← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · robinder
Thread ID: 19493 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2005-08-08
2005-08-08 09:07 | User Profile
I have discovered that, of all things, Oprah Winfrey is has spent the last few months encouraging her fans, or viewers, or disciples, or whatever they might be called, [url="http://www2.oprah.com/obc_classic/featbook/asof/obc_featbook_asof_main.jhtml"]to read novels by William Faulkner[/url]. Now, before the freakish unreality of a significant 20th Century author of indisputable talent being pushed on to Oprahanoes (is that the term?) really sets in, consider also that Faulkner is no easy task for a casual reader, due to complexity both of themes, and language and its relation to perspective. To wit:
[url="http://www.randomhouse.com/vintage/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679732242&view=excerpt"]http://www.randomhouse.com/vintage/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679732242&view=excerpt[/url]
Consider also that Faulkner is only on the margins of acceptability by today's standards, and perhaps only his reptation as a great writer prevents his work from being declared forbidden.
[url="http://www2.oprah.com/obc_classic/featbook/asof/books/books_race.jhtml"]Oprah's own site[/url] says outright that [QUOTE]"One of the most debated questions about Faulkner, particularly since the last third of the 20th century, has been his attitude towards blacks. In the best-case scenario, we can say that Faulkner, born in 1897, was a product of his time and place, the Mississippi of his birth and heritage. He did not believe in the equality of black people, and during the school desegregation battles, he sided with those who would prevent blacks from gaining access to "White Only" schools. "[/QUOTE] [url="http://www2.oprah.com/obc_classic/featbook/asof/lite/qa/lite_qa_display.jhtml?contentId=20050805_06.xml"]And[/url]:
[QUOTE]You are not alone in thinking that Faulkner's depiction of African-Americans is derogatory and belittling. As someone who has taught Faulkner to college students for many decades, I know this reaction will be widespread. Further, I will sometimes be asked: Well, then, why do you teach these books? [/QUOTE] Tell me, what is most stunning here, , that the selection shows any taste to begin with (it seems they are slated to do Tolstoi next), that they chose a rather 'difficult' author, probably not meant for mainstream consumption, or that they selected an old fashioned Southern racist?
2005-08-08 18:19 | User Profile
Makes sense actually. Oprah's Book Club has been taking a lot of (unfair) hits from the intelligentsia and I'm sure her staff wanted to come up with a selection [I]guaranteed [/I] to shut the posers up with no place to direct their snickering.
I for one have never found Oprah's book selections to be all that risible. For one thing, unlike the morning talk-shows, she doesn't plug books that are already 'hot' (which is just the equivalent of reducing books to movies that just sit there until you open them and roll the "projector" - in fact, it's generally these books' [I]movie sales[/I] that have prompted their talk show appearances in the first place); her selections may be middlebrow but at least they're books she's [I]read[/I], and wanted to bring to a wider audience. While I don't think she introduced reading to her viewers - Oprah, despite her faults, ain't Jerry Springer or Rikki Lake - she's at least getting them to buy a few extra books per year than they ordinarily might. Reading for pleasure is a synergistic thing anyway - you start out buying an Oprah book, and while you're at the bookstore you might end up buying one or two others out of piqued curiosity.
Given the dreadful state of mass entertainment in our country, I thought Oprah's Book Club was a good thing even when she was championing upscale weepies, so I fail to see how her recommending Faulkner and Tolstoy can not be a beacon of light amid the ocean of SURVIVORs and ARE YOU HOT?s and JOE MILLIONAIREs out there, clinging to America's frontal lobes like barnacles.
2005-08-08 19:28 | User Profile
Wow, Faulkner was not a commie, I am glad to here that.
[QUOTE]He(Faulkner) did not believe in the equality of black people, and during the school desegregation battles, he sided with those who would prevent blacks from gaining access to "White Only" schools. " [/QUOTE]
2005-08-08 20:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Makes sense actually. Oprah's Book Club has been taking a lot of (unfair) hits from the intelligentsia and I'm sure her staff wanted to come up with a selection *guaranteed * to shut the posers up with no place to direct their snickering. I for one have never found Oprah's book selections to be all that risible. [/QUOTE]
I have no clue about what type of book typically wins selection as choice to this club. Maybe this is normal, but my guess is the quality of work probably was not Faulkner-caliber, or else more people might be already aware of them.
[QUOTE]For one thing, unlike the morning talk-shows, she doesn't plug books that are already 'hot' her selections may be middlebrow but at least they're books she's read, and wanted to bring to a wider audience. [/QUOTE] She isn't shilling for publishers, it is true, but does promote herself. I just get the feeling this isn't "I like these, you might, too" or "Know thyself" but "Be like me and read these".
[QUOTE] ... I fail to see how her recommending Faulkner and Tolstoy can not be a beacon of light amid the ocean of SURVIVORs and ARE YOU HOT?s and JOE MILLIONAIREs out there, clinging to America's frontal lobes like barnacles.[/QUOTE] Most people probably wouldn't, but you have to appreciate the weirdness of the situation, a TV talkshow is promoting works of substance, that is what initially caught my attention.. There is that and we also have an establisment spokesperson giving the green light to books that show negroes acting and speaking like negroes, not maliciously by any means, but certainly not the romanticized victims they surely must appear as in the rest of Oprah-lit. That is probably more than the typical Opahite is willing to accept.
2005-08-08 22:28 | User Profile
*...we have an establishment spokesperson giving the green light to books that show negroes acting and speaking like negroes, not maliciously by any means, but certainly not the romanticized victims they surely must appear as in the rest of Oprah-lit. *
Well, let's not get too carried away with characterizing Faulkner as "an old fashioned Southern racist" since - as you well know - his attitudes about race were far more conflicted and thorny than a simple "segregation today/tomorrow/forever". Faulkner took a lot of heat from his fellow Mis'sippians in the late 50s for not taking the kneejerk response on race issues. This after all was the writer who created Lucas Beauchamp and Joe Christmas, and who examined white Southerners, rich and poor (and their respective heritages) with an often-harrowing exactitude.
I think his famous remark on the purpose of writing - to illuminate "the human heart in conflict with itself" - sheds a lot of light on his feelings about race, actually: a tangled skein of warring emotions that pretty much guaranteed no matter how the race issue was going to be resolved in America, he'd be left with unresolved remorse.
*I have no clue about what type of book typically wins selection as choice to this club. *
Mostly-literate, upscale weepies...lotsa multi-generational family sagas, rural settings, woman's p.o.v. My girlfriend used to read them, and occasionally I'd give one or two a glance. I didn't find anything earthshaking, but then I didn't really do more than glance at a chapter or two. (With the exception of a few talents like Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, I find most "Southern fiction" to be a bit too precious and affected to keep my attentin.)
2005-08-09 03:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno] as you well know - his attitudes about race were far more conflicted and thorny than a simple "segregation today/tomorrow/forever". Faulkner took a lot of heat from his fellow Mis'sippians in the late 50s for not taking the kneejerk response on race issues. [/QUOTE]
Okay, maybe I should have phrased that to read tjat his views on race were that of the old Southern gentry, he had a lot of involvment with blacks, did not dislike or 'resent' them as other Southerners might have, and probably had a paternalistic view of them. One might even say he had a "balanced view". That view, though the Ku Klux Klan might not offer their approval, still will not find much open defense today. Not hating and even "balance" really aren't enough to meet contemporary standards. Faulkner will have many who defend what he says as art, but the closest we get to an apology of the ideas in themselves are ad hoc statements that Faulkner was a product of his time, or something similar. It is very hard imagine a writer with his approach emerging today, let alone such a writer meeting acclaim.
[QUOTE]
** no matter how the race issue was going to be resolved in America, he'd be left with unresolved remorse.[/QUOTE] Inevitability is the hallmark of tragedy, and Faulkner knew the sense of tragedy in life and literature very well. And I think he was perceptive enough to know that whatever was going to happen was destined to be tragic, exactly how it would be so was going to be in the details. [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE](With the exception of a few talents like Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, I find most "Southern fiction" to be a bit too precious and affected [/QUOTE] So they are are heavy on Southern selections?
2005-08-09 04:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE]So they are are heavy on Southern selections?[/QUOTE]
Dunno but the two or three I saw seemed to be. [I]Places In the Heart [/I] meets the [I]Ya-Ya Sisterhood[/I]....ennobling shit like that. I'm sure somebody's got a list of them posted somewhere.
[QUOTE]Not hating and even "balance" really aren't enough to meet contemporary standards. Faulkner will have many who defend what he says as art, but the closest we get to an apology of the ideas in themselves are ad hoc statements that Faulkner was a product of his time, or something similar. It is very hard imagine a writer with his approach emerging today, let alone such a writer meeting acclaim. [/QUOTE]
Hey, welcome to the 21st century....where [I]every [/I] writer dead in his grave 25 years or longer gets the same hairy eyeball and white-glove test. If they're not explicitly racist, then they're bound to come up short on some other criterion on the post-90s yardstick of Correct Thinking. The pre-war heavyweights, like Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, will all squeak through on reputation - but count on the rest of the 20th century short list to contain names like Mailer, Bellow, and Singer, with Holocaust literature and 'socially useful' leftist tracts supplanting the novels and stories that unapologetically captured the large and small details of life in once-white America....in fact, they already have.
Blame the movies. The ingrained habit of seeing great period literature enacted by modern actors wearing modern haircuts and modern attitudes has convinced the weak-minded among us that the burden is really on literature to measure up to the airbrushed, capped-teeth wonderfulness of our movie and tv stars...and certainly none of [B]them [/B] are shy about testing negative for racism, sexism and traditionalism, and publicly waving around the lab results to prove it.
Forty years ago, Pauline Kael tore Hollywood's favorite sanctimonious liberal Stanley Kramer a second asshole, dismissing all of his gushing critical notices with a withering reminder that Good Intentions and High-minded Piety might be enough for politicians or editorialists but meant less than nothing in art and literature: "Stanley Kramer runs for office in the arts" was her damning phrase. Unfortunately, the Stanley Kramers clung tightly to their simpering liberal rhetoric and prevailed. I think Faulkner....a typical 20th century artist in that he earned the majority of his income as a hack screenwriter on projects he didn't care about (who usually didn't even get an onscreen credit) because his great works could never have financially sustained him....would raise his glass on that bitter note.
2005-08-09 04:40 | User Profile
. [QUOTE] I think Faulkner....a typical 20th century artist in that he earned the majority of his income as a hack screenwriter on projects[/QUOTE] Turns out that this Oprah association has put Faulkner sales at an [u]all time[/u] high. Whichever relative or relatives hold the publishing rights must be giddy with their good fortune.
And from earlier this year:
[url="http://slate.msn.com/id/2113927"]http://slate.msn.com/id/2113927[/url]
Modestly amusing.
2005-08-09 05:12 | User Profile
Some great bits in that parody.
[QUOTE]Condi wiped some spit on her hand and patted down my hair. Her hand was soft and she smelled like Xerox copies coming right out of the machine. [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE][I]Run and get me that horseshoe, Georgie, Daddy said. I ran and picked up the horseshoe. The metal was hot in my hands, and I held it for a little bit and then I dropped it. I picked it up. It was hot in my hands and I started running away from Daddy and Jeb. Come back with that horseshoe, Daddy said. I was running as fast as I could. Jeb run after him and get me my horseshoe before he throws another one in the river, Daddy hollered. [/I] [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]I started to holler. Dick's face was red and he looked at Rummy. "I told you to hush up already," Dick said. "Now look what you've gone and done."
"Go and get him Saddam's gun," Condi said. "You know how he likes to hold it."
Dick went to my desk drawer and took out Saddam's gun. He gave it to me, and it was hot in my hands. Rummy pulled the gun away.
"Do you want him carrying a gun into the press conference?" Rummy said. "Cant you think any better than he can?"[/QUOTE]
Good stuff.