Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [157]
It’s hard to believe that Oprah’s crusade for literacy would trigger any criticism, but within months she had drilled into the raw nerves of literary elites. “Yes, her book club is a societal boon,” stated The New Republic, “but her taste for the soap-operatically uplifting is not.” The New York literary critic Alfred Kazin dismissed her book club as a “carpet bombing of the American mind.” But culture critic Camille Paglia defended Oprah: “I think the reaction against her is sheer intellectual snobbery. The idea that a black woman with a devoted audience could have this kind of impact jeopardizes [her critics’] role as tastemakers.” The carping reached a crescendo in 2001, when Oprah selected The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, for book club beatification. Franzen, whose first two novels combined sold a total of fifty thousand copies, seemed poised for gigantic commercial success as an Oprah pick, but he did not leap at the opportunity.
“The first weekend after I heard, I considered turning it down,” he said later. “Yes, I was very serious. I see this as my book, my creation, and I didn’t want that logo of corporate ownership on it.… It’s not [just] a sticker. It’s part of the cover. They redo the whole cover. You can’t take it off. I know it says Oprah’s Book Club, but it’s an implied endorsement, both for me and for her. The reason I got into this business is because I’m an independent writer, and I didn’t want that corporate logo on my book.”
He went on to say that being selected for Oprah’s Book Club did as much for her as it did for him. “[My book with three hundred thousand copies in print] was already on the best-seller list and the reviews were pretty much all in. What this means for us is that she’s bumped the sales up to another level and gotten the book into Walmart and Costco and places like that. It means a lot more money for me and my publisher, [and] it gets that book—that kind of book into the hands of people who might like it.”
Franzen defined his book—“that kind of book”—as in the “high-art literary tradition,” whereas he said most of Oprah’s books were merely “entertaining.” He added, “She’s picked some good books, but she’s picked enough schmaltzy, one-dimensional ones that I cringe, myself, even though I think she’s really smart and really fighting the good fight.”
Franzen seemed to have publicly dismissed Oprah as a carnival barker, and she reacted by rescinding her invitation. She announced to her viewers, “Jonathan Franzen will not be on The Oprah Winfrey Show because he is seemingly uncomfortable and conflicted about being chosen as a book club selection. It is never my intention to make anyone uncomfortable or cause anyone conflict.… We’re moving on to the next book.”
Franzen told USA Today that he felt “awful” about what he had done. “To find myself being in the position of giving offense to someone who’s a hero—not a hero of mine per se, but a hero in general—I feel bad in a public-spirited way.”
Flabbergasted, The Washington Post‘s literary critic, Jonathan Yardley, called Franzen’s words “so stupid as to defy comprehension. He did everything he could to take Oprah Winfrey’s money and then run as far away from her as possible.” Chris Bohjalian, whose novel Midwives was the twenty-first book chosen by Oprah, said, “I was angry on behalf of the book club, and I was appalled as a reader who appreciates the incredible amount that Oprah Winfrey has done for books.” He added that sales of Midwives jumped from 100,000 copies to 1.6 million after it became an Oprah pick.
Franzen was reviled from coast to coast. Newsweek called him “a pompous prick,” The Boston Globe called him an “ego-blinded snob,” and the Chicago Tribune called him “a spoiled, whiny little brat.” Stepping in to defend him, David Remnick, editor in chief of The New Yorker, said, “I think the world of Jonathan. I think he’s sorry about Oprah, but it’s not a monumental issue. Everyone steps on someone