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| The
Big O
Is Oprah feeding the masses in order to ‘educate’ them? If so, does this help the publishing industry? Should we gleefully accept what she has done, and is doing, as progressive, or should we shudder at the televisionization of literature? Authors Marianne Apostolides (Inner
Hunger) and Heather Birrell (I
Know You Are But What Am I?) battle it out in their own
Oprahesque debate. Audience? Where do you stand on this issue? Go
on, make a pot of tea, sit back in your easy chair, and enjoy. And
remember to clap when I hold the sign up and for godsakes don’t
slouch – you want to get on the TV, don’t you? |
| The Big O Marianne: Here's the deal. We're still talking about Oprah and her Book Club! What I want to know is why we can't let it go—why this need, within the literary community, to focus on the lady. Some history: Oprah launched her book club in 1996, discussing one book per month on her show. Each of the 46 books she chose over the next six years became best sellers; each sold at least 600,000 copies. Then Jonathan Franzen expressed some conflict about being on the show and having Oprah's logo embossed on his book The Corrections. Oprah took offense. Her hurt was made public. Within a few months the club was cancelled. The stated reason: "It has become harder to find books on a monthly basis that I feel absolutely compelled to share." Last year, Oprah resurrected the club, starting with Gabriel Garcia Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. She's decided to focus on the classics. (Presumably there are enough good books to choose from if she includes the entire history of literature.) I have to come clean here. I've had a hate-on for Oprah since she lost weight the first time 'round, fifteen years ago now. I watched the show where she wheeled in a red wagon of lard and stood smiling before a real live audience and all of us at home—a visual display of how much fat had once been on her body and now (and only now—not in six months, mind you) was gone. I was eating cookies as I watched this episode; those were my bulimic days, so I was a bit sensitive admittedly, but also savvy in the whole realm of food/body control and its underlying causes. I finished the third package of cookies and wondered how a woman so self-deluded could have this much power. I shut off the TV and proceeded to the bathroom. Such is my sordid story. Flash forward. The woman has more power than ever. She's still bringing lard on stage for us to marvel at. She's still self-deluded. And we're still talking about her. What's really wrong with the Oprah Book Club phenomenon? Here's my quick list:
Here's the problem: this is really a list of what's wrong with the publishing industry today. But instead of talking about that, I'm analyzing the pop culture phenomenon that is Oprah Winfrey. Frankly, it's more fun to talk about Oprah and her wagon of lard than it is to untangle the returns system of Chapters and the amalgamation of publishing houses. Are we wasting our time, though? Are we focusing on the wrong place? I guess what I'm saying is this: Oprah doesn't have control over the book industry, any more than she has control over her weight. There are underlying problems here, and I don't think any of us has a clue how to address them. That's the beginning. Fire away. Heather: How to begin? Oprah is nothing if not a thicket of contradictions. (Is that a mixed metaphor? Is Oprah a mixed metaphor?) What I find interesting about most people's reactions to Oprah is that even those who decry her syrupy confessional mode find themselves revealing bits and pieces of their personal histories in an attempt to explain their varied responses. You were no exception. And I concur heartily: the wagon of lard is just plain silly. And I really wish she'd put someone besides herself on the cover of her magazine. But for me, Oprah's appeal has less to do with questionable and stagy stunts, and more to do with her can-do, "just folks" optimism. It's corny, but it gets to me. And I guess in some ways, I like Oprah for the very reasons you abhor her: she struggles (perhaps delusionally) with her weight, she cries when Lionel Richie and the middle-aged, single-mom-next-door reveal their deepest vulnerabilities, she loves Toni Morrison AND she gives away free cars! I like Oprah because even though she reads it, she's not Literature. And, I like her because she brashly embodies the American Dream. Does this mean she shouldn't be allowed to talk about books on her show? Personal History Revelation #1: In grad school I hid copies of People magazine between copies of Foucault and John Gardner's The Art of Fiction in my MEC briefcase. I understood that while amongst serious, self-improving bookish people with lofty aspirations, it was not considered entirely couth to care about what Jennifer Aniston's hair looked like. Like Oprah, I would like to consume only what's good for me, but the truth is, I'm attracted to the sweet and short-lived—even more so when someone slaps my hand away from the goodies. I guess what sticks in my craw is that so much of the virulence directed against Oprah from the lit-crit crowd seems founded in an attitude of aesthetic exclusivity. Why do people get their knickers in a knot because one woman—admittedly an incredibly rich and powerful one—wants to talk about the books she likes on TV? What is the right way to react to a book? How should one discuss literature? Is it so terrible to say you relate to a character, that you can understand their issues? Why aren't more authors complaining because their publisher wants to "brand" their book as "Pulitzer Prize Winner" or "G-G Finalist"? The answer is of course that these honors are considered prestigious among, well, writers mostly. This makes me think the objections to Oprah's Book Club have more to do with high/low culture distinctions and class than anyone is letting on. As far as what's wrong with the publishing industry/the Oprah Book Club phenomenon:
Okay, that's it for the moment. Hard to separate Oprah the Phenom from the Club. It's all so big and amorphous. Perhaps more research is in order... Marianne: I don't think anyone's arguing that Oprah shouldn't be "allowed" to discuss books on her show (as if anyone in the publishing industry has the power to grant or deny Oprah anything…). She is allowed. The question is this: is Oprah assuming responsibility commensurate with her power? By her tantrum-like cancellation of the Book Club, she proved that she's not. Like most shows on TV, Oprah's is about emotion without consequence, revelation without repercussion. Millions of viewers get to experience tension and release in a compact sixty minutes. With the TV exit music rising in a crescendo of emotion, viewers can shed a final tear, then continue their day without any responsibility toward those people in crisis. Nothing has been asked of them, except that they buy a particular brand of tampon. When Oprah petulantly cancelled her Book Club, she acted out TV's norm in the real world—the norm that consequence need not be considered. There were consequences, of course: if Oprah really had the ability to make eight million people believe literature was important, she also had to ability to make them believe the world's writers couldn't collectively produce twelve good books a year. This is damning, and damaging, and really pisses me off. She has the right—is allowed—to discuss books; she has no right to casually dismiss contemporary writers en masse, especially when her dismissal has real consequences in the real world of literature. So, yes, the lit crit crowd is suspicious of Oprah, and with good reason. Is this suspicion based, in part, in snobbery? You bet. Oprah and her producers are not in or of literature. They don't have any stake in the future of the publishing industry. They don't understand the literary tradition; they are not aware of the rich 'conversation' among writers, in which authors analyze each other's work in the process of writing their own, responding to ideas of technique, style and content, reacting to, building on. A few years back, my editor at WW Norton told me that she received a call from the Oprah Book Club. The producer was wondering if "Mr. Lenid Tolstoy" might be available to appear on the show. Oprah was apparently quite interested in his book about adultery. Is this ignorance a problem? It wouldn't be if Oprah were just another person in a book club; it is when the ignorant party has the ability to direct a conversation about which she knows nothing. You can call this snobbery on my part. I'll call it a defense of community. Okay, here are a few questions for you: Why do people join book clubs? And what does it mean when a book club contains eight million people? Is a work of literature altered before an instant audience of eight million? Does it lose something essential? Heather: First, let me say that while researching for this exchange I got tangled in various sticky-bits of the OBC web. A couple of sites that stand out:
The fact that we keep talking about this despite the number of people who have already tossed in their two cents is testament to the contentiousness, the complexity, the downright sexiness of the issues it raises! Calmly now, Heather. 1. Oprah's Responsibility There are no laws in place to say that Oprah must listen to her virtual constituency, but she is a player in TV-land's direct democracy, wherein people vote every day with their remotes. Her responsibility, therefore, is to her viewers (not writers or the publishing industry). It would have been easy for her to go on celebrity-whoring and dishing out feel-good aphorisms without bothering with a book club. The fact that she managed to establish one and make it work so splendidly is testament not only to her power but also to her vision. When Franzen et al squawked, it also would have been relatively simple for Oprah to cancel the club outright. But instead she changed tactics. Her focus on the classics might seem to you an abandonment of contemporary writers, but it is certainly far from a blow to either literature or literacy as far as potential readers are concerned. And she's not peddling dumbed-down or abridged versions of the real thing (something that often happens in schools for want of time and resources). 2. Oprah's "Petulance" To me, Oprah's reaction seemed quite gracious. She didn't come out and say she was tired of taking flak from literati who found her choices same-same-y, or her treatment of books smarmy. She didn't call Jonathan Franzen names, or disparage his work in any way. In fact, The Corrections still stands as one of her picks. Franzen himself admitted the debacle had more to do with egos on both sides than anything else (see BBC News "Franzen 'regrets' Oprah row"). It is true that Oprah wasn't going head to head with some poor disenfranchised scribe (Franzen got a million dollar advance for his book, which reaped glowing reviews, and subsequently garnered him a movie deal), which may have allowed this particular author to voice his reservations more freely. But it is also true that Franzen deliberately alienated a certain sofa-sitting Middle American, mostly female segment of the population with his remarks—for no reason other than discomfort with the way they might dissect his books in their coffee klatches. This seems at best bizarre and at worst bogus, and again rooted in a crappy clique mentality. Less high-brow than high school. I don't blame Oprah for uninviting him, although I wish she hadn't. She may be rich and powerful, but that doesn't change the fact that she's black and came from poverty. Or that she sees books as life buoys of sorts; rescue aids designed to save you from your own experience and connect you to the Other. It's no wonder she feels more comfortable championing Underdog Overcoming Adversity narratives than engaging with writers who make no bones about their disdain for her project. Still, allowing Franzen to come on the show to discuss his mixed feelings would have been a gutsy, fruitful move—especially if it got us all a bit closer to articulating the deeper reasons for the rift between the two celebrities and their camps. 3. Revelation without Repercussion = Fun Geez, I don't watch TV to be reminded about my responsibility towards people. And I often read books, even serious ones, as a form of escapism. TV is diverting, and very occasionally, often accidentally, educational. (I would even go so far as to say Oprah's influence has been one of enlightenment for those among her audience who are not fluent in some of the feminist/pop-therapy idioms to which a more educated, irony-infused crowd have become inured. Clichés begin their lives as revelations. I cringe to think of some of the stuff I spouted—and probably still spout—in the throes of my own periods of "self-actualization". I know, I know—the wagon of lard. It remains terrible, regressive, and I do not entirely forgive.) Can TV be damaging? Of course. Like any soporific, it can be overused and abused. Is it somehow responsible, along with other gadgets, for a declining interest in the literary world? Probably. But it's also here to stay. And I refuse to believe TV is completely antithetical to books. It is, after all, of the world. And writers, supposedly, are interested not only in their own "rich conversations", but also in the larger circles in which they move. Which brings me to... 4. Oprah's Producers They sound really dumb. And you're right, they're not in or of literature. They only care about personalities, show biz. But if writers and publishers want people outside their community to care about books, they have to play the game to some extent. This does not thrill me; I become a bumbling idiot when asked to describe what any of my own fiction is ABOUT... Still, if adultery is the hook that will engage a reader with a work by Tolstoy whose depth and scope goes beyond anything you might watch on Cheaters, then adultery it is. Naughty ole Lenid! Effective teachers employ these subversive (read: sneaky) tactics all the time. I would like to believe that if there are enough people like Oprah who are willing to blur boundaries between the populist media and the literary elite, distinctions between high and low culture will become not only more fluid but also more prone to the type of cross-border contamination that makes for good discussion and kick-ass art. 5. Um, why are we talking about this again? Partly because writers want to bring the contemporary book club back. On April 20, 2005, Word of Mouth, an Association of Women Authors, submitted to Oprah an open letter in which they begged her to again consider contemporary books among her picks. I'll admit, when I first read this letter, I found it somewhat, well, undignified, despite the fact that its signers are all well-decorated in the literary arts. There is a fawning quality to the letter which irks me. Why is this? I guess because I am uncomfortable with the notion that writers feel themselves to be so dependent on Oprah for their readership. Is this Oprah's fault? Are the publishers to blame? The writers themselves? My point is that I support the content of the petition, but balk at its tone. Franzen went too far, but that doesn't mean writers should have to kowtow to Oprah in order to communicate their point or ask for her help. As for your questions re: book clubs. It's not like Oprah rounds up the eight million, sequesters them in a sports stadium, and forces them to recite their responses to her questions on the prescribed reading en masse. The book choice is a top-down operation, but the whole idea of people gathering wherever they may be to then discuss said book is pretty grassroots. And I hope you'll agree that what is wonderful, mysterious, and rewarding about reading a great book is that everyone experiences it differently. Interacting with a work of literature is an entirely individual, creative experience, dependent not only on education and grounding in the literary tradition, but also on how many dineros you have in your pocket, whether the sun was shining when you got up in the morning, who made your lunch (and with what type of mustard). Why do people join book clubs? Mostly, I think, to talk about their unique reactions to the books they read. For companionship too. And snacks. Maybe so they can grouse about their supervisor or mother-in-law, who is, ohmigod, sooo like Sense and Sensibility's Fanny Dashwood. I've been in a couple of book clubs—one made up mostly of corporate lawyers who met in downtown bars, and the other comprised entirely of women (including you) with young children and various careers and vocations. The lawyers tended towards detail-oriented debate where the mums were more touchy-feely in their responses. They all had valid points, which they made to varying degrees of success. I dropped out of both clubs eventually because of time constraints (as a writer and reviewer I found I had too many books already either assigned to me or pending passionate personal/intellectual engagement) and lack of funds to cover expensive imported beer. Would I join a book club again? I'm not sure. Choosing a book club is a very personal, subjective matter, as is selecting, I dunno, an apartment or a mate. As a writer, I am an uncomfortable combination of closet extrovert and extroverted neurotic. Hanging around people who are readers, first and foremost, is interesting, but can also be discomfiting. Being highly aware of process and craft does not always make for a spontaneous, unselfconscious reaction to themes or characters. By saying this, I am not suggesting readers should ignore complexity of structure or quality of prose, just that consciousness of these features of a story or novel should and usually does develop naturally through increased exposure to different types of books. And that sometimes reading books without too much awareness of these things allows for an enviable state of grace. Whew, I'm pooped. Here, then, are some questions for you. If not Oprah, then what? If one is truly interested in reaching readers outside of her own writerly community without the participation of the Queen of Daytime TV, what do you propose? How do you believe a book club eight million strong changes a work of literature? What would be your ideal book club, if any? How do you think our perspective on the OBC, as Canadians, is different from that of our neighbors to the South? (I'd be interested on your opinion on this as a transplanted American.) Would it shock you to learn I wrote part of this while watching the season finale of CSI? (Not worth it, Quentin Tarantino guest-directed, and made a bit of a hash of the whole thing.) Marianne: When I slip out of my 'debater' mode, taking a moment to open my second cold beer on a spring afternoon, I can't help but concede many of your points: yes, television is central to our culture, reflecting and informing our lives; no, there is no 'proper' way to read a book or 'correct' experience of a work of literature; yes, the publishing world followed Oprah slavishly, though she did not order this response; no, Oprah had no ill intentions toward the literary world. This beer is good, and I oughta lighten up. I set down my beer and settle into the broken plastic lawn chair. Immediately, the happy concessions float away in the pollen-filled breeze. I feel the familiar anxiety, the protestations about the meaning of Oprah, her deeper cultural significance vis-à-vis literature. I admit, I did not get your reference to CSI; I had to ask a friend, and I've already forgotten what it stands for. I have disdain for television—there, I've said it. And I can go further. (Oprah would encourage this, I think—this recognition and acceptance of one's true inner self.) I can go further and say that I am truly, at my core, a complete egghead. The vocabulary of television seems transparent to me; the character development and narrative exposition of most dramas are laughable; the manipulation inherent in talk shows angers me; television news seems like pap. My 'Oprah wrath' is inseparable from my mistrust of the medium in which she works, and from my own core nerdiness. And so I return to my objections. 1. Petulant squawking Franzen didn't "squawk." He articulated a reasoned and nuanced statement about his ambivalence about participating in the show. The statement was made during an interview for powells.com. Here is the entire quote:
Franzen isn't dismissing Oprah at all! He's discussing consumer culture, and expressing his own guilt at being a part of it. He is challenging himself and his decisions within our consumer/pop culture world, where very little is pure. Before and after this exchange, the interviewer and Franzen discussed postmodernism, fiction vs. nonfiction, family/character in literature, William Gass (you should read how Franzen dismisses him), Kenzaburo Oë, Donald Antrim, and other writers. (You can check out the whole interview here). Franzen made similar remarks one week later, published in The Oregonian. He also discussed his discomfort with the Oprah corporate logo being embossed on his book. Nowhere, though, does he disparage Oprah or express "disdain for her project." Despite the context and complexity of Franzen's statements, Oprah cancelled the club, reinstating it as a forum for 'classics' fourteen months later. 2. Eight million I do believe that an instant audience of eight million people changes a work of literature—or, rather, it changes literature in general. In our twenty-first century Western society, books are a refuge from the constant assault of image and information. When we read, we enter a contained world whose only stimuli are those we imagine from the author's silent words. That quiet relationship between book and reader becomes harder to establish when the 'meta conversation' about books and authors is so dominant. We suddenly care about the controversy over The Corrections rather than the content; One Hundred Years of Solitude is an excuse to watch Oprah travel to Mexico rather than an opportunity to get lost in story. Literature can still be sacred—it's about all the faith I've got right now—but that sacred space is more difficult to create as literature tries to become a branch of pop culture. Perhaps that's the main reason I'm so riled up about the Oprah Book Club: with Oprah, 'book babble' is being shot out over the airwaves. Books, I fear, are becoming part of the assault. In fact, I'm beginning to feel assaulted by the whole Oprah debate! I am assaulting myself through my own computer screen! I have had too much beer. Heather: I got me some cheap merlot as my poison of choice, and am trying now for an inspired, conciliatory finale. Concession #1: "squawked" counts as overheated hyperbole. Mea culpa. Concession #2: I agree that TV adds to the world's noise, and that this noise, in turn, can act as a roadblock to quiet reflection. And my CSI reference was possibly a bit smarty-pants. Ah, but the vino also brings out the brawler in me. You're certainly entitled to your disdain for TV, but I would argue that you can also afford this disdain, having had the privilege of being exposed to literature. If a person has not had the advantage of education, or book readin' friends to guide him on his way—how will he ever find out about good books? How can he tell the difference between crappy 2-D entertainment (however blissfully distracting ) and complex, nuanced, thought-provoking art? Is literature trying to become a branch of pop culture, or is pop culture—via Oprah—extending a branch (of the olive variety) to literature, despite the latter's aloof manner? (Maybe Franzen wasn't squawking, but there was certainly an elitism implicit in his statements—he made one group of readers more important than another, he wanted to be seen in a certain way by a certain group, but he still wanted the less desirables to buy his book. And the whole "objecting to a corporate logo" thing is problematic, considering he was published by a large corporation whose insignia is on his book. Also, he sold movie rights, proof that enough cash could handily buy his ideals. Jonathan Franzen suggests that money was the only reason he sold the rights to his National Book Award–winning novel, The Corrections, to producer Scott Rudin even before its publication by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2001. "I know too much about Hollywood —about Hollywood adaptations of novels, about novelists interfacing with Hollywood —to have hopes of anything much besides getting paid," Franzen says. "My chief hope is that a movie of The Corrections gets made but not before the option has been lucratively renewed a few times." I'd have sold too if it meant more time to write—most writers would have. But then to turn around and talk about discomfort with corporate logos and the stigma of the Oprah label seems disingenuous.) If a book is compelling enough, it inhabits a reader's imagination despite whatever meta-conversations it has inspired. Besides, when has there not been hype around art and its creators? The difference today is that writers like Franzen feel conflicted when faced with the notion that their work might actually appeal to the great unwashed. I know it's a different, more public animal, but it's generally accepted that part of the accomplishment of Shakespeare's plays lies in the fact that he knew how to appeal to both royalty and the riff-raff. It's the bard's combination of crude antics with lofty, excellently expressed sentiments that make his work so appealing. I'm pretty sure if he were around today he would watch Oprah. (Probably Coronation Street too.) So, after much beating of this ailing horse, Oprah, in spite of her weird excesses and three-ring circus of a show, still gets my standing O. The real test will come when the Grand Dame herself announces she is bringing the contemporary book club back based solely on the brilliant first novels of Canadian literary superstars Marianne Apostolides and Heather Birrell…. Perhaps we can take up where we left off then?
Marianne Apostolides is the author of two memoirs, Inner Hunger: A Young Woman's Struggle Through Anorexia and Bulimia (Norton), and Inside the Sycamore Tree: A Daughter's Discovery (houseless at the moment). She is currently at work on a novel. Toronto writer and reviewer Heather Birrell is the author of the short story collection I know you are but what am I? She wishes she were the kind of person who could compose pithy bio material and only eat organic. She is at work on a novel and more stories (also deserving of TV exposure!).
(discuss) |
| . |
Oprah Winfrey may have more power in the publishing industry than
any other single person. The nuances of this hinge on her personality
and the cult that seems to have sprung up around it. If her fans
read the books she recommends in order to better know her, how does
this affect the work itself? Does it affect the work? | Home | Magazine | Comics | Links | About |
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