There have been a few stories about stories lately. Last weekend - i.e., the weekend before the one we just survived - UP with Chris Hayes featured Oliver Stone talking about , the companion book to the Showtime series of the same name.
I haven't watched it - just can't summon up the energy for another Oliver Stone take on history - but from what I've heard, the stories they tell are not untold. I've heard many of them. And I agree with the basic premise, that these stories should be told, right along with the stories of . I haven't read Tom Brokaw's book either. But I bet it's just as true as Stone's.
To tell the complete story of any event is impossible - impossible to tell and impossible to hear. The pieces of contradictory evidence would be overwhelming.
As a story-teller myself, I'm always having to decide what to leave in, what to leave out. To leave everything in dilutes the story I'm trying to tell. To leave out all the contradictions tells more of a lie than I intend. To my mind, Oliver Stone and Tom Brokaw have written stories that put in what the other left out. Neither one of them has the whole truth. Perhaps it seems they contradict each other. To my mind, it's in the contradictions that a piece of truth might be found.
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