A (not so) quick rant
OK, I've noticed that there have been variations upon a theme led by a sect of folks that seems to catch fire every now and then. Does this sound familiar?"If you put X store in place, it takes out the mom and pop shops of blah blah blah."
This argument has been used against Walmart, Target, Starbucks and a few others. The more recent one is the one against books, specifically against Oprah's bookclub.
All I have to say is that Oprah rocks. If you have any problems with that statement, we can talk about this face to face and I assure you, I'll win.
In any case, this argument was that Oprah's book club over the past several years have made certain books placed on the catapult of book-ness and has been sold throughout, where else, the Walmarts and Targets of America. You have a mother of 3 toddlers thumbing through these books at these stores and going for the "flashy"-looking covers which has "Oprah's bookclub selection" plastered all over it. Basically, the fact that these books, such as Grapes of Wrath or Anna Karenina or The Bluest Eye, are greatly publicized overshadows the books authored by up and coming writers in independent book stores (i.e. mom and pop-equivalent book stores and mom and pop-like authors). Therefore, there is something wrong with this book club and others like it.
FIRST OF ALL, who are you to determine who's qualified to read such material? My thing is that those who make this argument against Oprah's club or things like it is that such books by Tolstoy, Fitzgerald, etc believe that these books are only reserved for Ivory Tower, uber-educated, latte-drinking individuals, b/c only THEY can REALLY understand what these authors are saying. F*** YOU. (sorry, I've been reading CoffeeLady's blog a lot!) Because a woman who is a single mother with three kids does not make her any less smarter than a Harvard-educated guy sitting Starbucks reading the New York Times online. So, let's stop all of this.
SECOND OF ALL, what's wrong with getting America reading? Folks can argue that there's a commercialization of only certain books (well, that IS the argument), but the whole thing is that b/f these bookclubs, Joyce, Tolstoy, Hurston, etc have all been somehow made inaccessible to the average American and made folks believe that you had to go to college in order to understand, let alone READ, these books. Now, taht's not the case. That's the beauty of Oprah. Yes, she's a billionaire. Yes, she's very smart. But she's also reachable and very down to earth to the point to where she gives us a form of belief that we too can do stuff.
And the people who are making the argument against the commercialization of 'great books' are the same ones that would complain that the average American is so dumb and they don't read enough and "why isn't anything done to improve this??" Which one is it?
ALSO, who cares about the up and coming authors? If your book is good, it will be read. If it sucks, it will not be read. If it succeeds and many people agree that it's good, it will be sold throughout the country. It will be recognized by other literary critiques out there. Also, if you're an up and coming author, hopefully your agent will have done his or her job of hustling some forms of exposure to different audiences and the like for your book. So, Walmart and Oprah's bookclub aren't the enemy-- that author's own writing could just downright suck, explaining lack of exposure.
So, that's it for my rant this time. I'm just getting tired of people thinking that b/c they know some information or because they're able to quote certain things from Wuthering Heights, they are better than other folks and there's no way that the average person can understand certain literature. This has got to stop. I don't know who this group is defined as-- I heard that they were really stupid liberals or pretty pretentious Republicans... I don't know but they need to get their act together.
posted by Chopin Girl @ 3:37 PM
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