Subject: Re: Oh, well, somebody had to mention it ...
From: Chris Kubica @Home (@Home)
Date: Mon Nov 12 2001 - 02:23:27 GMT
I read an article about this in Nnewsweek. The gist was how Franzen was a
"snobby writer" to express discomfort with being an Oprah pick.
That's crap. And I'm sick of it being a bad thing to do to go against the
status quo. It seems like an "of course"...what writer in their right mind
would decline an endorsement from Oprah and get a massive audience and sell
1/2 million copies overnight? If you do decline, you're a snob.
Of course, very few have taken any time to examine Franzen's fears...that
the Oprah sticker on the front of his book is a claim of ownership and that
the sticker implies membership in a club of books that he may very well not
think his book should be associated with. This is totally up to Franzen and
he shouldn't get roasted for it.
I don't think he's ungrateful and I don't think he said anything stupid. I
think he has every right to not want to be in her club for whatever reason
he chooses and that's that.
G'nite!
Chris Kubica
Senior Developer
Direct: 847.782.7615
ckubica@metrotechnologies.com
www.metrotechnologies.com
www.fmpsoft.com
Metro Technologies L.L.C.
1225 Tri-State Parkway, Suite 510
Gurnee, IL 60031
Ph: 847.782.4500
Fax: 847.782.4510
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cecilia Baader" <ceciliabaader@yahoo.com>
To: <bananafish@roughdraft.org>
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 2:07 AM
Subject: Oh, well, somebody had to mention it ...
>
> This is a literary listserv, after all.
>
> So Jonathan Franzen is in big trouble with everybody and their brother
> because he made some rather stupid remarks about how he didn't like the
> Oprah seal on his book. She'd made his book a selection of her book club
> and he accepted it, but then went on to say that he was uncomfortable with
> the association.
>
> Winfrey then turned around and stated that if he was uncomfortable, she'd
> rather not have him on her show.
>
> Franzen's got a point. If I'm browsing the racks and I see the Oprah seal
> on a book, I'll sometimes put it back immediately because I've been so
> often disappointed by her selections in her past. If the audience that
> he's attempting to reach is me, then he's right, he's going to lose us.
> But then, he might gain an entirely new audience, the Oprah audience,
> which is no small thing.
>
> Take it a step further: would Salinger, in his early hungry years, have
> allowed an Oprah seal on The Catcher in the Rye? No, but he allowed it to
> be a main selection of the Book of the Month club. It's the only reason,
> some people say, that it took off the way that it did.
>
> So what is this, then? A necessary marketing tool that one must take when
> it's offered? Was Franzen right to express discomfort? Should Oprah have
> allowed his comments to slide? He is, after all, the author of a book
> that is just as good today as it was a month ago.
>
> Publishing is big business these days, and it's nearly impossible to make
> the break in. Even Jerome David Salinger had to resort to like tactics
> forty years ago, and it appears that it's gotten worse. So where does
> this leave us? Was Franzen right to make a stand?
>
> Regards,
> Cecilia.
>
> Post Script:
> Neal Pollack wrote the funniest Royko-esque essay on the whole thing, for
> those of you who have been following this:
>
> http://www.nypress.com/14/45/news&columns/culture.cfm
>
>
>
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