Globe on Thursday that she would not comment.

Defonseca wrote in her book that Nazis seized her parents when she was a child, forcing her to wander the forests and villages of Europe alone for four years. She claimed she found herself trapped in the Warsaw ghetto, killed a Nazi soldier in self-defense and was adopted by a pack of wolves that protected her.

In the statement, Defonseca acknowledged the story she wrote was a fantasy and that she never fled her home in Brussels during the war to find her parents.

Defonseca says her real name is Monique De Wael and that her parents were arrested and killed by Nazis as Belgian resistance fighters, the statement said.

"This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality, my way of surviving," the statement said.

"I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed. I beg you to put yourself in my place, of a 4-year-old girl who was very lost," the statement said.

The statement said her parents were arrested when she was 4 and she was taken care of by her grandfather and uncle. She said she was poorly treated by her adopted family, called a "daughter of a traitor" because of her parents' role in the resistance, which she said led her to "feel Jewish."

She said there were moments when she "found it difficult to differentiate between what was real and what was part of my imagination."

Nathalie Uyttendaele said she and her brother contacted the author last weekend to show her material discovered by Belgian daily Le Soir, which questioned her story.

"We gave her this information and it was very difficult. She was confronted with a reality that is different from what she has been living for 70 years," Nathalie Uyttendaele said.

Pressure on the author to defend the accuracy of her book had grown in recent weeks.

"I'm not an expert on relations between humans and wolves but I am a specialist of the persecution of Jews and they (Defonseca's family) can't be found in the archives," Belgian historian Maxime Steinberg told RTL television. "The De Wael family is not Jewish nor were they registered as Jewish."

Defonseca had been asked to write the book by U.S. publisher Jane Daniel in the 1990s, after Daniel heard the writer tell the story in a Massachusetts synagogue.

Daniel and Defonseca fell out over profits received from the best-selling book, which led to a lawsuit. In 2005, a Boston court ordered Daniel to pay Defonseca and her ghost writer Vera Lee $22.5 million.

Lee, of Newton, Massachusetts, said she was shocked to hear Defonseca made up the story.

"She always maintained that this was truth as she recalled it, and I trusted that that was the case," Lee said.

Defonseca's lawyers said Daniel has not yet paid the court-ordered sum.

Daniel said Friday she would try to get the judgment overturned. She said she could not fully research Defonseca's story before it was published because the woman claimed she did not know her parents' names, her birthday or where she was born.

"There was nothing to go on to research," she said.[/i]

_____________________________________________________________________________


Any thoughts on this?
« Last Edit: March 01, 2008, 09:02:44 AM by Helen_A »

helenazar

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #114 on: March 01, 2008, 09:42:39 AM »
Along the same lines as James Frye, but more dangerous, IMO, because this kind of thing gives more ammunition to those who deny the Holocaust... Very irresponsible of this author, IMO. 

Puppylove

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #115 on: March 01, 2008, 10:00:43 AM »
Along the same lines as James Frye, but more dangerous, IMO, because this kind of thing gives more ammunition to those who deny the Holocaust... Very irresponsible of this author, IMO. 

Oh yes Helen, this looks very very bad. Some subjects, like the Holocaust and genocide anywhere, are sacred in my opinion. There should be zero embellishment and zero mitigation by any author because of the nature of the subject. I mean my God, what's to embellish or invent when you have babies being tossed in alive in ovens? (and yes, this actually did happen).

Utterly utterly disgusting whether this lady did it for money or attention.

Puppylove

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #116 on: March 01, 2008, 10:03:19 AM »


"This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality, my way of surviving," the statement said.

"I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed. I beg you to put yourself in my place, of a 4-year-old girl who was very lost," the statement said.

The statement said her parents were arrested when she was 4 and she was taken care of by her grandfather and uncle. She said she was poorly treated by her adopted family, called a "daughter of a traitor" because of her parents' role in the resistance, which she said led her to "feel Jewish."

She said there were moments when she "found it difficult to differentiate between what was real and what was part of my imagination."


If the dates had been a bit different then I could say with some confidence that AA's missing child has been found. Uncanny parallels.

helenazar

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #117 on: March 01, 2008, 10:59:13 AM »


"This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality, my way of surviving," the statement said.

"I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed. I beg you to put yourself in my place, of a 4-year-old girl who was very lost," the statement said.

The statement said her parents were arrested when she was 4 and she was taken care of by her grandfather and uncle. She said she was poorly treated by her adopted family, called a "daughter of a traitor" because of her parents' role in the resistance, which she said led her to "feel Jewish."

She said there were moments when she "found it difficult to differentiate between what was real and what was part of my imagination."


If the dates had been a bit different then I could say with some confidence that AA's missing child has been found. Uncanny parallels.

LOL

Annie

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #118 on: March 01, 2008, 11:08:30 AM »
It's very disturbing to me to see so much fiction presented as fact, and plagerism, being exposed in books and articles, even prize winning writings, the last few years. Has it always been done and the writers were just never caught, or has there been a big decline in integrity and honor in writing and reporting in the last decade?

Puppylove

  • Guest
Re: historical accuracy/ethics question regarding writing books
« Reply #119 on: March 01, 2008, 11:16:45 AM »
It's very disturbing to me to see so much fiction presented as fact, and plagerism, being exposed in books and articles, even prize winning writings, the last few years. Has it always been done and the writers were just never caught, or has there been a big decline in integrity and honor in writing and reporting in the last decade?

Good question! I suppose it's probably always been done, but technology has made it much easier to root out offenders. Kind of a new age "checks and balances." Because of this, authors who value their reputations should proceed very carefully....