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The Oprah effect: two scholars independently assess the book club that changed everything
Black Issues Book Review, Sept-Oct, 2005 by Todd Steven Burroughs
Reading With Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America by Kathleen Rooney The University of Arkansas Press February 2005 $24.95, ISBN 1-557-28782-1
Reading Oprah: How Oprah's Book Club Changed the Way America Reads by Cecilia Konchar Farr State University of New York Press November 2004 $17.95, ISBN 0-791-46258-7 (paperback) $54.40, ISBN 0-791-46257-9 (hardcover)
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These two books might not have been written at all, or at least would not have held much interest, if book-loving programs such as PBS's The Charlie Rose Show or National Public Radio's The Diane Rehm Show had the same reach as The Oprah Winfrey Show, and both hosts had started book clubs before their commercial cousin. But those are big ifs. "Oprah's Book Club" is worthy of scholarly curiosity and intellectual value because a sole black woman has, through her independent actions, changed America's cultural dynamic. Winfrey has amassed the cultural capital, via a nationally syndicated commercial television program, to direct millions of (mostly white) women of all classes to consume the sometimes-elite cultural products known as novels.
So the question both books tackle head-on is this: If Winfrey's national audience reads certain novels, and does so only because she tells them to, do these novels really remain "high culture" literature? Is an "important" modern or "classic" book (read: one read and savored by the nation's white elite) still that if it bears an "Oprah" stamp on its cover? [If everyone sees an oak fall in the woods, does it become a bush?] Both works seem to answer in the affirmative, although they also call into question such categories.
Kathleen Rooney and Cecilia Konchar Farr, both individually, do an admirable job of explaining the phenomenon of "Oprah's Book Club" from their oval perspectives as English professors. Out of the two, Rooney does the best job in describing the club, largely from its spot in the crosshairs in the long war between "high" and "low" American culture, while Farr expounds on her thesis that the club is a "triumph of cultural democracy" that allows its selected novels to "talk" to readers.
The Church of Oprah
Although both praise Winfrey for her role in returning reading to the masses, Rooney is more critical of the media maven. She states repeatedly that Winfrey's quiet dis-invitation of Jonathan Franzen--the author who, after his novel The Corrections (Picador, September 2002) was picked by Winfrey in 2001, was arrogant enough to publicly show his ambivalence about his work of art being hung on the pulpit in "The Church of Oprah"--was a missed opportunity to educate her audience about her role in the battle between high and low culture.
Rooney boldly takes Franzen to task, but is also not afraid to write that Winfrey "came across as arrogant and ignorant herself when she appeared to expect foot-kissing gratitude as the only possible emotional response [that] her notice might evoke in an author."
Rooney's lament rings familiar to those African American cultural critics who think that Winfrey has purposely skirted many opportunities to address white supremacy. In either case, Winfrey lets such criticism roll off her; she knows who she is and, more importantly in this instance, who she is in relation to her audience. Anything that is not part of the Oprah "mission" is deemed irrelevant. And since she owns one of America's most powerful mics, it's easy for her to pretend those brickbats don't even exist.
Both disagree on how Winfrey handles her "Oprah's Book Club" power. Rooney seems to believe the television star was too imperious in her book club's first incarnation, taking her readers to her novels on her (emotional) terms, not on those set by the works themselves. She sees Winfrey as a serious intellectual caught in the battle over who will--and should--be an arbiter of taste in America, and treats her as such.
Although not completely disagreeing with Rooney, Farr contrasts Winfrey as more of a humble teacher who doesn't let herself get in the way of the good (educational) television she has created. Both think her passion for reading overrides the problematic "O" book marketing and her sometimes sister-girlfriend picks.
Winfrey might not attract the audiences of a Rose or a Rehm. But to Winfrey's audience, the approval of the white intellectual elite carries as little weight as the black progressive left. In "The Church of Oprah" the only thing that matters is that education equals self-knowledge equals salvation. Her book club selections are just her equivalent of the stained glass windows.
RELATED ARTICLE: In the O zone: an update
By Angela P. Dodson
If you haven't been keeping up, here's what Oprah has been up to lately. (Even if you have, let's recap because it's fun to know all the "O" news.)
* One hundred authors signed a letter this spring urging her to resume making a book club selection featuring new American novels. The letter from members of Word of Mouth, an online association of female writers, cited a three-year slump in sales of new fiction. "When you stopped featuring contemporary' authors on your program," the letter said. "Book club members stopped buying new fiction, and this has changed the face of American publishing. Readers have trouble finding contemporary books they'd like. They, the readers, need you. And we, the writers need you." No word from O on whether a change was afloat. Among African American authors who benefited from the earlier incarnation of the book club were Toni Morrison, Bill Cosby, Edwidge Danticat, Maya Angelou, Ernest J. Gaines and Pearl Cleage. Since Winfrey announced she was switching to classics [see BIBR, July/August 2003], picks have included: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton and East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
