NEWS: Apoca-Lit, Oprah, and the End of the World

CULTURE: Apoca-Lit, Oprah, and the End of the World

Though not a sign of the apocalypse, many were shocked when Oprah Winfrey chose Cormac McCarthy’s The Road as the latest selection for her book club. Oprah’s Book Club, perhaps the biggest force in publishing (non British boy wizard division) today, is usually the domain of the uplifting memoir or, more recently, a classic of the past. This time, however, Oprah has chosen one of the bleakest (albeit best-reviewed) novels of the past few years.

In The Road an unnamed man and his son travel across a landscape empty of any comfort or sustenance as they hide from roving bands of cannibals—the only other humans left after the destruction of nearly everything . Not exactly light reading . . . and there is little chance that the notoriously media-shy McCarthy will be appearing on the Oprah show any time soon.

So what is behind the surprising choice? Does it reflect Oprah’s angry mood following the James Frey debacle? Perhaps, but The LA Time’s Scott Timberg also sees a trend centered on a growing fascination with eschatological themes in literature and film.

Why the sudden high-art obsession with end times? Is it because of our fears after 9/11 and the war in Iraq? Is it even something new? One thing is for sure: with Oprah’s pick, the future is a lot brighter for McCarthy’s publishers than it is for his protagonists.

I think the obsession is because we live in a world that is media-hungry, soaking up all of the horrible fucking things in the world in the hour before dinner. When not pelted with the latest global catastrophe and loss of life, your local news station will gladly fill you in on all of the local rapes, murders, child molestations and abductions. We are fueled by our government to be terrified of the next terrorist disaster or bird flu epidemic. There is no clear cut enemy any more, we are being taught to pretty much fear everything.

Maybe McCarthy could send Owen Wilson in his Eli Cash character in his place.

I think this story has the biggest five dollar word the newswire has ever seen.

Third unrelated comment:

This sort of sentiment was common a little less than a century ago.

I absolutely love cormac mccarthy, but I haven't read the road... if it's anything like blood meridian, though, the stereotypical oprah fan is in for a delightfully nasty shock. good for oprah!

The news here spends at least half of their programming time on celebrity/entertainment fodder instead of focusing on world issues. Unless one is watching CNN, and sometimes not even then.

I'm hoping the Big O adds to her list Michel Houellebecq's 'The Elementary Particles' so we can all get down and dirty in end times - Viagra, guns & pathetic fucking in the streets!

Sounds good, I'll have to go check it out

In terms of prose style and themes this isn't a pick without precedent. The last time she picked fiction was summer of 2005. She named 3 Faulkner novels: As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, and Light in August. Not exactly beach-reading for the masses.

What's remarkable about her choosing The Road is that it's a novel by a living author. Since reviving the bookclub in 2003 with Steinbeck's East of Eden she's tended to pick canonical works. This has gotten her around the potential stickiness of another Franzen incident, as it's meant that all the novelists involved were dead.

Prior to this latest pick, the lone exception to the dead novelist rule was One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which got the O-stamp in January of '04, 34 years after its original English publication and 22 years after the author was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Unlike Franzen, here was an author who'd been dealing with fame for decades and could probably handle the appearance of a little stamp on the cover of his book graciously; that's precisely what he did.

The Road, on the other hand, wasn't even scheduled for a paperback printing until this fall. It was re-scheduled (unbeknownst to all but Oprah and Random House) just for this occasion. Will McCarthy be invited to appear on the show? Will we hear about it if he declines, which he almost certainly will? Or will he confound everyone and actually turn up to chat with Oprah about his book? I'm hoping it's the latter.

Ugh, I just hate Oprah's fucking book altogether. I work in a bookstore and you would think Oprah's recommendations are the end all and be all of the publishing world... but this... oh this will be good! Soccer moms reading about cannibals makes my heart happy.

Oprah also endorsed that "The Secret" crap, so, who cares. She's gotten really weird. I think all that weight loss made her brain lose a couple pounds.

or, you know, she promotes what people pay her a hefty sum to promote?

Next on the list: Salinger, Pynchon, Harper Lee. She gets to avoid the 'dead white men' stigma while simultaneously banking on none of her living authors showing her up.

excellent news! i'm all in favor of anything that exposes a wider audience to McCarthy's phenomenal writing. great timing too, since i'm re-reading blood meridian at the moment

And I want Big O's tv slobs to also read Georges Bataille's 'The Story Of The Eye' and Louis-Ferdinand Celine's 'Death On The Installment Plan'. Wind up the rabble and let 'em go!

Ugh...I feel your pain. I worked in a well-known retail bookstore for a few years...the exchange would go something like this:

Customer: I'm looking for a book......

Me: Sure...what's the title?

Customer: I don't know...but it was on Oprah

Me: Ok....do you know the name of the author?

Customer: I don't know...it was on Oprah today

Me: Hmmm....do you know what the book was about?

Customer: No, I just saw it on Oprah

Me: Well, we do have an Oprah's Book Club table in the center aisle of the store

Customer: Yeah, I didn't see it there.....but I know it was on Oprah


So, as you can see....I have suffered at the hands of the Opraholics. "I don't know the title of the book...or the author...or the subject matter...I just know Oprah told me to read it"

That's why I've always felt that book stores should have a gas chamber you could point those people to.

Back on topic though, it is a surprising pick. If I could stand to watch her, I'd like to see how that book club episode plays out.

oprah likes?
Now I'm in!

great, now everyone's gonna be ready for the apocalupse.

I read The Road as hardback...Oprah's listing it coincides with its release as a QP...It's a wonderful read.

McCarthy succeeds with subject matter that other writers may not be able to pull off...

Ugh... exactly!!! I especially hate when they get mad and say something like "You work here (Borders), shouldn't you know?" I feel like saying "You watched the fucking Oprah show and drove your ass down here, shouldn't YOU know?!"

If some yahoo comes in looking for As I Lay Dying or One Hundred Years Of Solitude then, in the end, something good is going on.

nah, after all, soylent green is people.

mmmm. soylent green.

I seem to recall more than a few apocalyptic movies appearing just a few years ago (as in, late 1990s, approaching the new century).

Doesn't happen that way. Publishers couldn't begin to sign a cheque for a figure that would get Oprah on the phone. And if they did, do you think they'd ignore all their market research and shove Cormac McCarthy at middle-class women? When publishers are in a position to push, they push safe bets. They don't want to be forced into a massive print run only to have the stuff returned 6 months later.

Like it or not, Oprah's picking these books. And people are reading them. And I ran out of reasons for disliking her for doing this years ago.