summer of oprah?

I like William Faulkner. No, I really like Faulkner. He's not the easiest or most accessible author; there's still a great deal about a novel like Absalom, Absalom (for instance) that I just don't understand. That, after having sat through classes devoted to Faulkner in college under an expert who had read Absalom some 30 times and told us that she learned something new each time she read it.

Which is why I was more than a little surprised when I walked into my local Borders the other day and saw this. The latest Oprah's Book Club selection is a box set of three Faulkner novels: As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, and Light in August. I love the idea of reading groups and large numbers of people reading and discussing the same book. I am all for Faulkner gaining a wider audience and for responsible scholars working to make the material accessible (on the hand, doesn't the most rewarding part of reading come from reading and re-reading and wrestling with a text?).

But Oprah?!??

Go ahead, call me elitist, but it strikes me that the average Oprah viewer won't get more than a few pages into, say, The Sound and the Fury, before he throws his hands up in frustration and bafflement. Where The Heart Is this ain't.