The Oprah Book Club

When the Oprah Book Club was first introduced, in September of 2006, Oprah’s daytime talk show was in the midst of its sixteenth season and had been recognized as the number one talk show for the past fifteen years. The Oprah show has earned and maintained its position on top, for the talk show has a domestic audience of an estimated 26 million viewers per week, which consists of a foreign distribution in 106 countries ranging form Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

The format of Oprah’s book club is discussed in Kathleen Rooney’s Reading with Oprah. According to Rooney’s studies, whenever a new book is recognized by the Oprah Book Club, Oprah mentions it at the end of her show. Whenever a new book is mentioned on the show, the entire studio audience is given a copy and Oprah reminds the viewers at home that the book can be purchased at booksellers, such as Barnes and Noble. By mentioning a new book on the show, as well as by giving a free copy to the studio audience, Oprah is giving her viewers a new assignment to work on. After the book is read, Oprah usually allots about a month, specific book club segments are aired. In these segments, a short documentary is shown about the author of the text, and the brief biography is followed by a discussion of the literary work which usually occurs over a meal. The discussion is held among Oprah, the author, and a few lucky viewers who are selected based upon their written responses to the book. Rooney points out that Oprah and her staff receive as many as ten thousand letters per month. The protocols of the roundtable discussions of the texts featured by Oprah’s book club are all similar, because they focus on how plot directly relates to the reader. For instance, the following questions are discussed: Could readers see themselves as being friends with the main character? What did the book teach readers about themselves? (142-143)

The idea of the Oprah Book Club was first suggested by producers of the show, and Oprah was at first apprehensive to start the project. Kathleen Rooney, in Reading with Oprah, states that Oprah was initially apprehensive, because she felt it would kill her shows ratings, due to the fact that her audience of viewers was either not readers or not reading the same books. Oprah finally agreed to support the book club idea made by her producers, however, because she realized that by doing so she would have the opportunity to meet the authors of the texts she promoted. As a result of Oprah’s love for writing, when discussing literature she focuses greatly on the authors and segments her show in a way which enables her to spend as little time on a particular topic/theme of a text as she sees fit. When Oprah plans the discussions of the texts recognized by the Oprah Book Club, she chooses to only discuss the issues she feels her audience can handle (118-119).

Since its origin, there has been a great deal of criticism pertaining to the Oprah Book Club. Many critics are angry, because they feel Oprah is reducing literature to a low art form. According to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, there exist three basic competing principles of artistic legitimacy, which are as follows: the world of art for arts sake (meaning art for artists), the aesthetic and ethical taste of the dominant, i.e. the dominant class, private tribunals, schools, and the preferences of the mass audience (Rooney 6). The preferences of the mass audience are seen by many as representing low art forms, such as popular television shows like Oprah. As a result of this, because Oprah is using her day time talk show in order to encourage viewers to read, literature is becoming a commodity being tampered with by the masses; this idea is similar to the footage in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. Although this may be true, this is not what I fear. I instead worry that because Oprah is such a household name and is seen by many of her viewers as a literary scholar, audience members are under the assumption that her interpretation of a text is either the only one out there or the only one that matters.

For instance, Winfrey consistently interprets the texts recognized by her book club not as literary novels, but as self-help books. Rooney, in Reading with Oprah, quotes Winfrey as making the following remark on her show, “It is just remarkable to me … how a work of fiction can touch and, really, begin to help heal the lives of readers in ways that a lot of self-help books and therapy and conversations cannot” (237). Oprah’s interpretation of the texts recognized by the Oprah Book Club has made many authors apprehensive to accept the Winfrey seal of approval. In 2000, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections was recognized by the Oprah Book Club. Franzen’s entire novel focuses on how market forces and “corrections” have become the existential metaphor of the American Self. Every character’s very being is shaped by the commodities promoted by the dominant forces of society that are believed to increase status. Due to the fact that Oprah is the most powerful woman on television, and in the world, Franzen was apprehensive to let his text be recognized by the infamous book club. Although Franzen’s segment was pulled, because he would not accept the Winfrey seal of approval, prior to it being pulled Oprah’s film crew had begun working with him. Malin Pereira, in The Oprah Phenomenon, references an article written by Franzen that told of the crews’ insistence on filming his author biography in St. Louis –the place where Franzen was born and raised as a child- instead of in New York –the place he has lived most of his adult life. Franzen believes Oprah’s crew wanted to film his biography in his birth town, in order to make his career seem like the American Dream fulfilled. Franzen is critical that if he had accepted Oprah’s invitation and stamp of approval, his achievements as an author emerging from a suburban Midwestern upbringing would always be held above the actual content of his novel, The Corrections (200).

I think both of these examples show that Oprah Winfrey perceives the texts recognized by her book club as tools for self growth. She designs the Oprah Book Club segments of her show solely around topics she feels her audience can handle. More or less, Oprah doesn’t use her segments to discuss anything controversial, for she doesn’t even discuss with her audience the criticism her book club constantly faces. I think because of this, viewers are under the assumption that if they are reading the books recommended by Oprah, by essentially completing the homework assignment, they are getting everything the books that are suggested have to offer. In my opinion, this shows that Oprah is forgetting that novels are about stepping out of ones own experience:

Kathleen Rooney, in Reading with Oprah, quoted Andrew Sullivan as making the following remark on his Daily Dish website in March of 2002: “…Some of you are dismayed that I’ve picked a book critical of George Bush by a New York Times reporter, but this is not Oprah. Picking a book to read and argue about is not an endorsement or a promotional love-fest. It’s an opportunity for debate” (153).