posted
"Roots"- the mini-series- is one of my earliest memories. Though I was three or four years old, the story burned itself in my mind. Its most vivid images in my mind were both the repeated beating of Kunta Kinte (Levar Burton) when he refused to say his name was "Toby", and when older Kunta Kinte (John Amos) had his foot chopped off with an axe for running away again.
When I was 20, I read "Roots" and was even more deeply stirred by the story. I was especially moved by the manner in which Haley, using just a few Gambian words, was able to trek to West Africa and, eventually, was able to actually find his ancestors people. The local- is geneologist the right word?- known as a Griot, listed the geneology of the village and, low and behold, there was Kunta Kinte's name. He had gone out to get wood for a drum for his brother and had never returned- the same story that Haley's family had passed on for generations.
I just loved that part. In a sense, it was like a reunion, a coming home, and small redemption for what had been lost. It was beautiful and representative, especially because it was true.
Basically, Roots is shown to be false in two ways.
1) Haley purportedly plagiarized some of his story from two other authors, one of whom he had to pay damages.
2)The geneology the Griot recited that coincided with Haley's family history was faked at the instigation of Gambia authorities.
Did anyone else hear about this? I was angry. I mean, yes, though it was labeled "fiction" it was supposed to be historical fiction. The beauty- and darkness- of it came from the fact that this was a TRUE account, IN FACT, and not just spirit.
The kind of things mentioned in the book, no doubt did happen many times to many slaves.
But there was some undefinable poigniancy- for me, at least- in believing that this was ACTUAL fact for Alex Haley's family. And the thought that he had, using word clues, traced his family back and was actually able to "reunite" was very moving.
To know that it was fake is disheartening.
Anyone else hear of this? How did/do you feel about it? Is it not a big deal to you?
posted
I haven't read Roots, and I don't remember much about the miniseries, so it doesn't touch me personally that this is the case, but I know exactly how you're feeling. I felt the same way when I discovered that the James Herriot books were more fiction than not. I had thought that they were barely fictionalized autobiography, and they're not. I still feel...tricked when I think about that. Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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The first link, under the word "these", is from a racist site. I wouldn't trust the veracity of it at all.
Posts: 1658 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Oops. I'll fix that. I thought martinlutherking.org was a good site because of the name. Sheesh, I'm embarrassed. I guess I should have checked that. It doesn't change anything because I've found many references to it on all kinds of other sites, but I'll remove it.
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Ian, do you have any other links? I didn't see anything about the griot fakery that you mentioned. If this is true, it definately saddens me. "Roots" is one of my all-time favorite books and touches me every time I read it. Part of it is the story itself, and part of it is always the remarkable journey and research that Haley did to write it.
posted
I think what aspectre is saying is that history is full of stories, most of which are at least partly untrue, especially if it is not recorded at that very moment, or it is recorded by a biased source, or by an uninformed one or...
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I had no idea. I think that "Roots," even as a purely fictional piece, is definately valuable literature for the complex racial themes that run throughout it. I just wish Haley hadn't fallen prey to what sounds like greed. So sad.
I would elaborate that it is not the engineering of Roots that is the lie. It is the enshrining of everything else one puts on the "History" pedestal. History is just the stories those in power tell us to keep us feeling okay about them being in power.
Like, did you know that 10,000 chinese laborers were killed in one winter cutting the Donner pass for the Transcontinental railroad?
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I don't see how you can say that because history is imperfect that the falsifying of Roots is acceptable, pooka. How dishonest do you have to be before it's not acceptable?
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The historicity of the story is a completely separate issue from the plagiarism. Is the Book of Mormon historical? Proponents (including myself) say yes. Does it plagiarize? Pretty dang massively.
I don't know what the motive and thinking of a novelist to plagiarize would be.
quote: That was Alex Haley's Roots. Considerable publicity was given to the TV special aired by NBC on January 18 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Roots miniseries, and this would have been a good time to point out that Alex Haley and his publisher were sued by Harold Courlander for having taken so much material from his novel, The African. Courlander charged that Haley had not only copied over 80 passages from his book, but that he had copied "language, thoughts, attitudes, incidents, situations, plot and character." He said that it was doubtful that Haley could have written Roots without relying on The African.
We don't really get a total page or word count, just 80 "passages". But they would have to be huge to put into doubt that Haley's thick work could have been written without them.
I remember the debate over King's dissertation. The left (with which I was more affiliated at the time) countered that plagiarism means different things in different cultures, particularly the African American culture.
I would never want to read Roots personally. I was a apparently 9 when it was on TV, and there was some scene of peril where a baby was crying and then it wasn't and I asked what happened to it...
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I think the reason so many feel that Haley is so far out of line is that he represented the stories as a part of his own personal history. Also, the plagiarism is an important matter from an academic point of view, particularly in light of the fact that much of his doctoral thesis was also linked to the "work" he did on this book.
This puts all of his work, both academic and popular into question. For the average reader, his dishonesty may not matter, but in the academic world, plagiarism of this magnitude (or of any magnitude) can shoot large shot-gun sized holes in a person's career.
It's too bad that something that catalyzed much of today's African-American Studies courses in college is not solidly the truth. Still, we have to remember that even fiction can teach us basic truths and there in lies the "good" part of the Roots story. Posts: 392 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Fictional stories, as all of us who are fans of OSC can attest, can have tremedous power. Consider "Uncle Tom's Cabin", which, at the time it was published, brought the issue of slavery into new and painful light.
And in that sense, regardless of the historicity of "Roots", its power remains. It is a profound and moving work that highlights the degradation of man, his resiliance, and to a certain extent, a restoration of what was lost. That power remains regardless. So Haley (excluding however much of the book was plagiarized) was a great writer (Of course, Autobiography of Malcom X is also a beautiful work, where Haley was a "translator" and organizer- an editor, really- rather than a writer.)
But- for me, at least, and probably others- the thing that made this story even more poigniant and powerful was the fact that it was REAL. That we believed that this one family HAD ACTUALLY retained their ancestral identity throughout the centuries fo slavery, that they retained their dignity- something so many lost when cut off from there culture in so brutal a fashion for so long- throughout the long night.
And then, in modern times, at the height of the racial struggle for at least the admission that they were equal and that they had been stolen from their homeland and who they were- at a time when America was celebrating its bicentenial and was basking in its own glory- comes this story. One man- representing African American decendents of slaves everywhere- is able to celebrate his own lost past and is able to, in a certain sense, go home and acknowledge where part of him came from and what kind of culture they had.
The power that made this book stand head and shoulders above all the other great and fantastic fictional books about slavery and the pain and resilience came from the the FACT that this was a true story.
Of course, much of the book's conversations and events were fictionalized recreations- historical fiction, as we all recognize- but still, the bottom line was, it was true and that was what made this so great. This was one family's autobiography.
And to find out that it was faked made it lose something. I still love the book and may get the DVD series. But something is gone, for me.
Yes, most history is simply the accepted and probably partly fictionalized stories about what happened. But still , for the most part, we believe them as having been based in fact- some more so than others - and thus make them part of our self-story.
And to find out that what we believe was fake still hurts, however rationally we might acknowledge the inherent instability of "history".
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I've been reading "The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father," by James Wight. I haven't finished it yet, but so far it's been pretty good. Herriot comes across as a very decent guy who did a good job of evoking the Yorkshire he lived in.
As far as Herriot's writing goes, Wight explains the changes this way:
1) Herriot didn't use his real name (Alf Wight) as that would've been against the rules of the Royal Veterinary Society (it could've been construed as advertising).
2) He changed a lot of details (names, places, etc.) to try to protect his own privacy, and especially the privacy of the people he was writing about. He set the stories in an area 20 miles from where he worked, and he changed his own personal details like moving up the year he was in the service, his wife's background, etc. (Sounds like he was the most "creative" in telling stories about their courtship -- it wasn't an easy courtship, but probably nothing like what's depicted in the books.)
3) He did take stories that'd happened to other folks (his son, Siegfried, etc.) and write as if they'd happened to him instead.
4) He actually toned down Siegfried's character in the book -- IRL Siegfried was even MORE eccentric than as he was portrayed in the books, but because readers might not believe that (and because Siegfried became upset with the books) Herriot portrayed him in a much milder light.
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I had no idea. I think that "Roots," even as a purely fictional piece, is definately valuable literature for the complex racial themes that run throughout it. I just wish Haley hadn't fallen prey to what sounds like greed. So sad.![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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