Shock horror; best selling author is a liar! Likewise, an award winning
filmmaker who has also penned a few books is accused of playing fast
and loose with the truth; but never mind that because maybe their lies
make us think about the other liars in the world. The thing is, just
about everyone is a little fuzzy when it comes to the truth; if Norma
Khouri's book is a product of her imagination, does that really mean
that there is no higher truth to it or value in it? If Michael Moore
edits news footage to push his own agenda, does that make him a greater
propagandist than the corporate news media who love the politicians
he mocks?
Truth is everyone lies sometime, because the truth is too complicated;
it is too big; so we edit it down to a more digestible size. Not that
we really think of this as lying, we sincerely believe that sometimes
fudging facts is for a just cause or makes everyone's life a tiny bit
easier. Lying in itself is not really a crime; it is the purpose behind
the lie that matters.
That is where artists come in; I define art as a lie that pursues, and
hopefully reveals, a deeper truth. It is the artist's role to explore
alternate truths— in doing so the artist may be compelled deceive
or move truth out of the original context. Almost everything that is
presented to us as documentary fact contains a certain amount of fiction,
even if it is just that facts are stage-managed to make an interesting
story. Likewise, behind every fiction there is some truth. Jack Kerourac
and Christopher Isherwood turned their real life experiences into entertaining
fictions and Joan Lindsay wrote a novel that struck such a truthful
chord in Australia's collective imagination that we took it to be an
honest tale of how a number of Edwardian era school girls disappeared
while on an outing to Hanging Rock.
Current literary fashion seems to favour writers who present works of
non-fiction, especially "real life" tales of hardship, courage
or tragedy. These books are often uneven in the quality of the actual
writing and in the case of Khouri's book; even quite basic factual errors
went unnoticed by the editors. Not that I have read Forbidden Love,
the literary equivalent of the "based on a true story TV movie
of the week" has never held much attraction. Rather than condemn
Khouri for being a liar, I would query the motive behind Random House's
acceptance of the manuscript. Perhaps the guidelines for publishing
literary non-fiction should be exactly the same as for fiction; meaning
if the only reason a manuscript is of interest is its claim to be a
true account of a person's experience, then maybe it is not really worth
publishing.
With Norma Khouri's deception there does seem to be more than a simple
gimmick to sell a sensationalistic novel; in interviews she seems to
be a sincere and sympathetic character and this hints at a darker aspect
to the deception. Pathological liars are often quite compelling characters—
such as The Talented Mr Ripley— who will do anything to save themselves
from being discovered because on a certain level they believe the fiction
they have created is real. It will be interesting to see how this little
distraction from the war on terror and other global tragedies plays
out.
Bringing me to the kind of lies we should not tolerate. More and more
we accept that even when our politicians tell the truth, it is a stage
managed truth; it is like the truth of reality TV or the tabloid gossip
magazines. Like modern day P.T. Barnum's, successful politicians talk
in 10 second news grabs compelling us to feel rather than think; because
that is what the commercial news media demands. This is how authoritarian
governments are democratically elected into power, good people are guided
to turn their heads from the injustice around them and innocents are
killed in the name of justice. The average person is overloaded with
so much information and distraction there is little time to actually
listen to the truth; let alone take the time to understand it. For most
people the truth is too complicated and messy.
There's a perverse joy in catching someone out in a lie, but when fiction
often contains an unattractive truth, perhaps it is wise to take a step
back and examine the message again.
