Will Ulrich: Oprah's book club misses a great one

When I first got the idea to write this column, I was pretty much set to praise Oprah.

Now it's only an accident of history that Oprah Winfrey was going to get a positive mention. I assure you that the criticism of her Islam 101 show -- which came earlier in the week from another of this page's columnists -- in no way prompted me to come to the O-lady's defense.

In all honesty, I usually find Oprah fatuous and irksome. I think she has earned her magnificent riches about as much as a pillaging Viking or Regis Philbin has. I never cared about her weight; I couldn't give a flying flute about how she and Toni Morrison play mahjong together; and I sure as hell don't buy her Mother-Teresa-on-Michigan-Avenue, love-your-soul routine. And as a talk show host, she's not fit to carry Phil Donahue's jock strap.

All that said, there's one thing that Oprah does that deserves my praise. Like her or not, her book club has gotten a huge number of Americans to read something other than a take-out menu or a Danielle Steel novel, and that's worthy of a pat on the back.

The most recent Oprah book selection was one of the most serious novels to be recommended from her daytime pulpit yet. Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, currently third on The New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list, is the book of the moment. Following the lives of the Lambert family, the book is reported to be both an affecting portrait of characters and a novel of contemporary ideas.

Although my schedule probably won't give me a chance to read the novel myself at least until Christmas rolls around, I was all set to praise Oprah for giving Franzen's book a boost. I thought it was wonderful that maybe a few more average Americans would be dissuaded from the cockeyed and harmful perception that "serious" literature is just for guys in tweed named Lionel.

That was until I found out that Oprah -- for the first time in the 43-selection history of her book club -- decided to give Franzen the boot.

In a message posted on her Web site, she writes: "Jonathan Franzen will not be on The Oprah Winfrey Show because he is seemingly uncomfortable and conflicted about being chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection. It is never my intention to make anyone uncomfortable or cause anyone conflict. We have decided to skip the dinner and we're moving on to the next book."

Now, I do not purport to know what went down between Franzen and Oprah. I know he was upset about the O-logo that went on the book jacket. I can tell you that when I heard Franzen on NPR's Fresh Air recently, he sounded mildly ambivalent about the whole thing. Claiming to never have watched the show, he poked fun at the interview that he did with Oprah producers. Still, it seemed like he was excited to find out what going on the program would be like.

Seeing as how I don't know the particulars of how Franzen got off the show, I will withhold censure for now. I will mute my intended praise, but I won't rip into the host just yet.

The fact remains, however, that because of Franzen's temporary inclusion in the Oprah pantheon, his book will reach a few people that it normally wouldn't. And I think this is certainly a blessing.

I think it one of the tragedies of life that very intelligent people -- cops, firemen and CEOs alike -- go through their whole lives without taking an interest in serious literature. Sure, they read for entertainment, but once high school English teachers no longer give them orders, they give up on great books.

It's all well and good to be in control of your life, but it's a great joy to be able to lose oneself in a difficult novel, to struggle with it, to put it down in frustration only to pick it up again and expand your mind in the process. That's the feeling I get reading something like Ulysses or Moby Dick, but it's a feeling that I'm afraid far too many avoid.

Granted, there are writers at work today who craft their works in such an ostentatious way as to scare off the average reader -- David Foster Wallace springs to mind. But there are also other writers whose books evade the radar of Joe Q. Public, yet have something quite comprehensible to say about his world; Don DeLillo is a perfect example of this, especially after Sept. 11.

I think of my Aunt Adele, an avid reader of mystery novels her whole life, who picked up Henry James' A Portrait of the Lady one day and fought through it for weeks. It was a book she'd never thought she'd read, but it enriched her.

Great books can always do that; it's just a shame many people don't realize it.

Will Ulrich is a senior Philosophy major from the Bronx, N.Y.

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