| How much of Follies of God can be trusted? | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 12:59 am EDT 06/22/20 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 12:58 am EDT 06/22/20 | |
| In reply to: God's Follies - BruceinIthaca 10:15 pm EDT 06/21/20 | |
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| I've read only some parts of Follies of God via googlebooks and I think on Grissom's site. I took it out of the library once, glanced at it, figured I would renew it and read it, but it was on hold and I couldn't renew it. I have enjoyed some of the parts I've read, but how much of the book can be trusted? I quote from some amazon user reviews. A reviewer called Dubious wrote: I wanted so much to believe in this book, but as others have said, if the writer didn't tape record the conversations and only took notes (but then, so he says, lost the notebooks; ALL of them?) how much can this be trusted? After a while all the speakers start to sound alike. John Gielgud sounds a lot like Tennessee Williams here, etc. It may be that the author did indeed have these conversations and has pieced them together as best as he can from memory, but I wish he would just say so -- though if he were to do so, he probably wouldn't have gotten the thing published. ThankYouAndGoodbye wrote: There's a reason this book was never reviewed by the mainstream press (New York Times, Wall Street Journel, etc.) — because it's absolute hogwash. Beautifully written hogwash, but nothing that should be accepted as fact by any rational reader. James Grissom states from the start that no record remains of his alleged five days of talks with Tennessee Williams — conveniently mere months before Williams' death — yet allegedly "quotes" florid poetic ramblings word for word more than 30 years later as if channelling Williams himself. ("I did not take a tape recorder," Grissom points out — conveniently and nonsensically — "because I was not a journalist ... I wrote everything down [in notebooks] long since deteriorated, their staples fallen away..." — as if he had taken notes in 1882, not 1982. Absurd.) Grissom claims to have been summoned by Williams in late 1982 after writing to the playwright, at the age of 20, with a photograph and a request for writing advice. (Grissom's IMDb bio lists his birth date as Halloween 1966 — 4 years younger than this book's claim — online author photos would suggest that both of those dates are generous fantasies. IMDb also lists several of Grissom's "alternate names," including "Algonquin Camembert" and "Siegen Lane," the latter a street in his native Baton Rouge.) Yet the tall tale Grissom spins here is nonetheless engrossing, as are his very interesting theories, research, analyses, and actor portraits (even though the vast majority of "interview" subjects are now deceased and their "quotes" as unverifiable as those of Williams — the book contains not a single photo of Grissom with his alleged interview subjects, Tennessee Williams included). It's a beautifully written book — minus one shred of factual veracity. Fact, fiction, fantasy, or fraud — still a fascinating read, on a variety of levels. William L. Parish wrote: William L. Parish This is a very interesting book. Sadly, I just can't believe the story. The author gets a phone call from Tennessee Williams, who wants to meet the author in New Orleans in September 1982. He spends five days speaking with Williams. It doesn't really ring true with the facts. In both Lahr's recent biography and Spoto's biography, Williams spent the last half of 1982 in either Key West or New York. There are no photos of the author with Williams or any other actresses mentioned in this book. Just stock celebrity photos. No notes section. The author's retelling of direct quotes from his blue notebooks and "interviews" are laughable. On a positive note, the cover photo of the book is nicer than Lahr's book. ******* Since the book did include interviews with some living people, I imagine those are are accurately reported, but much of the rest of it, however interesting and entertaining, is not something that anyone can take as fact, presuming that the reviewers I quote are accurately describing the situation as Grissom (it seems) has stated it. I'll add that in the fall of 1980 or 1981, I took Stella Adler's script interpretation class. I took voluminous notes. The notebooks still exist, and the pages are in perfectly fine shape, and it's all readable, even though I've always had terrible handwriting. So I have to wonder about Grissom's apparent claim that somehow the original notebooks fell apart. But I can imagine that if he'd looked at them a lot, that might happen. But if I had interviewed Tennessee Williams, taking notes as he spoke, and at some point the notebooks started to fall apart, I'd xerox the pages as soon as there seemed to be a possible problem in the near future, especially if I thought I might try to make a book out of it all someday. (I've got the book of Adler lectures about Chekhov, Ibsen and Strindberg, all apparently verifiable quotes transcribed from videotapes of the classes. I prefer my notes. :) ) |
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