C/D: old, probably senile men who are trying to an autobio but refuse to include any details and in some cases even deliberately offering cliched lies in order to mask the uncomfortable memories from

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
I'm working for an old Japanese businessman who's writing his autobiography. In an official capacity, I'm really only supposed to be typing up his notes into a very rough ms, but he keeps coming to me asking questions about how to write the damn thing or to tell me stories and incidents he's told me at least three other times before.

I just had an hour long discussion with him, and two of the many things that irk me are 1. his disinclination to tell his feelings on a subject and 2. his relative inability to recount a scene with great detail. re: 2., I've resorted to giving him writing exercises, complete with a WWWWW-style prompt, which sort of ties in to 1., which is that there are some things he refuses to write about (truthfully), namely the Japanese internment. I do know that a near unanimous majority of Japanese-Americans who were interned refuse to make issue of this, but our conversation got to the point where I asked him that if the Chinese were being ordered to camps b/c the PROC did something big and bad, if I should go willingly & happily like this was a vacation in Tahoe because from what he's written it doesn't seem like that bad a place where he had a lot of fun (which I swear to god is the jist of some of what he's written). And he said yes, I should go willingly. Which pissed me off, his unabashed deliberateness. I know that autobios are more and more exploring the nature of veracity vis-a-vis a person's lifetime, but in my case this guy is a businessman who wants to write his story -- he's not N. Scott Momaday or Nabokov.

An offshoot of this dilemma is that there are other events which he refuses to write about because as he sez, they don't seem important enough to him to write about but which in the very least, IMO, add color and flava to his story, such as a high school gang fight with some Portueguese students. I'm using this encounter as a writing exercise ostensibly to see if he can write with sufficient detail, but also with the ulterior motive of using these exercises to improve his ms.

I'm just venting. I'm going to hell too I think.

Leee (Leee), Monday, 28 July 2003 22:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I know that these issues stem from his age and his relative inexperience in writing these things, but having to deal directly with this is upsetting.

Then again, I'm also questioning some of my own motives for writing and editing -- I'm already omitting various notes and such because of what I consider to be problems with quality. I mean, I'm already nipping and tucking things quite a lot, it's got the stink of my aesthetics on it if you read it close enough, and given the autobio deal (and the fact that this thing's supposed to be written by him, not a ghostwriter), there's a tricky situation I'm getting into.

This is what I get for reading/posting to ILX when I should be working on the ms.

Leee (Leee), Monday, 28 July 2003 23:01 (twenty-two years ago)

you'll have to respect Japanese culture to get anything out of him.

Don't ask direct questions.
Don't ask "why" ask "how" (which elicits a series of steps rather than a justification/producing defensiveness).
THEN take him to a karaoke bar, get him roaring drunk, because then he is culturally permitted to tell you the juicy stuff.
Have fun.

Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 28 July 2003 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Aim for the best sake available too. Make sure he pays for it. ;-)

Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 July 2003 23:04 (twenty-two years ago)

He has little problem telling me these things, it's getting him to write them down is the hassle. He's a nisei, born and raised in the US so that direct questions haven't overtly pissed him off, but he still hangs on to a few traditional-Japanese things (e.g. stoicism about the internment). I also don't want to spend more time with him than I have to STOP CALLING ME BUDDY YOU COOT.

Leee (Leee), Monday, 28 July 2003 23:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Do you want him to call you 'Li'l Sweetums'?

Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 July 2003 23:08 (twenty-two years ago)

buy him more sake and he will

Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 28 July 2003 23:08 (twenty-two years ago)

"Sir, you said this game we're playing is called Sodomy Samurai?"

Li'l Sweetums (Leee), Monday, 28 July 2003 23:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I have managed to work "U&K" into the ms though, ergo my soul is saved I am going to Heaven.

Leee (Leee), Monday, 28 July 2003 23:17 (twenty-two years ago)

If the quality of the thing doesn't affect your pay, why don't you just let him write what rubbish he wants?

thoth (Jake Proudlock), Tuesday, 29 July 2003 15:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Wise words.

Moderator delete thread please.

Leee (Leee), Tuesday, 29 July 2003 19:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Seriously, isn't the editing what you are getting paid to do? He can say whatever; tis up to you to make it readable/interesting to his audience....no matter if it all bores you to tears

Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Tuesday, 29 July 2003 19:14 (twenty-two years ago)

CLASSIC!

Scaredy Cat, Tuesday, 29 July 2003 19:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Make a video instead.

Kris (aqueduct), Tuesday, 29 July 2003 19:20 (twenty-two years ago)

i sort of envy your situation~please keep us informed.

kephm, Wednesday, 30 July 2003 22:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Here's how it's going (one of the edits he wants made): "I started a similar sales organization in **** and started a[n operation] I started."

Leee (Leee), Thursday, 31 July 2003 19:58 (twenty-two years ago)

GO WITH THE FLOW!! (you cd start by adding an extra "that I started" to that sentence for a start)

mark s (mark s), Thursday, 31 July 2003 20:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't blow your nose in front of him.

Calz (Calz), Thursday, 31 July 2003 21:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Not an isolated phenomenon: "[This and that] must be good for [...] production to produce good quality product."

Leee (Leee), Thursday, 31 July 2003 23:45 (twenty-two years ago)

seven years pass...

There's an old man who I see every morning walking from the lake, and for a while I thought he was walking to the train. He wears a suit and carries a little brown tote bag. He looks like Lorne Greene and never says hi to me even though I pass him with my dog and say hi politely.

Then I realized that I see him every afternoon too, only he takes off his jacket because it's getting warmer outside and surely he's kinda hot. Today I looked at his face, and it was totally red, and I realized that he must be walking around the block for hours, probably as an escape from the nursing home where he lives (there are at least three within a block or two of my apt.)

In sum, he is not a man on his way to work; he is a senile old man. He looks so unhappy.

2010 = the year of (exactly) 500 Rogers! (La Lechera), Thursday, 12 May 2011 19:49 (fifteen years ago)

one month passes...

one day you should arrange little events to liven up his day, something like a (fake) signed photo of lorne greene on a bench where he's about to set, a printout of a praiseworthy article about suits similar to his suit, an article about the benefits of walking. anything to make the guy smile. try to find out more about him, like where he used to live and try to chat about them with them.

if you make unhappy senile man into a happy senile man then you'll be increasing the good in the world, plus having an exciting little puppet-master adventure.

NI, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 01:11 (fifteen years ago)

Did this book ever come out? I would totally hang out with an old Japanese dude who called me buddy.

unmetalled world (wk), Tuesday, 14 June 2011 04:01 (fifteen years ago)

just had an hour long discussion with him, and two of the many things that irk me are 1. his disinclination to tell his feelings on a subject

If done well, I think that having someone not go on about their feelings on a subject could be a good thing. People go on about their feelings too much, says the buttoned-up and reticent New Dirty Vicar.

The New Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 11:58 (fifteen years ago)


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.