Everyone seems to have gotten into a snit about Jonathan Franzen (author of The Corrections) snubbing Oprah. Some fairly respectable authors are criticising Franzen, clamoring that there is no distinction between high art and low art, and Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's Magazine, earnestly claimed that "a good writer is a rich writer, and a rich writer is a good writer."

Now, I don't believe for a moment most of these people really think these things. Can you imagine being a writer, and not believing that most of what is published these days is formulaic crap? Even the stuff that proposes to be a bit more intellectual, rarely rises above middlebrow--what Virginia Woolf called, "a mixture of geniality and sentiment stuck together with a sticky slime of calf's-foot jelly." And that's about the highest level the Oprah book club ever gets. A middlebrow bookclub on a lowbrow TV show, as the Boston Globe article linked above puts it.

But let's not criticise too harshly. The point for much of Oprah's audience, remember, is not to actually read a book. God forbid. The point is to be seen publicly carrying it around. And local book clubs don't help readers explore the themes presented by a book anyway; the whole idea is to pass out a few good phrases so members can convince others they actually know how to read. "Oh, yes, I thought the rape scene near the end was particularly ... um ... sad."

On the other hand, there are people who are really in earnest. They really want to imporve their exposure to literature, and see Oprah as giving them a way to do that. She's rich, they say, and seems intelligent--she must be choosing the good books. And for them, the tragedy is greater. Instead of offering them challenging, worthwhile novels, she hands out her Gold Stars to the finest examples of Woolf's slimy middlebrow pap.

People, in general, have practiced being stupid for so long that it would take years of training to break the habit. Like turning off Oprah, and actually reading a goddamn real book.