Posing....

The other day a friend posted something pretty funny on facebook.  It was supposedly a list of proverbs rewritten by some teacher's first grade class.  The teacher had given the kids the first part of a proverb and they completed the sentences.  The results were hilarious.  Too hilarious- made both Eli and I wonder if these were not the product of first graders, but rather something a bit more contrived.  But in the end it didn't matter.  Whoever posted it originally was trying for a laugh, and laughter he got.  Eli and I could not even read some of them out loud, we were having trouble breathing due to our raucous laughter.  We both were wiping away tears and getting stern looks from Jon, who was trying to keep down the noise level so Theo could get to sleep.  We apologized and piped down, but the giggles reverberated through us for quite a while longer.

A little mini-debate erupted on FB around the post.  Were they real?  Contrived?  I don't know- and really, I don't care.  Their purpose was to entertain and that they did.  So why is it that I get so enraged when I read some piece of fabulous non-fiction only to find out it's been fabricated?  It's happened twice to my book club in the last few years.  First it was Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea.  We were moved, motivated, encouraged by what this fellow Minnesotan was doing halfway across the world. Only was he?  When Krakauer broke the story that Mortenson fabricated much of his story, AND was working a little free and loose with the contributions to his cause, I was outraged.  Outraged.   Called my mom right away so that she could share my angst.  And she did.  On top of that rage was real disappointment for all the people who were swindled by Mortenson's claims- the school kids who sponsored Pennies for Peace and all that.  Surely a percentage of that money did end up building schools in Pakistan, but not nearly as much as we were led to believe, it seems.

The second disappointment came with the reading of The Long Walk which inspired the movie The Way Back.  I think that the movie originally claimed to be 'based on true events' but now says 'inspired by true events'.  Well, I could make that same claim about anything from Winnie the Pooh to Star Wars. There are true events that INSPIRE a fight between good and evil, right?  Anway- The Long Walk claims to be the story of a Polish prisoner of war who escapes from a gulag in Siberia with several others and walks to India.  India.   And for most of the journey, the author had me right along with him.  The walk TO the gulag was awe inspiring enough.  And that was probably mostly true- the awful method the Russians had of transporting their prisoners was amazing.  How any prisoners survived is beyond me.  My hands are cold and bothered right now inside my 68 degree house.  How did prisoners walk across Russia in the winter holding onto a chain without mittens on?  And much of the first part of the escape is believable.  Sure, crossing an icy river and then walking on through Siberian winter landscapes in wet clothing was a bit much to contemplate (especially since I was reading this in the winter...) but then he takes the crew across the Gobi, without water, and into the Himalayas.  Whey didn't they stop somewhere earlier?  And why did he have to include a siting of two yetis?  Yep, that's right.  Two yetis blocked their path as they tried to go over a pass in the mountains.  So they had to sit and observe them.  Yetis. Abominable Snowmen.  No lie.  Well, actually, a lie!  But I'm not lying about a guy including yetis in a work of nonfiction and expecting us to believe it.  That part is, sadly, true.

That said, I was the only one who came to book club crying Imposter!  Fake!  Either the rest of my book clubbers (all highly intelligent fabulous women) missed the section about the yeti, or wrote that off as a flight of fancy in an otherwise legit book.  To me it threw the whole dang thing into doubt and a little research on the web turned up much evidence that this author was given to many flights of fancy.  I shared this with my bookclub and demoralized everyone.  I felt a little bad for doing that, but I am going to let the author shoulder most of the blame, even though he has since passed on.

Theo and I just saw the movie "Shackleton: An Antarctic Adventure" at the Omni theater.  I was moved to tears.  He's my new hero.  I'd follow him anywhere.  And I stalwartly refuse to do any poking around on the internet about authenticity.  Because if that story is fabricated I will not be able to recover my faith in humanity.