Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

From this morning’s New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/arts/22masl.html?ref=books

Valerie Plame (of Plamegate, from a few years ago) has just released a memoir.  Since she was a CIA agent, she had to have it checked over by the agency, and they forced her to cut out a lot of information.  Most of what they cut out is a matter of public record.  So she and her publishers, Simon & Schuster, just released the book with black lines covering everything the CIA doesn’t want us to read.  Additionally, a journalist named Laura Rozen added an 80-page afterword putting back all the missing information that was in the public record.  I think there are a lot of interesting issues with this, but mainly it reminds me of our cut-up exercise.

A quote from the article: “The book is at its weirdest when, after Ms. Wilson mentions a woman in a Chanel suit who wheeled two Burberry-wearing pug dogs in a baby carriage, there’s a blackout of seven and three-quarters lines. After that, “Joe” has unaccountably become part of her life.”

I think it’s such a fascinating idea to make it obvious where information has been taken out, then to include it at the end.  The book itself becomes part of the story, and the form of the book itself makes a point.