About
Reviews (6)
02 July 2006
Simply a poorly written and poorly edited book
2 of 7 found this helpful Perhaps people have forgotten how to read, but “A Million Little Pieces” is a poorly written and poorly edited book.
Mr. Frey cheats the reader from the first page, but where was the editor?
Could an unaccompanied, unconscious man, covered with urine, vomitus, and blood, with a hole in his cheek, a broken nose, and four freshly missing teeth, be allowed onto a commercial flight? Not likely, but let’s say it did happen. Shouldn’t the editor have said, “James, ten percent of our readers won’t believe this. So, take out that you were covered with urine, vomit, and blood. Just say you woke up and found yourself bandaged, aching, and nauseous. Clearly the pain medication could have knocked you out for a while.”
(Is it unreasonable to ask whether the “Doctor and two men” who brought him onto the plane wouldn’t have also found Frey clean clothes? And if we wonder further, who paid for the ticket, the doctor?)
I have no problem that a friend in Ohio, or somewhere, called Frey’s parents to arrange for them to meet him at the airport. But Frey says his parents lived in Japan and were in the United States on business, staying at “a hotel . . . in Michigan.” How did his friend locate them in a hotel, in a city, in a country where they do not live? To compound the miraculous, Frey, himself, only learned that his parents were in the States after they pick him up at the airport. Shouldn’t the editor have said, “Let’s remove this little part about Japan, the business trip, and the hotel. ‘A friend called my parents and arranged to have them meet the plane.’ That works.”
On Frey’s first day at Hazelden, Doctor Baker prescribes Librium and Diazepam explaining, “You’ll be taking them every four hours, in decreasing doses for the next five days.” On Frey’s second day, the Doctor gives Frey “your last dose of Diazepam.” Did Frey recover that quickly? Or, maybe, this discrepancy is too hard to catch or edit.
On pages 7-8, Frey is told during the intake process that Hazelden houses 200 to 250 patients in 6 units, which is 33 to 41 patients per unit. Sixteen pages later, his counselor tells him that there are 6 units with 20 to 25 patients per unit. Again, no problem if Frey estimates that there were about 125 men and 100 women in the cafeteria at lunch, or 300 or 500, but 65% is a big difference between the two Hazelden staff estimates. Perhaps the differences are due to the vagueness of memory as Frey recounts his experiences while detoxifying; except that he is able to recall that there were 567 questions on the MMPI. Of course, Frey might have looked up the number on the Internet, and it is 567; but then, why not be consistent with the other numbers?
Most writers get things wrong in early drafts; there are redundancies, continuity errors, favorite words—favorite colors or numbers or names. Writers edit and rewrite in part to find and excise them. Editors, too, are expected to look for those things. This is long before we might talk about fact checkers, police reports, felony charges, or jail time. It is a cheat when neither writer nor editor cares to get things right, especially easy things to catch and to correct—it is as if they are saying, “Our readers are too dumb to notice, so why spend more time.”
I did not go looking for these unravelments, they unfolded as I read, growing out of my wariness of the first paragraph. I’ll let someone tell me what happened after page 41. No ever said good writing is easy.
03 July 2006
Stunning images
0 of 1 found this helpful We're biased because we sell one of the two artist's work, and we are arranging to sell this book.
"Metaphysics in Jars," 16 1/2" x 13 1/2", has 67 tritone, B&W images, cloth bound. Published by Nazraeli Press.
This is a remarkable picture book. The images are stunning, engaging and provocative. They are poetic and surreal, and are as well suited for a casual browse as they are for hours of visual grazing.
These collage images draw from the woodcuts and steel engravings common in the nineteenth century. "The difference, as Salvador Dali would say, betweeh their work and the work of a madman is that they are not mad."
This collaboration produced work that is in a class of its own.
02 July 2006
Stunning, fascinating, a page turner
0 of 1 found this helpful Some books need a “governing metaphor to give it at least an illusion that all is well,” (John Gardner). Perhaps unintentionally, Mr. Haden-Guest provides one: In 1974 Tony Shafrazi took a can of red spray paint and painted “KILL LIES ALL,” on Picasso’s "Guernica," at the Museum of Modern Art. He had called the press, giving them time to get there. After the vandalism, as he was being taken away, he yelled “I am an artist!” The moral of the story: Google “Tony Shafrazi Gallery”: within a few years he was a successful international art dealer (Several articles are still floating around that almost justify Shafrazi because, after all, the paint was easily removed!).
The book is 341 pages of adventures in Wonderland, covering the art world from the early 1970's into the early 1990's. Why is art contemporary art what it is? In short because it became a commodity in 1973. Something to buy and sell, to speculate on, to make fortunes, to lose them. It is sad to read that at CalArts, funded originally by Disney, “‘We were taught no technical skills, no craft. Most of us had to go and learn it by ourselves later,’” Eric Fischl. So you were right in asking, “Didn’t these guys study art?”
It’s a great read, and, surprisingly, a page turner. Haden-Guest’s style is witty and light. Over a single malt, he’s telling you art stories, never quite tipping his hand as to what he really things. But who cares, he is a great story teller.
Not all the art is bad, not all the artists are bad. But one comes away with a nagging feeling that you really wouldn’t want to have dinner with any of them, except the author.