MacKenzie Bezos Writes Amazon Review for Jeff Bezos Biography

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2I0T26SV0ELPP/

by singular • 13 years ago

255 157 13 years ago

amazon.com

talles• 13 years ago

For who is wondering: "MacKenzie Bezos is an American novelist and the wife of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com."

mathattack• 13 years ago

Does she have a competing book on the market? Or is she just reviewing the book with a writer's eye?

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

The book isn't an auto-biography, so she could just be upset that some writer went and misrepresented her & her husband's lives.

jessaustin3• 13 years ago

Thanks, I sort of assumed this was Jeff's elementary-school-aged child. I even had an androgynous, towheaded, smiling image in my mind. ("MacKenzie" is a rather androgynous, and dare I say infantilizing, name.)

lylejohnson• 13 years ago

I don't believe any elementary school-aged kid could write an extensive book review like that. Not even Jeff Bezos' kid.

aaronem2• 13 years ago

Which says nothing about the person at whom they're aimed, but considerable about the person who made them -- and such assumptions as these say nothing particularly complimentary.

kubiiii3• 13 years ago

There still might be bias in what a wife knows of her husband.

JabavuAdams2• 13 years ago

Of course, but she points to specific facts that can be checked.

We need to be careful, as a society, that "everyone has a bias" isn't used as an excuse to discard verifiable information.

kubiiii3• 13 years ago

I was just being silly but you have a point.

barretts8• 13 years ago

She actually only refers to one specific fact that can be checked -- when Bezos read Remains of the Day. Everything else is just her attempt to re-characterize the environment at Amazon, which is subjective, not factual. (She also has some interesting, though biased, comments on the process of non-fiction writing.)

dorznak• 13 years ago

"When reading phrases like these, which are used in the book routinely, readers should remember that Jeff was never interviewed for this book, [...]"

Since the subject of the book is still alive, I guess it's an unauthorized biography?

newscracker• 13 years ago

For someone so close to Amazon, you'd think she would verify her name in her profile so that the review would show the Real Name tag next to her name (adding a little more credibility). Maybe it doesn't really matter since this is just her third review on Amazon, the other two written in year 2001.

jfoster• 13 years ago

It wouldn't surprise me if she is completely unaware of that functionality.

jonknee• 13 years ago

Her previous review was in 2001 (!), well before that feature was around.

Grue34• 13 years ago

A long, well-written review that is ultimately worthless as the author is clearly biased due to being related to the subject of the book. A good illustration of the importance of context vs content.

afandian5• 13 years ago

I disagree. As commenter K. Mitnick put it:

        The authors are entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to "their own facts".

phorese• 13 years ago

commenter K. Mitnick

"Ken Mitnick" btw, not Kevin. Just in case anyone wondered. Like I did-

Grue34• 13 years ago

Claims by biased entities are not facts. In fact, it's almost always the opposite.

hga3• 13 years ago

She also points to two other reviewers with 1st hand knowledge who dispute enough of the facts to put the book at least somewhat in doubt. E.g. the first says 80/20% correct/incorrect, which makes him wonder what 20% of the claimed facts he's not privy to are also wrong....

coolsank• 13 years ago

And here's the author's response

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-05/responding-t...

joosters• 13 years ago

Not much of a response really. Doesn't try to counter-argue any specific point made. It could be boiled down to 'I'm a good, honest writer, trust me'

(I've no opinion here on who is right or wrong, haven't even read the book)

UnoriginalGuy• 13 years ago

His wife sounds like one hell of a women. I loved the "third world prison" comment.

chalst• 13 years ago

MacKenzie Bezos: Everywhere I can fact check from personal knowledge, I find way too many inaccuracies, and unfortunately that casts doubt over every episode in the book.

Brad Stone: Mrs. Bezos also suggests that there are a handful of factual errors in my account.

There is something slippery about the way Brad Stone writes.

vasilipupkin• 13 years ago

Indeed, but the two may not be mutually exclusive. "Everywhere I can fact check from personal knowledge" doesn't automatically mean more than a handful

barretts8• 13 years ago

There's something slippery about the way Mrs. Bezos writes as well.

She says: "Readers should remember that Jeff was never interviewed for this book."

She conveniently elides the fact that Brad Stone has interviewed Bezos several times for previous articles, and has written about Amazon for a decade or more.

It is certainly tricky, however, for an author to suggest he/she knows what a subject was thinking/feeling in the past.

RockyMcNuts3• 13 years ago

And here's Amazon's response to that - http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/05/amazon-replies-to-authors-r...

cliveowen2• 13 years ago

"If this were an isolated example"

This always bugs me, damn grammar.

afandian5• 13 years ago

What's wrong with that?

adrianb• 13 years ago

this was / these were

cliveowen2• 13 years ago

I know it's not wrong, it's just that every time I see it, it feels wrong.

nwalfield• 13 years ago

"If this were" is an example of the subjunctive mood in English. It expresses a counter-factual assertion.

danso4• 13 years ago

I'm the opposite of the GP, when I see the subjunctive not being used (e.g. "If I was a rich man"), it bugs me...and the proper use of the subjunctive is actually refreshing to me and is almost a litmus test for me that the writer really knows their grammar (and yes, I know the use of "their" will really rankle some people :) ).

That said, I don't think I would've ever been aware of the difference between "were" and "was" in the singular had I never studied a foreign language in high school, in which the subjunctive was explicitly defined.

JetSpiegel• 13 years ago

Ironically, she had to buy the book to read it. The author didn't send them a copy?

smoyer2• 13 years ago

For some definition of "buy" I suppose ... somehow I'm not picturing her Amazon account being suspended when her credit card expiration date passes.

thaumasiotes5• 13 years ago

Having had some cards expire, I can assure you that nobody has their Amazon account suspended when a card expires; that would be insane. Instead, your account works as normal, but you can't use the expired card to pay for anything.

Amazon doesn't operate on a tab system. I'm struggling to imagine how you thought using them worked.

teh_klev2• 13 years ago

How long before the factual inaccuracies noted by Mrs Bezos bleed into Wikipedia's articles on Jeff Bezos and Amazon, with this book being cited as a notable reference?

38252• 13 years ago

I think it is a notable reference. It is a statement by ms bezos after all

teh_klev2• 13 years ago

I meant as in the book, not Mackenzie's review content.

mhurron• 13 years ago

I believe they were asking how long until the incorrect facts in the book show up on wikipedia using the book as a notable reference to prop them up.

Basically, biography claims he is a Lizard Man. Wikipedia is updated "Jeff Bezos, noted reptilian[1] ..."

[1]This book

And then no one argues with it.

davidw2• 13 years ago

I read a book about Amazon a while back, and it was not all that good:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2RXH1XQAP8AAA/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pe...

This one appears to be better, but I think that until one of these guys manages to spend more time with Bezos, we won't really get the definitive story of the company's early years.

I would really like to see such a book, as Amazon, out of all the big tech companies, is probably the one I know the least about.

Amadou• 13 years ago

I think she streisanded the book, this "controversy" is the first I had heard of it myself. But now I've seen her review mentioned in three different online news sources in the last 24 hours.

blowski• 13 years ago

"Streisanded"? I think that's the worst word I will see or hear this week.

ddoolin2• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Not the same term, but the right effect.

kubiiii3• 13 years ago

barbarism streisanded?

hga3• 13 years ago

Well, what that means depends on your view of the maxim that "all publicity is good publicity". I'm sure more copies will be sold. I'm also sure more copies will be read with a more skeptical eye than normal. And for many of us, the quality of her review, the specificity, especially to critical and basic factual errors, tells us a lot if we find her believable (helpfully she cites two other reviewers making the same claim). For me, that's enough to decide not not buy it.

simias• 13 years ago

I'm not sure, I think the streisand effect works when people want to access the source material to see by themselves. The problem here is that you and I can't easily fact-check the book by yourself and therefore we can't really make our own opinion by buying and reading it. Therefore I can't really imagine anyone buying it because "hey, someone knowledgeable on the subject said it was full of half truths!"

Grue34• 13 years ago

More like "this book is so damning, that even Bezos's wife had to do damage control". That's the impression I got at least.

scj• 13 years ago

If she attempted to have the book banned from Amazon (or get her husband to do it), and sales rose, then I would agree with calling it a case of the "Streisand Effect". But all she did was say "The events described do not match my recollections as a primary source."

That makes me less inclined to read it.

gwern• 13 years ago

I think excerpts from the book, focusing on finding Bezos's biological father, were posted to HN previously.

jroseattle4• 13 years ago

Reading the review, I think I could create my own TL;DR:

Overall, there is confirmation bias. We see what we want to see.

This is as true for Ms. Bezos's review as it is for the author's biography. As is usually the case, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle area of consensus -- which we now know is anathemic territory for Mr. Bezos.

EDIT: would appreciate a reply to understand why this was downvoted.

JabavuAdams2• 13 years ago

See these comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6674569

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6675042

Some things are actually verifiable. Or a weaker statement: if something could be easily verified, the fact that someone with an opinion on the matter hasn't bothered to research it indicates laziness. For people like journalists and writers, it may indicate misconduct.

As a society, we need to fight the idea that everyone is biased therefore if your facts weaken my argument let's just agree to disagree, m'kay.

While on a social level, this is a good idea, in the public sphere it allows bad actors to just shrug off contradicting evidence.

jroseattle4• 13 years ago

I don't believe everyone is biased, but I do think it's reasonable to consider that Ms. Bezos might be, due to her relationship with her husband. It's not across the board, as you state certain facts bear themselves out, but several things she addresses are subjective in nature.

I think it's more important we consider the fact that someone can raise valid points while also holding a natural bias, as opposed to the all-or-nothing state that it's become (which is what I believe you're referencing.)

SkyMarshal• 13 years ago

EDIT: would appreciate a reply to understand why this was downvoted.

Probably because neither of these statements is necessarily true:

As is usually the case, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle area of consensus -- which we now know is anathemic territory for Mr. Bezos.

Also because bias is irrelevant to whether something is a verifiable fact or not. Thinking otherwise is like a reverse appeal to authority fallacy. Characteristics of the source have no bearing on the assertion, the latter must be evaluated on its own merits and verifiability alone, and nothing else. Lots of comments here about bias, none are relevant.

Also, asking for explanations for downvotes is against HN ettiquette (see FAQ and Guidelines) and usually downvoted.

jroseattle4• 13 years ago

Bias is certainly irrelevant to verifiable facts. Bias is not irrelevant to anything subject to interpretation, even when those subjects are presented as facts (politicians do this all the time.) I'm not suggesting bias toward anything other than the subjective matter, which I thought I'd described in other comments.

As for downvote explanation, I wasn't aware of the HN etiquette. Duly noted.

kineticfocus2• 13 years ago

Debating biases aside... An author not interviewing their subject is unprofessional. (edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay )

ddoolin2• 13 years ago

What happens if the subject doesn't agree to be interviewed? I haven't read the book or much around it except for this article.

Is there a reason for not doing so? I agree it seems really unprofessional.

hga3• 13 years ago

Well, such "unauthorized" biographies can have value (heck, what if you're writing one long after the author and those who knew him are dead?), but they have to be much more careful. Which she's pointing out the author wasn't.

E.g. this paragraph, in the middle of like stuff, is devastating:

"In light of the focus in many of the reviews here and elsewhere on what the book “reveals” about Jeff’s motives, I will also point out that the passage about what was on his mind when he decided to start Amazon is far from the only place where the book passes off speculation about his thoughts and intentions as fact. “Bezos felt…” “Bezos believed….” “Bezos wanted….” “Bezos fixated…” “Bezos worried….” “Bezos was frustrated…” “Bezos was consumed…” “In the circuitry of Bezos’s brain, something flipped…” When reading phrases like these, which are used in the book routinely, readers should remember that Jeff was never interviewed for this book, and should also take note of how seldom these guesses about his feelings and motives are marked with a footnote indicating there is any other source to substantiate them."

danso4• 13 years ago

Bezos has been famously reticent to talk to reporters ever since Amazon became big:

http://jimromenesko.com/2013/08/11/i-interviewed-jeff-bezos-...

If the subject does not want to do an interview, than it is not unprofessional to not have interviewed the person. In fact, I can't imagine why even a dishonest reporter would not interview their subject given the chance, as that reporter is still in control of the transcribed material and can use it dishonestly, even moreso than if they didn't have the interview, because they can claim their biography has extra weight, due to the exclusive interview, even if they then end up twisting to their purposes.

(which is why very famous people often do not talk to reporters in the first place)

The "writearound", the kind of biography in which you do extensive research to fill in the gaps and talk to everyone else you can find, is actually a pretty well-honored form of biography, and one that can be very illuminating.

(I'm not defending the author in the Bezos case as I don't know the particulars. Just disputing your argument that not having a direct interview destroys the legitimacy of a biography)

barretts8• 13 years ago

You are 100% wrong. Stone interviewed Bezos many times over the years, just not expressly for this book. (Bezos refused.) Bezos did give permission for many of his friends and colleagues to speak to Stone, so he did cooperate in a fashion.

Reporting on a subject without interviewing them is so common, and so necessary, that journalists have a term to describe it. It's called a "write-around."

Full disclosure: I worked with Brad Stone for two years.

kineticfocus2• 13 years ago

I haven't read the book... and I can't possibly be an arbitrar on whose perspective is more accurate. But in my opinion, Bezos' personally worded perspective wouldn't have hurt. I'm happy to hear friends and colleagues were interviewed.

OvidNaso2• 13 years ago

But Mrs. Bezos mentions his use of all those thinking verbs he ascribes to Jeff. I was reminded yesterday of writing advice by Chuck Paluchink (thanks Reddit) to never use these "thought" verbs and instead to show. This is even more important for non-fiction.

Presumably Mr. Stone had evidence and reason to put Bezos's mind in a certain frame from circumstance, action, or interviews and if he did, he should have laid out that evidence to show us his probably mental state and not simply told us.

dbecker• 13 years ago

When I read journalism without knowing the subject well, I assume what I read is accurate. But I'm always shocked by the inaccuracy of reporting on stories I know/understand well.

I wonder whether this book is less accurate than average, or whether this review is finding only the typical level of inaccuracy.

thaumasiotes5• 13 years ago

When I read journalism without knowing the subject well, I assume what I read is accurate. But I'm always shocked by the inaccuracy of reporting on stories I know/understand well.

How long before you either () stop being shocked by the stories you understand, or () stop assuming the journalist is telling you the truth in stories you don't? A sentence like this makes more sense in the past tense...

When I was small, my parents taught me that if it appeared on TV, it wasn't true （they were mostly thinking of commercials, but news programs were offenders too). It may be sad, but those seem more and more like words to live by, and extend to other media.

moocowduckquack• 13 years ago

When I was small, my parents taught me that if it appeared on TV, it wasn't true

Someone I know calls it 'The Glowing Box of Lies', which seems as good a description as any.

JunkDNA• 13 years ago

I remember learning firsthand just how inaccurate journalism can be. My family ran a small business (a small factory) that tragically caught fire early one morning and burned to the ground. The newspaper account was ridiculous. It described how the fire sent employees "fleeing for their lives from the building". In reality, the building was entirely unoccupied at the time since it was the early morning (likely part of the reason the fire happened to begin with). I don't remember all of the details now, but reading the story, I was stunned at how wrong the overall picture was that it was painting. It was like a parallel universe. I take news accounts with a huge grain of salt now.

vijayr• 13 years ago

Was it a genuine mistake, or just someone adding drama to the story to make it more sensational? Looks like the second scenario, in this case.

e12e• 13 years ago

"No news in the truth and no truth in the news."

Bill_Dimm• 13 years ago

Yep. Several years ago the Eastern Technology Council (a local business association) had its annual party on the campus of one of its member companies named Safeguard Scientifics. The local paper reported it as a Safeguard Scientifics networking or recruiting event (I forget which, but no mention of ETC), and claimed that resumes were being exchanged (I was there and didn't see a single resume, just people from various companies chatting, eating, and exchanging business cards). The article was so off-target that people on the Yahoo finance board for Safeguard Scientifics were claiming that this was a sign that the company was in great shape because it was on a big hiring spree. Reality: The company allowed a party to take place on its property, that is all.

jahewson• 13 years ago

I believe you mean a tiny grain of salt, as such news articles have so little meat to consume.

barretts8• 13 years ago

I'd suggest you re-read the review. She only points to one inaccuracy -- the timeframe when Bezos read Remains of the Day. Stone has acknowledged and corrected that fact for future editions.

Everything else she says is subjective. She thinks Stone portrayed Amazon as a cutthroat, sinister culture; she tries to re-frame it as an Edenic workplace. The truth is probably somewhere in between, but her version is certainly not a fact.

unreal372• 13 years ago

I think the other argument she makes is that the book is filled with "Bezos worried about..." and "Bezos believed this...". How can the author make such a claim if they didn't interview Bezos? And no mention of having a source claim this.

I am sure most of these thoughts and feelings attributed to Bezos are fictional.

judk2• 13 years ago

Gell-Mann Amnesia

steerpike• 13 years ago

Interesting you think that. Ever since I read the following http://seekerblog.com/2006/01/31/the-murray-gell-mann-amnesi... I think the opposite.

tobylane• 13 years ago

I think it's notable that a review (that is currently the second most 'helpful') is the way to disagree with a book. It reaches people considering buying it, so it's less grandstanding than announcing the same facts to a newspaper, where there would be much less editorial control.

saalweachter2• 13 years ago

Did anyone else find this section weird:

  In an archive of the thousands of thank you messages written
  to Jeff over the years, a small sampling includes “I just
  wanted to thank you for giving my husband the opportunity to
  work for your company so many years ago and let you know
  that he always spoke kindly and enthusiastically of the
  distribution center, the people and you.” “Having finished
  my shift I thought I would send you a short email to say
  thank you. There is a fantastic team based here and we have
  super support. Our mentors are true Amazon angels providing
  guidance and showing great patience.” “I cried as I read the
  Career Choice announcement on Amazon today. What Amazon is
  doing to help its employees is affecting lives in the most
  meaningful way I can think of. It restores my faith in
  humanity.”

I'm not saying they haven't received thousands of thank-yous, but that's weird, right? I've never once considered sending a thank-you to any CEO/boss, nor have I met anyone who has. (Of course, I've also never worked at Amazon--)

jonhinson• 13 years ago

I don't think it's a weird thing to do if someone loves what they do or is very grateful for the opportunity they have. However, I'm biased as I have written a thank you note to my CEO before (small company - I was #13 and we have 36 people now).

saalweachter2• 13 years ago

I guess doing the math it's just likely below my radar.

Thousands of thank-yous comes out to around ~100 / year, and Amazon has probably had between 10,000 and 100,000 employees for most of that, so it's around 0.1%-1% of employees choosing to write a thank-you in any given year. I probably don't know 100-1000 people well enough for that to show up in my personal experience.

But it still seems weird.

jcutrell• 13 years ago

I absolutely don't think people writing thank you notes to their boss is weird. I do this on almost a daily basis via email or text.

This block of text does seem weird though - I think it's because she was highly emotional while writing. (Completely a guess.) And this particular portion would have likely been the most emotional for her. It's not as well composed as the rest of the fairly well-formed critique.

ececconi2• 13 years ago

I've written thank you messages to CEO's for every company I've worked with/consulted at. It's a small thing, but I don't think it's common.

clinth• 13 years ago

It might be weird, but I'm a thank-you letter writer. I wouldn't write those exact letters, but I've written similar sentiments.

I've written my CEO, because I live in a house I bought with money earned from this job, raising a family of three kids, and appreciate that my enterprise is sustainable. I'm grateful for my job, the opportunity to do the work I do, and to the people who make it happen.

However, I write a half-dozen or so such letters per year. Not just professional: personal, community, and so on. This rate is trending up as I get older. I'm getting more and more grateful for how our lives all fit together. There are many people working hard toward good ends and probably not being thanked for the good work they do.

mooreds2• 13 years ago

I don't often pull out the old pen and paper and write a thank you note. This comment reminds me I should.

Practicing gratitude on your own is great, but what a gift to light up someone else's day.

dsr_• 13 years ago

Precisely the same bias that she complains about applies here: people tend to remember the extremes of history and forget the mundane.

In any case, thank-you notes from warehouse workers aren't much good as evidence that Amazon isn't treating them badly.

kbenson• 13 years ago

She supplied that specifically as evidence that not all sentiments were negative, and that there was another side that was left out, not as an example of how everyone felt.

ececconi2• 13 years ago

I think writing to the CEO says more about a person writing the letter than the person the letter is being addressed to. Especially if the writer doesn't know the CEO well.

kfcm• 13 years ago

Prior to the Internet and e-mail, the days of yore 20+ years ago, writing thank you notes was far more common. Can you believe it was actually expected job-hunting etiquette to send a thank-you note/letter after an interview, thanking the interviewer for their time and getting in a couple final "why you should hire me" points?

If the Internet has done anything successfully, it has drastically eroded much of our common courtesy and etiquette.

mooreds2• 13 years ago

"If the Internet has done anything successfully, it has drastically eroded much of our common courtesy and etiquette."

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

jonnathanson• 13 years ago

Having worked in corporate at Walmart, I don't find this weird at all. Especially coming from early employees (from whom I presume these came), many of whom probably made a decent chunk of change from the performance of the company's stock since the early days.

Sam Walton, the late founder of Walmart, is revered as something of a demigod by the early Walmart employees (many of whom are still around). This is especially true of early administrative, distribution, and store-level employees. These folks had limited prospects and came for stable employment -- but they were rewarded beyond their wildest expectations when the company grew from a regional general store into a $100B+ business in a little over a decade. Early Walmart employees speak of "Mr. Sam" (as they call him) the way we speak of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.

I wouldn't be surprised if early Amazon employees have a similar reverence for Jeff Bezos.

ensignavenger• 13 years ago

Reading Sam Walton's autobiography has had a huge influence on my life, I found it quite inspiring as a teenager. I grew up in Southwest Missouri, and remember Walmart being the "local" chain, as compared to say, Kmart, their bigger, national competitor.

All that said, I do not agree with many of the decisions the company has made sense Sam Walton's departure. I find many of the companies current philosophies to be in direct opposition to those that Sam Walton espoused in his own autobiography.

jasoncrawford• 13 years ago

People definitely do this at Amazon--especially as they're leaving the company, if they had a good experience working there, as many people did. I don't think I sent Jeff a note when I left Amazon, but I know others who did.

codeonfire• 13 years ago

Yes, this is totally weird but not unexpected. This is basic Stockholm syndrome. Crying about basic education benefits? c'mon!

frogpelt2• 13 years ago

Did you take a poll of everyone you've met about this topic? Or are you assuming that the people you've met would have told you if they sent letters to the CEO?

Consider this possibility: maybe Jeff Bezos sends personal replies to the letters. If word got around, it wouldn't be that weird for 1-2% of the workforce to write a thank you note hoping for a personal reply.

unreal372• 13 years ago

Just 10 minutes ago I wrote an email of appreciation to the boss of someone who I think is doing a good job, out of the blue. People do write thank you notes, directed at a person's boss, from time to time even if you don't.

I think Jeff Bezos and Amazon have changed the world of commerce (online and offline). Imagine what kind of world it would be without such efficient online e-commerce as an option.

barretts8• 13 years ago

The book author Brad Stone (who I used to work with) responded to Mackenzie's review and I think his comment is spot-on:

"I'm certainly less biased than Jeff's wife."

http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-wife-reviews-book-...

MikusR• 13 years ago

So he is attacking Bezos wife and not the facts she wrote? https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

joshuaheard• 13 years ago

Credibility of the witness (bias) is always a proper issue for argument.

objclxt• 13 years ago

I don't think it's a logical fallacy: he's making a general point that the wife of his subject is not going to be particularly impartial.

barretts8• 13 years ago

If you'd read the article you'd note that he barely addresses her or her status, and primarily responds to her review and elucidates his reporting process.

I quoted that line because I think it usefully reframes the conversation. Journalists certainly can be biased, but the good ones try very hard not to be. Spouses by definition are biased.

justin662• 13 years ago

Stone's comment is rather dumb. Insofar as Mackenzie was accusing him of "bias" (not a word she used) she might be interpreted as accusing him of trying to tart up his story to make it exciting. She appeared to be more concerned with Stone getting facts wrong and pretending to understand what Bezos might have been thinking.

Stone's comment was defensively knocking over a strawman and I wonder if it is indicative of his overall seriousness as a writer.

j_s• 13 years ago

I would like to read Brad Stone's life partner's response to MacKenzie Bezos' review.

rmk26• 13 years ago

Something bothers me about the conclusion of the review...

"In this theory I treat the historical work as what it most manifestly is: a verbal structure in the form of a narrative prose discourse. Histories (and philosophies of history as well) combine a certain amount of 'data,' theoretical concepts for 'explaining' these data, and a narrative structure for their presentation as an icon of sets of events presumed to have occurred in times past. In addition, I maintain, they contain a deep structural content which is generally poetic, and specifically linguistic, in nature, and which serves as the precritically accepted paradigm of what a distinctively 'historical' explanation should be." (Hayden White, Metahistory, p. IX)

What MacKenzie Bezos points out, albeit in a localised fashion, is what the Humanities have come to regard as the "linguistic turn" during the course of the 20th century. As Hayden White states above (in his concern with historical writing), historical writing takes a certain set of data that is then fitted into a wider narrative, alongside some underlying meta-narrative, which marks a certain interpretive paradigm (e.g. a progress-narrative). This, in turn, means that no account can desribe "historical truth". It also means that every account is fundamentally literary (or, as he formulates it, at least linguistic). It is no surprise, then, that the Bezos biography does not describe "historical fact". However, it also means that a biography written by Bezos's wive or even his autobiography cannot describe "historical truth" either. Every account remains a narrative, and thus fictional, even if based "on real events", as Hollywood so neatly calls it.

Hayden White continues: The chosen (or, in this case, criticised) writers' "status as possible models of historical representation or conceptualization does not depend upon the nature of the 'data' they used to support their generalizations or the theories they invoked to explain them; it depends rather upon the consistency, coherence, and illuminative power of their respective visions of the historical field." (Hayden White, Metahistory, p. 4)

So her final claim is dubious, at best: "Ideally, authors are careful to ensure people know whether what they are reading is history or an entertaining fictionalization. Hollywood often uses a more honest label: 'a story based on true events.' If authors won’t admit they’ve crossed this important line, their characters can do it for them."

While the "character" may certainly give you their version of the story, what they present is far from being "historical truth". They also choose examples, omit others, pick and make decisions, depending on their very own narrative. This is less a clash of "fiction" versus "historical truth", but instead a clash of two narratives. The character's narrative (in this case, Bezos's) might carry more authority (he is the character in question, after all), but the account remains nevertheless a narrative, which can also be criticised.

This is the same reflex as can be observed sometimes with old guest listeners at universities who torpedo (especially) historical lectures with a simple claim: "But I was there in 19xx, and I didn't know about or notice any of that." And while that might be a true data point, it doesn't mean that it somehow invalidates the wider narrative.

Edit: The author can thus certainly criticise the overall narrative or narrative thrust in the biography, but pointing out singular data points that simply oppose a given data point do not serve the same function.

barretts8• 13 years ago

Well (if verbosely) said.

dmix• 13 years ago

Interesting, I hadn't heard of Hayden White before:

He has argued that historical writing mirrors literary writing in many ways, sharing the strong reliance on narrative for meaning, therefore ruling out the possibility for objective or truly scientific history. White has also argued, however, that history is most successful when it embraces this "narrativity", since it is what allows history to be meaningful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_White

This is relevant considering most non-fiction writing today is influence by "new journalism" and adopts a fiction/literary form. Often using a narrative structure similar to screenwriting (beginning/middle/end) which is antithetical to scientific history.

thwest2• 13 years ago

If a screenwriterly narrative is moving away from scientific history, how could we move closer? Simply publish historical data in table form? It seems like as soon as you employ verbs that imply causality you are subject to White's analysis here.

RockyMcNuts3• 13 years ago

Well, either the Remains of the Day anecdote is true or false... it's one thing to pick and choose the facts you think are important in the context of the narrative you think is important, another if the facts are incorrect, which is what Mrs. Bezos is alleging.

rmk26• 13 years ago

Certainly, a given anecdote might be right or wrong. The thing that seems to follow here, however, is an implied claim that because of the falsity of a given (singular?) data point, somehow the overall narrative becomes unsustainable. However, this means that the claimed truthfulness of the counterpoint is used to support a completely opposing narrative without any further backing. This is, in a round-about way, an appeal to authority that then seemingly provides a complete alternative to a given narrative, seemingly without the need to substantiate the wider claims in their entirety.

josefresco• 13 years ago

Interestingly, one of the "characters" did come forward, with their own "historical truth" review (4/5 stars) that doesn't exactly fall in line with MacKenzie's conclusions:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3J863C5ZP53BA/ref=cm_cr_dp_tit...

judk2• 13 years ago

Interestingly, he agrees with Mackenzie's allegations about inaccuracy, but he is far more forgiving about them.

unclesaamm• 13 years ago

This is a bunch of pretentious hock. The linguistic turn has nothing to do with this. In fact, I hate how you bring up an external source and quote extensively from it as if it proves anything. Okay, armchair liberal arts student, here's the smack:

When you purport to be writing a factual account, there are certain standards that you can be held accountable to.

Take, for instance, "A Million Little Pieces". It was a memoir written by James Frey in 2003 that absolutely imploded when people found out that he made up large chunks of the material (wikipedia now lists it as "semi-fictional"). There's a difference between the two categories, and the difference is in exactly the type of anecdotal evidence that you don't think is important.

Edited to add: I agree that maybe the overall narrative of the book--the feeling and reportage of Amazon's culture--may still be accurate. I'd like to see more examples of inaccuracies before drawing any conclusions. It's also important to bear in mind just how much of a vested interest MacKenzie Bezos has in debunking this, because presumably the book makes Jeff Bezos and Amazon look bad (haven't read it yet though).

rmk26• 13 years ago

Ad hominem aisde, your edit seems to actively counter your other point.

My whole point is that both sites spin a narrative a certain way because they both would like history to look a certain way. The reason why I "extensively quote" an external source is to show that there are other elements involved in the perception of truth than just the given data points.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with pointing out inaccurate data. However, there seems to be a general propensity to then discount a whole narrative in favour of the seemingly corrected narrative of the person doing the corrections. The whole point of bringing up the underlying bias of any historical account, however, is to just keep in mind that all correction is capable of doing is to erect another narrative. Which one you find more convincing is entirely yours to decide. I merely (or, perhaps, "merely") contest that what happens in the review is an opposition of (semi-)fiction on one hand and "historical truth" on the other.

bksenior• 13 years ago

"There are three sides to every story: Your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently."

- Robert Evans

Megatronic• 13 years ago

Hayden White would distinguish between a hollywood narrative in which a false(r) history is deliberately created for entertainment or sensatinalism, and an attempt at an accurate account, regardless of how biased it is. There's a difference between intentionally crafting a narrative and expressing one you have formed through your experiences. Bezos is suggesting the former, which is quite different than what White was talking about. Not that that proves anything, but you're dismissing what she's saying completely by misapplying a theory.

rmk26• 13 years ago

The differentiation between a "hollywood narrative" and the "attempt at an accurate account", however, brings us a new set of problems: Who gets to decide which is which? Do we have to rely on authorial intention? Do we rely on reception?

Either way doesn't allow us to qualify what kind of effort we have at hand without grounding said qualification on our own biases. If we believe that the account is fundamentally flawed, we are free to assume that a hollywood narrative has been deliberately crafted to misrepresent "historical truth" (which would be the Bezos side). If we believe that the account is fundamentally correct, regardless of bias and some factual flaws, then we have to assume that the intent behind it was to give an accurate account of history.

My whole point is that neither authorial intention nor pure reception can offer us a definitive assessment of a given accounts "truthfulness" or overall expressed content. Consequently, this lets me regard both sides as biased. Both have an agenda, and both represent things a certain way, thus necessarily misrepresenting others in the process. Who I think is more believable in their account is then a question of my own choice, depending on my own inclinations, biases and presuppositions.

P.S.: I do not regard any of the quoted bits as a theory that is to be applied. Instead, they introduce two distinct elements: reflexion and self-reflexion. Theory thus introduces a mode of thought, not a structural base for analysis. White's own categories are certainly structural (and structuralist) and to be applied, but they are crafted for his own analysis of the history of historiography (and therefore notably absentin my quotations. They, however, are not the transferable meaning that is valid in for more contexts than just his intended analyses.

makmanalp• 13 years ago

Here is the author's response: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-05/responding-t...

taralx• 13 years ago

That is a very classy response. No blame, no deflection. My respect for this author just went up a notch.

marincounty• 13 years ago

I'm tired of anything Jeff Bezos. Actually, I liked Amazon better, when I didn't know so much about Jeff Bezos. Now I know his wife's name--ugh.

cylinder• 13 years ago

I think there's a push to turn Bezos into the new Steve Jobs. Media always likes to have a figure like him around.

frogpelt2• 13 years ago

The author's response is here: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-05/responding-t...

crb002• 13 years ago

Cool. I didn't know Bezos worked for DE Shaw. Their research into how we schedule molecular dynamics simulations to gain the maximum information from limited compute resources is going to revolutionize experimental design in the engineering world. http://www.deshawresearch.com/publications.html

MacKenzie Bezos Writes Amazon Review for Jeff Bezos Biography

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