Friday, March 03, 2006
Night At The Oprah
Oprah's patented giant "O" has been scoured off the cover of James Frey's A MILLION LITTLE PIECES. Frey's apology to the retired crackheads who've never before cracked open a memoir has been included, along with, I think, an expression of contrition from Nan A. Talese.
Every memoir I've flipped through in the last decade has included a disclaimer on the copyright page to the effect that names have been changed, composite characters put forth and events altered. I noticed a week or so before the "scandal" broke that there was no disclaimer in Frey's book.
THAT'S the scandal. The publisher didn't cover the ass of the author. Oprah Winfrey would have been unable to stage Frey's show trial if the standard disclaimer had been present.
Oprah Winfrey has not improved the reading habits of the American people. She's merely updated the concept of the prestigious bookshelf. Everybody's onto the fact that a wall of leatherbound editions is a sign of the owner's desire to climb the social ladder. A paperback boxed set of Faulkner does the trick these days. If 3 per cent of the Oprah fans who bought that last summer got through 3 per cent of "Barn Burning," I'll still believe they couldn't understand what they were reading.
Oprah reminds me of a teacher who turns on the kid who suddenly shows ambition. She hasn't helped any writer one bit.
I used to say Jonathan Franzen, in pooh-poohing THE CORRECTION's induction into Oprah's Book Club, had become the prig he always pretended to be. But now I see that he did what an artist must do, which is to distance himself from the great promoter of fad diets, simplistic psychology and televised punishment.
Every memoir I've flipped through in the last decade has included a disclaimer on the copyright page to the effect that names have been changed, composite characters put forth and events altered. I noticed a week or so before the "scandal" broke that there was no disclaimer in Frey's book.
THAT'S the scandal. The publisher didn't cover the ass of the author. Oprah Winfrey would have been unable to stage Frey's show trial if the standard disclaimer had been present.
Oprah Winfrey has not improved the reading habits of the American people. She's merely updated the concept of the prestigious bookshelf. Everybody's onto the fact that a wall of leatherbound editions is a sign of the owner's desire to climb the social ladder. A paperback boxed set of Faulkner does the trick these days. If 3 per cent of the Oprah fans who bought that last summer got through 3 per cent of "Barn Burning," I'll still believe they couldn't understand what they were reading.
Oprah reminds me of a teacher who turns on the kid who suddenly shows ambition. She hasn't helped any writer one bit.
I used to say Jonathan Franzen, in pooh-poohing THE CORRECTION's induction into Oprah's Book Club, had become the prig he always pretended to be. But now I see that he did what an artist must do, which is to distance himself from the great promoter of fad diets, simplistic psychology and televised punishment.
# posted by Fredwemyss @ 2:52 AM 
