Ya Gotta Hand it to Oprah

While many people I know either love or hate her, I’ve never had a strong opinion about Oprah Winfrey one way or the other. I suppose my only criticism is that she tends to inject too much of herself during interviews. But that’s only a minor quibble — and one I have for just about all popular talk show interviewers. However, I really have to say that I’ve recently earned new respect for Winfrey as a cultivator of high art by way of her well-known (and very influential) Book Club. In recent months she has gradually begun eschewing popular contemporary fiction for classics of literature. Recent Book Club selections have included authors such as John Steinbeck and Gabriel García Márquez. And now, she’s launched an ambitious “Summer of Faulkner” reading list. Having read a fair amount of William Faulkner in college, I know just how dense and challenging (though ultimately highly satisfying) his work can be. So good for you, Oprah, for encouraging your fans to stretch out and enjoy such difficult — yet very rich — works of art.

Check out this article from The Nation for some excellent commentary on Winfrey’s Faulkner program. Choice quote: “[Winfrey] has gone beyond the intellectual limits of the acceptably middlebrow — and of her own show — in openly embracing a writer who is not only highly experimental in his prose but utterly despairing in outlook. And that is little short of astonishing.”