Since its inception in 1996, the Book Club has carved its niche among readers by telling them that the novel is a chance to learn more about themselves. It’s not about literature or writing; it’s about looking into a mirror and deciding what type of person you are, and how you can be better. While a generally wrongheaded view of novels, this notion is all the more frustrating when the club delves into the true classics, with their vast knottiness, glorious language, breathtaking characters, and multi-faceted, mind-twisting prose. None of that matters in Oprah’s view of books, since reading is yet another exercise in self-gratification. “If you have read him, what do you think Dickens might have to share and teach those of us who live in this digital age?” the Book Club’s producer, Jill, asks on Oprah’s website. This is the Eat, Pray, Love school of reading.Oh, snap! By the way, La Parisienne and other rant enthusiasts, there is a rant below the fold:
Still, the entire fashion of reading books as a kind of exercise in indulgent, touchy-feely self-absorption is all too common. Heaven forbid that the author might actually be trying to say something of his or her own ... or that the story is its own reward ... or that it's not about you! I for one hate it when I open a class discussion about a reading assignment, and the first thing somebody (usually a girl -- let's be honest here) says is, "I didn't like it." (That is completely not the point!) The whole mentality seems to be about going through literature and art and history and every other thing to cherry-pick and keep what you "like" and blithely, heedlessly, mindlessly discard everything you "don't like" without any thought whatsoever that it might be just as important as the stuff you happen subjectively to "like." What an utterly puerile, ultimately narcissist view of the world. (Thanks a lot, Oprah, for encouraging even more people to be this kind of idiot.)
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