OJ Book Leaked

thatguyoverthere · 06-23-2007, 08:05 AM

So, OJ Simpson's book "If I Did It" finally leaked onto the net. I won't put a link, but it's pretty easy to find.

What I haven't been able to find on the net (yet) is any substantial discussion or analysis of the book.

I admit, I was one of those trial buffs. I must own 20 books on the case. I'm still mulling over "If I Did It", but I will have a few things to say about it in a day or two.

I just wanted to gauge interest here first. Anyone interested in reading my review/analysis or discussing the book and the case? Anyone read it and care to share your thoughts?

thomez · 06-23-2007, 09:02 AM

I know one thing, Goldman and his lawyer were fucking pissed off that it leaked as soon as they decided they were going to try and make money off of it

They said they plan on suing TMZ.com for millions of dollars

Dumpy Dooby · 06-23-2007, 10:43 AM

I'd rather just read your review than read his book. The trial didn't interest me enough to read a book on it. Then again, I think I was 8 years old during the trial. I just remember wanting to watch cartoons, but instead was forced to watch some gay murder case.

I think that's when I started collecting baseball cards. I got that bored.

RMNIXON · 06-23-2007, 02:01 PM

There was enough evidence at trial to clearly show to anyone with intelligence how he did it and why. It was actually a very rash and sloppy murder. There is no mystery to solve.

thatguyoverthere · 06-24-2007, 10:51 PM

Originally Posted by thomez

I know one thing, Goldman and his lawyer were fucking pissed off that it leaked as soon as they decided they were going to try and make money off of it

They said they plan on suing TMZ.com for millions of dollars

Lucky for them the book was leaked by a company with money. What were the chances of that happening?

If I were the Goldman's, I'd be putting together a book about the book, with a detailed psychological and historical analysis, stories about the real genesis of the project, and essays by noted players in the trial. It would be far more interesting than the book on its own.

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

There was enough evidence at trial to clearly show to anyone with intelligence how he did it and why. It was actually a very rash and sloppy murder. There is no mystery to solve.

The mystery is how did someone so obviously guilty beat the system? And what have we learned from the whole thing? The OJ trial exposed a lot of racial unrest, and I don't know if we've ever come to any sort of understanding since then.

thatguyoverthere · 06-25-2007, 12:24 AM

Okay, I've spent a lot of time re-reading the book. Here are my first thoughts.

Even for a murder confession, it's remarkably self serving. Filled with contradictions, it paints a repulsive picture of OJ Simpson, in his own words.

The book is easily divided into three sections. The Pre-murders (Chapters 1 - 5), the murders themselves (Chapter 6), and the brief post-murders (Chapters 7 and 8).

Chapter 6 (entitled "The Night In Question") is kind of an island in the middle. In both the pre and post murder sections, Simpson repeatedly insinuates his innocence. My guess is that the interviews began chronologically, and Simpson was enjoying laying out his revisionist history of his relationship with Nicole so much he agreed to the "hypothetical" confession. (i.e.: Simpson is willing to give you 20 pages of "hypothetical" description of the double murder if you're willing to read 200 pages of his wife-abuse denials.)

That's the primary insight into Simpson that I gleaned. It actually seems more important to him to clear himself of charges of wife abuse than of double murder. I was also struck by his repeated use of phrases proclaiming his honesty. "...to be honest...", "...frankly...", "...in fact...", "...as God is my witness...", "...it's God's own truth...", "...to tell you the truth...", "...trust me...", "...believe me..." I counted 61 separate declarations of honesty throughout the book.

Simpson paints himself as a victim, a confused, unlucky bystander in his own life, powerless against the guiles of women. Almost everything that happens to him he describes as "kind of strange" or "odd." Countless times he describes himself as having feelings and thinking thoughts that he then declines to express. He claims to be annoyed with Kato's freeloading, but declines to mention it directly to Kato himself. Faye Resnick is painted as the person most responsible for Nicole's death, but Simpson declines to object when Faye twice describes herself to him as his "friend."

Basically, Simpson's position is that Nicole all but drove him to do it. Repeated, (and self-admittedly unfounded) insinuations of her drug use abound. So do multiple descriptions of Nicole acting violently towards him and others. She is repeatedly characterized as nearly schitzophrenic, Simpson even going so far as to title a chapter "The Two Nicoles." Eight times he describes her using the words "venom" or "poison." Twice he writes "That woman is going to be the death of me."

Simpson is adamant that he did not beat his wife. The closest he comes to admitting any sort of violence is when he writes "I hit her once - not even hit her, technically - and ever since that day I'd been known as a wife-beater." (Italics his.) He insists that in the 1989 New Years Eve incident cited above, he was only grabbing her by the arms and pushing her out of the room. Even then, he admits the possibility that she could have sustained injuries to the head during their "struggle" even though he claims that he did not ever strike her face and does not ever report witnessing her head striking any object.

The stabbings themselves are never really described. Nicole attacks first, lunges at him and misses, causing her to fall and knock herself out on the ground. Simpson faces off against Ron Goldman (who is derisively described by Simpson as falling into a "little Karate stance.") And then Simpson's memory goes foggy. He flashbacks to scenes from earlier in the day, and when he comes to, he is covered in blood, and there are two dead bodies on the ground.

An accomplice, a casual friend named Charlie, is described as accompanying Simpson during the murders and apparently is given Simpsons bloody clothes and knife to dispose of. (I suspect that Charlie is a plot device and not a real person. The murders are the only time he appears in the book. Simpson never mentions him again, even though Charlie is the only witness and in posession of the most incriminating evidence.)

Even though the section of the chapter dealing with the murders is prefaced with the words "remember, this is hypothetical", all of Simpsons thoughts and motivations dovetail perfectly with his litany of grievances against Nicole in both the pre and post murder sections of the book (as well as from multiple other sources.)

Her sexual dalliance with a friend of hers named Keith (a dalliance from years ago that Simpson only witnessed by secretly peeking into her window at night) with the children in the house was a sin that Simpson was never willing to forgive, and unable to forget. Nicole herself states in a 911 call "It always comes back."

What is missing: Any mention of cutting himself and bleeding at his Rockingham home, and no admission to cutting himself at the murder scene. He specifically denies even having a cut when he relates the story of signing autographs at the airport, referring to the alleged cut on his finger as an "phantom cut." Yet, he repeatedly admits to dripping blood at Rockingham during his police interregation.

The most important thing missing is any sort of sense of guilt or personal insight. He never really acknowledges that he committed the murders at all, and takes absolutely no responsibility for them. To him, Nicole brought it all upon on herself. With her drug use and circle of bad friends, something bad was bound to her eventually. It's almost incidental that it happened to be him killing her.

motivez · 06-25-2007, 03:21 AM

Good review, thanks for saving me the trouble of checking it out.

I think that pretty much says everything anyone really needs to know about it unless they're really interested in reading it anyway, and says it well.

Dumpy Dooby · 06-25-2007, 03:38 AM

Originally Posted by motivez

Good review, thanks for saving me the trouble of checking it out.

I think that pretty much says everything anyone really needs to know about it unless they're really interested in reading it anyway, and says it well.

Agreed.

thatguyoverthere · 06-26-2007, 08:45 AM

I think that there should be some sort of detailed analysis of the book. It's an interesting psychological and historical document. Interpreting what he says and how he says it reveals many details about his personality that he's completely unaware of. I like catching him contradicting himself, too.

I'd go ahead and write as full an analysis as I can, but I'd like to figure out how to post it on the web in such a fashion that people searching for something specifically like this could find it easily. My Google skillz are failing me, I can't find one seriously detailed examination of the book online.

Any ideas?