
Goodness, this is quite a curmudgeonly view of the Oprah's Book Club new selection of two Charles Dickens novels: Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. In The New Republic, Hillary Kelly slams Oprah for picking these novels in an argument that seems to boil down to this:
1. Oprah has never read Charles Dickens before.
2. Oprah is already romanticizing and simplifying Charles Dickens' fiction by associating it with the holidays and "comfort."
3. Oprah is not enough of a literary scholar, and does not have enough literary taste, to be trusted to guide the many thousands of readers who will take the cue and pick up these novels.
Here is Hillary Kelly at her most damning:
(Oprah's Book Club is) 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.
In response to this extremely bitter take on Oprah exciting thousands to read Charles Dickens, I have this to say to Hillary Kelly:
1. You seem to take an extraordinarily judgmental view of the reasons why a reader might pick up a Dickens novel. Whether it is a whim, or because a celebrity talked about it, or because there is a cultural opportunity to read it in a (live or digital) community, or because you feel like you might have missed out on something by not exploring a classic, or because you treasure it and want to re-read it a hundred times, I say: who cares? It is the reading that counts, not the 'why', yes?
2. I agree with you that Oprah's Book Club picks are uneven--some are extraordinary classics (Anna Karenina), some are contemporary classics (The Bluest Eye, Say You're One of Them), and some contemporary picks feel very flat to me (The Pilot's Wife). But isn't it rather impressive that Oprah has been able to balance her bookish influence in a way that cuts through genre hierarchy and presumed popular/literary dichotomies in a way that welcomes an unusual diversity of participants? There are a variety of "ins" here, igniting untold numbers to pick up books they normally wouldn't, permitting stereotypes of "classics" or "literary fiction" or "popular fiction" to dissolve. Nobody and nothing has come close to doing this with as much ease as Oprah's Book Club.
3. Doesn't this textured catalogue of book club picks underscore the variety of purposes and experiences we look for in reading--from escapism to fun to social awareness to introspective contemplation to recognizing reflections of ourselves in diverse and different worlds? Where Oprah's taste diverges from mine or yours, Hillary Kelly, or when her take on the books do not agree with ours, there is no threat here; Oprah is simply putting her readerly experience out there, amplifying and contributing to the conversation. While her influence is off the scale, this is not much different than what a passionate book blogger or literary journalist does.
4. Many, many thousands of people are going to pick up Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. You imply that these people are stupid--since they are "only" picking it up because Oprah said so (an assumption) and because you believe that Oprah is unqualified to guide them through the complexities of books that, you say, are too different from each other to be paired together in the first place. This is downright snobbish. These thousands of readers are entitled and able to have their own authentic experiences with the books, no matter what their cue was to pick them up (see #1 above). Maybe those experiences will involve loving the novels or hating them, or somewhere in between. Maybe attentiveness to Oprah's perspective adds to the joy they take in the novels, or the inspiration to actually finish them, or maybe the readers don't particularly seek out her perspective at all after taking the novels home. And perhaps you are right that a disproportionate number of these readers will seek reflections of themselves in these nineteenth century novels.
5. This is not a bad thing.
6. It is worth saying again. Whatever happens, again, many thousands are reading these significant novels--and this is not a reason to be bitter. In fact, it is something to celebrate!
7. Because, you say, Oprah is not so much a literary guide through Charles Dickens but a guide to using these novels as a tool for self-gratification, "Oprah’s readers have been left in the dark," though this perspective forgets that Oprah is hardly the only individual over at Harpo Productions that is contributing to the direction of this multi-media celebration of Dickens' novels.
8. You go on:
(Readers) must now scramble about to decipher Dickens’s obscure dialectical styling and his long-lost euphemisms—and the sad truth is that, with no real guidance, readers cannot grow into lovers of the canon. Instead, they can only mimic their high-school selves with calls of, “It’s too hard!”
Give these readers some credit! If they need or want guidance and don't get it from Oprah, they can find it easily elsewhere through a wealth of online and in-print resources about two of the most popular classic novels in the English language. It is worth noting that Dickens was a famously popular//populist writer who serialized his plot-heavy novels for a mass readership. But really, who are you, Hillary Kelly, to assume that these readers are dim bulbs who have no experience with classic novels in the first place? That is neither fair nor credible (particularly given the sheer magnitude of Oprah's audience).
9. And do you seriously believe that "with no real guidance, readers cannot grow into lovers of the canon?" Seriously? That the only people who love nineteenth-century classic novels are those who have taken college courses in them? As someone who has gained a great deal from the "guides" I've had studying literature in college and graduate school, I say this: Oh, please.
10. What I love about reading and literary culture is the multiplicity of experiences it holds. While you say that the news of Oprah picking the Dickens novels amounts to--I quote--"Oprah 1, Literature 0," I want to nudge you into a bigger perspective. Literature holds magnitudes, my friend. Not every reading experience has to be identical to yours, Hillary Kelly, in order to be worthwhile.