novelists vs. the machine

The best publishers can do in that style of selling is prestige re- issues. let's say, oo just randomly, re-packaged movie versions of, say errr, Lord of the Rings. Bloody Tolkien fans will buy anything.

(Declaration of interest: corrections is published by hc in uk)

franzen's 'offending' of oprah was, to my eyes, nothing more than an expression of genuine confusedness by someone who had been getting harassed by his public at his readings. when 'the corrections' was first selected i remember that my first reaction was surprise, because, let's face it, who would really have thought that a book blurbed by dfw and delillo would be picked for the oprah book club? and the people who were harassing him, who are probably no better than the oprah bookphiles they disdain (they just follow different cultural leaders to see which bits they should consume, like terry gross of npr, dave eggers, &c#151;but generally the embrace of those previously embraced is just as in-line as the oprah fans the 'cultured' are so quick to turn up their noses towards.)

i have been trying to put myself in his shoes, and i think that i would have been just as uncomfortable as he was. and the 'solutions' people are devising to make him (and his public!) feel better—taking the oprah sticker off the book, etc—would have never flied with his publisher, because as we know oprah stickers mean cash.

oprah should not have uninvited him to the dinner; the conversation about masscult and midcult that might have ensued could have been quite illuminating on both oprah's and franzen's sides. also, i was really anticipating the audience reaction; my mom, who's something of an oprahphile, read 'the corrections' and for the most part liked it, but she found the prose to be a tad wanky for her taste.

the other thing about leaping too far into the 'accepted by the industry' pit is that the notion of criticism, whether it's constructive or just knee-jerk opinionating, goes out the window. when was the last time you saw any major popculty figure who wasn't in a previously publicized feud say that they didn't like a particular album or movie, or even express an ambivalent opinion about it? or, further than that, when did you see a magazine that gave a bad review to a 'big' project—say, the recent review of 'invincible' in entertainment weekly—confer the 'not worth it' status on coverage of said project? and please don't throw claims of 'objectivity' my way—that's merely a smokescreen for staying in line with What The Public Wants Which Will Also Hey How About That Sell Magazines.

Interestingly in light of the Oprah debacle he talks about his admiration for and empathy with writers like Pynchon & Salinger who refuse to do interviews or "communicate extra-novelistically", but goes on to say that he feels that doing press is neccessary for an author. Not having domne the show has probably garnered more press now than having done it would have, but I don't know if press guarantees the sales generated an Oprah appearance and sticker on the jacket.

Cor, haven't we just had a thread about this?