Johnatan Franzen vs Oprah winfrey - where did you stand?

buck65

Now that the dust has settled well on this item I wonder what you guys feel about Franzen. At the time I kind of supported him as I read the book and liked it. Now in hindsight, he seemed to have changed his answers and position so often I believe he was full of ****.
Opinions?

turgon

Are you referring to this:

Wikipedia (where else!!!) wrote:

In September 2001, The Corrections was selected for Oprah Winfrey's book club. Franzen was, at the time, willing to participate in the selection, appearing in B-roll footage in his hometown of St. Louis (described in an essay in How To Be Alone entitled "Meet Me In St. Louis") and sitting down for a lengthy interview with Oprah. In October 2001, however, The Oregonian printed an article in which Franzen made remarks expressing unease with the selection. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the Oprah insignia being printed on his book by saying, "I see this as my book, my creation, and I didn't want that logo of corporate ownership on it." Soon afterward, Franzen's invitation to appear on Oprah's show was rescinded,[1] with his "seemingly uncomfortable"[2] attitude being cited as the reason.

Although the controversy arguably caused damage to Franzen's reputation, it had little effect on the sales of The Corrections, which became one of the best-selling works of literary fiction of the 21st century so far and won both the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2002 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. At the NBA ceremony Franzen thanked Oprah in his brief acceptance speech: "I'd also like to thank Oprah Winfrey for her enthusiasm and advocacy on behalf of The Corrections."[3]

buck65

Yes

MissRibena

I have a love hate relationship with Oprah's bookclub. I never see the TV show but the quality of books selected can be really good and sometimes she does the classics. IMHO, Oprah's choices are vastly superior to Richard and Judy's. I have tried some of R&J's but to me they are generally far lighter reads and not my cup of tea (although I did like The Farm).

However, any time I have bought a book with an Oprah sticker, I've peeled it off the minute I got home. I can totally understand how Frantzen felt the label would cheapen his image. It's almost like his brand becomes a subset of Oprah's. I do peel off 3-for-2 labels too though so it's possibly more to do with tidiness than snobbishness.

godspal

Can't sleep might as well rant:

Frazen was right to not allow his novel on to the Oprah Book. It is simply diminishes the content of the text. When we studied The Road by Cormac McCarthy, more time was spent talking about his shocking decision to be allow his book to be endorsed and then to do an interview, then we spent talking about his choice to use spatial text to create a scenic pace on the page itself.

Sleepershark

ok

clare_boy

I'd be happy to have her sticker on my book (if only). The bump in monetary terms must be enormous!

MissRibena

But she usually goes for the more literary end of things; Eugenides and Morrison. Do they not come over all worthy and above the ring of the greasy till?

Poppy78

Surely its any author's dream to have their book read by the largest possible audience.

turgon

I think the concern was that it would degrade the book. People would see the Oprah stamp and brush it off as crap chic lit or sumthin.

IvyTheTerrible

So it's literary snob stuff then?

God, I think anything that encourages people to read is a good thing. What difference does it make if it's Oprah?

turgon

Well Yes and No. The author wants a bigger audience for sure, but he would also want what he considers a high quality audience.

MissRibena

I read a mixture of all sorts and in my time have gone through phases of Stephen King, Scott Turow, Mills & Boon (I was about 12 but I don't know anyone else who admits to it), Virginia Andrews and Cathy Kelly to name but an embarrassing few but these days tend to be heading towards literary snobbery territory.

I don't buy the 'reading is of itself is a good thing' theory. Is reading the 'The Mirror' better than reading nothing - not IMHO. It's just a pass time and to me equates to saying watching Corrie is better than watching nothing. Obviously there are degrees of rubbish but I can understand that if I spent years writing what I believe is a decent literary work, that I would not want it put in the same category as a ghost-written Jordan book (for example).

turgon

I think the 'reading is of itself is a good thing' theory is put forward because I lot of people progress from reading crap books to good ones.

MissRibena

Maybe you are right turgon but I have my doubts. Some people do but lots don't. Some people listen to 2-Unlimited and progress to Bob Dylan but lots don't. Others might move from Tokyo Drift to Citizen Kane for all I know.

There's nothing wrong with bubble gum tv or chick lit or light reading or whatever you want to call this kind of thing. I just don't believe that reading anything at all is a superior passtime to any other.

turgon

MissRibena wrote: »

I just don't believe that reading anything at all is a superior passtime to any other.

Well I suppose. However thats just your opinion. I mean Im the same as you - I like a book for challenging themes and great prose, but thats only our definition of good. People who read "PS I Love You" might as easily look down on us for being overly serious.

IvyTheTerrible

turgon wrote: »

Well I suppose. However thats just your opinion. I mean Im the same as you - I like a book for challenging themes and great prose, but thats only our definition of good. People who read "PS I Love You" might as easily look down on us for being overly serious.

See this is my problem right here. You are dividing readers into "them" and "us". People who enjoy PS I love you might also (shock horror) enjoy "proper" literature. I read Now magazine to relax. But I also read books with "challenging themes and great prose.

buck65

But in fairness to Oprah , she has been known to pick some "literary" books too, Steinbeck and Toni Morrisson to name but 2. So maybe Franzen underestimated her and her viewers intelligence?

turgon

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

See this is my problem right here. You are dividing readers into "them" and "us". People who enjoy PS I love you might also (shock horror) enjoy "proper" literature.

Obviously. But I was just talking about the two extremes here: Franzen clearly likes writing literary novels and he was worried about being branded a "PS I Love You" writer.

MissRibena

I did type a big reply to this a couple of days ago but wasn't signed in and lost it! grrrr :rolleyes:

Turgon's statement that

people progress from reading crap books to good ones

makes PS I Love You (which I haven't read btw) sound like a gateway drug; that its merit is in the offchance that the reader might 'progress'. I think that that is pretty patronising because as IvyTheTerrible says there isn't such a clear cut divide in the readerships of pulp and literary fiction.

However, I don't think it is a matter of opinion that one is better than the other. To me, literary fiction is clearly far better than Tesco fiction because of the level of craft involved. It's like saying that crisps and porridge are of equal nuitritional benefit, when clearly they are not but liking one doesn't mean you can't like the other. Would you be better off avoiding the crisps altogether? Probably, but would you be any happier and are the people who only eat porridge too worthy for words?

okmqaz42

The way I have always looked at reading is that it is far better to read anything than to not read at all. Jordan/Katie Price is mentioned in this tread already so if we use her ghost written masterpieces as an example of low brow reading. We get wonderful descriptions of the life of a model/partier. To try and envisage ourselves in these scenarios we need to engage our brains and imagination. Even reading this trash we exercise our minds in a way that we would not if we decided not to read at all.

Think about the amount of people that read Dan Browns Di Vinci code and said to you that “I have not read a book in years and I could not put this down”. Brown's and Price’s books get people reading and it is not a bad thing. I for one would like the hours of my life back that I spent reading Dan Brown's books, but I think that my mind and my sense of what makes a good book is better for it.

W.H. Auden said “really to appreciate archdeacons, you must know some barmaids, and vice versa.”