I don't like Oprah Winfrey. I do admire her for her astounding personal success, but I'm not a fan of her show or her brand. I do particularly despise her bookclub. It's not personal - I despise the whole idea of a media driven bookclub. Since I read so much, the thought of anyone telling me what I should be reading is distasteful - it smacks of high school English or freshman Lit.
Additionally, so many of "Oprah's Picks" seemed so much the same (uplifting story of a downtrodden woman surviving and triumphing over horrific circumstances) and so much a distorted mirror of her own life (the worthy heroines in her bookclub picks never ended up with 10 caret diamond earrings). I experienced great
schadenfreude when she was dissed by Jonathan Franzen over her selection of
The Corrections, and ultimately cancelled her book club (for the author's perspective on the media folly and frenzy that comes from being a selection for Oprah's Bookclub, read Jonathan Franzen's own take on the subject in his collection of essays
How to be Alone).
I was more than a bit dismayed that she decided to bring back her bookclub and focus on already published works of literature. To be honest, I don't know why I had that reaction - since she wasn't dictating to me what I should be reading. But by and large, I had about as much interest in an Oprah's Bookclub Selection as I would in what my next door neighbor had for dinner.
When The Million Little Pieces story broke - I thought "a former drug addict lies about his addiction - THIS is news?" The only reason the story was news was because the book was an Oprah pick (which shouldn't have made it news). Had James Frey not appeared on Larry King, I think the story would have died a natural death, but the Big O's timely support of her boy gave the story legs. Her support of Frey was seemed quite self-serving - that she was really supporting her brand and not the book itself -underlying message of redemption'' still 'resonates'' with her.
Living in the age of Bush, where it's better to lie and hide than to tell the truth, this was just one more pebble rolling among the boulders. It wasn't until I read Frank Rich's editorial in the January 22, 2006 edition of the New York Times, "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito" that I realized the potential magnitude of the impact of Oprah's support of James Frey:
Ms. Winfrey's blithe re-endorsement of the book is less laughable once you start to imagine some Holocaust denier using her imprimatur to discount Elie Wiesel's incarceration at Auschwitz in her next book club selection, ''Night.''
Thus, her volte-face on national television last week was so stunning - so unexpected, and so appreciated.
Every year it becomes easier and easier for Holocaust deniers to get traction. The Holocaust and The Final Solution were so horrific that without living witnesses to tell their stories, it become hard to accept the truth of the events. We have become so distanced by time and by the immediacy of other horrors - 9/11, Bosnia, Darfur, Somalia, Iraq, Guantanamo. Being called a "Nazi" has become a joke - thanks to Jerry Seinfield, and Hitler's become simply a political boogyman. The Holocaust has become trivialized and I can't help but imagine that in 20 years, when the last survivor has died, it will be nothing more than a minor footnote in the annals of the 20th century. Diminishing, denying or forgetting the Holocaust makes it only easier for the next one to occur. And if we're not careful - it will happen here and in the foreseeable future.
Thus, I am brought back to Oprah's bookclub - for the first time in a generation, a first person account of the Holocaust is being widely read by people of all walks of life. Will this have any effect on the deniers, the trivializers, the ignorant? Watch this space.
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