I'd like to hear your-all's opinions on this article that was in our paper this morning. It's long, but I'm copying it here, a.) in case the link is taken down, and b.) 'cause I suspect more people will read it if I do!

The Power of Oprah
Can Queen Midas turn even mediocre books into gold?
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By MARK COOMES
mcoomes@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey held up her book club selection, John Steinbeck's "East of Eden."
The insular world of arts and letters is about to find out if a billionaire populist has the chops to upgrade the intellectual reputation of any old book she pleases — starting with John Steinbeck's oft-maligned 1952 novel, "East of Eden."

If anyone can do it, Oprah Winfrey can.

Maybe.

"It's a pretty ambitious undertaking," said Gloria Murray, dean of education at Indiana University Southeast. "Can she create her own classics and sell a mass market on great literature? Even with her power, I don't know."

In terms of sales and publicity, Winfrey's ability to turn literary lead into gold is beyond question. For seven years, a thumbs-up from Oprah's Book Club turned obscure new books by often-unknown authors into runaway best sellers overnight.

But bestowing commercial success is one thing, critical acclaim quite another.

After a 10-month hiatus, Winfrey revived her Book Club in June, having told the Association of American Publishers that the second coming would focus on "classic works of literature."

By labeling her new recommendations as classics, the world will soon see if Winfrey's clout extends beyond the cash register to the court of critical opinion.

"Never underestimate the power of Oprah," said Purdue University professor John Duvall, editor of Modern Fiction Studies, an academic journal. "I think she has the potential to broaden the horizon of what a classic means."

Winfrey's first selection arched some eyebrows in academe.

The literati do not hold Steinbeck's "East of Eden" in particularly high esteem — an opinion that begs some thorny questions that have occupied literary critics and English professors for more than a decade:

What is a "classic" anyway?

Who gets to decide?

Trying to answer those questions opens a contentious and complicated can of worms.

"I hope you know that you are stepping into the middle of what the '90s called the campus 'culture wars,'" said University of Louisville English professor Dale Billingsley.

At issue is the right of any group, no matter how learned, to decide which novels constitute the canon, the scholarly term for the small collection of works recognized as the acme of English prose.

The task of separating the great from the good has been traditionally reserved for an elite league of critics and academics who consider it their duty to guard the gilded legacy of English literature.

But modern critics of a more democratic bent argue that designating a work as "classic" is a largely subjective decision influenced by race, gender, economics and a host of other considerations not directly related to the work's intrinsic value.

"The canon traditionally consists of books written by white male authors of European heritage," said Samantha Earley, an assistant professor of English at IUS who specializes in African-American literature. "They are the books endorsed and taught by professors who had been taught those books by their professors and so on. The result is that the process sometimes didn't allow new voices to come in."

That started to change around 1950. Since then, the "Norton Anthology of English Literature" has expanded from one volume to five, "which better reflects the diversity of American culture and society," Duvall said.

Yet critics still debate which works and authors merit classic status.

For example, Steinbeck's most acclaimed novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," is almost unanimously regarded as a classic. But the author himself, despite winning the 1955 Nobel Prize for literature, is perceived by some to be a cut below such American authors as William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, Ralph Ellison and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The influential critic Harold Bloom declared of Steinbeck's work, "Nothing after 'The Grapes of Wrath,' including 'East of Eden,' bears re-reading."

"East of Eden," a loose retelling of the Cain and Abel story set in California's Salinas Valley during the 1920s, was a best seller that begat a famous movie of the same name, featuring the film debut of James Dean.

But most critics dissed the novel as an overcooked melodrama, and it is not among the Steinbeck works routinely studied in American classrooms. Cliff's Notes publishes study guides for five Steinbeck novels and short stories; "East of Eden" is not among them.

When Winfrey recommended "East of Eden" as a classic — saying, "We think it might be the best novel we've ever read!" — some folks who study literature for a living were aghast.

"She's crazy," said Dennis Hall, a UofL English professor and co-editor of "The Greenwood Guide to American Popular Culture." "If she says 'East of Eden' is one of the best novels she's ever read, either her tastes are very narrowly defined or she hasn't read many good novels."

Winfrey's defenders note that her contemporary selections included complex, highly regarded novels such as Toni Morrison's "Paradise" and Johnathan Franzen's "The Corrections."

Others say she has every right to apply the classic label as she sees fit, the opinion of professional reviewers notwithstanding.

"It's very hard to say Oprah is wrong," said Matthew Biberman, a UofL English professor specializing in literary theory. "She seems to be reinventing the notion of a classic."

She is at the very least prompting a widespread reinspection of "East of Eden."

Winfrey recommended the novel on her June 18 show. Within 24 hours, the book catapulted from No.2,356 to No.2 in the Amazon.com sales rankings. Within three weeks, Penguin Group had sold 813,000 copies of a book that usually sells fewer than 50,000 a year.

Fifty-one years after the novel's original release, "East of Eden" was No.1 in the Aug. 3 Paperback Fiction division of The New York Times' best-sellers list.

Routine results for the Queen Midas of American publishing.

From 1996 to 2002, Winfrey recommended 46 contemporary novels to her avid TV audience. Almost every one sold at least 750,000 copies, according to Publishers Weekly.

Alas, sales alone do not a classic make. Case in point: John Milton's 17th-century masterpiece "Paradise Lost," an elaborate epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve (Amazon.com sales rank: No.79,775).

In addressing his poem to a "fit Audience ... though few," Milton "seems deliberately not to seek a mass market and has succeeded enormously in that goal," Billingsley dryly noted.

Contrasting the critical stature of "Paradise Lost" with its lack of commercial success begs the old question about the tree that fell in the forest. How great can a book be if nobody ever reads it?

With readers galore, the scholarly reputation of "East of Eden" seems to fade to insignificance. Classic schmassic. By vaulting "East of Eden" back onto the best-sellers list, Oprah's army seems to pose a more relevant question:

Who cares about critical standing so long as people are reading good books?

Mark Hall certainly doesn't. The former UofL graduate student, now an assistant professor of rhetoric, composition and literacy studies at California State University at Chico, recently published a 21-page academic paper on the Oprah's Book Club phenomenon.

"The literary elite persist in dismissing Oprah and her readers ... (as) lowbrow, unworthy of serious attention," Hall said. "As a teacher, however, I struggle to engage my students in reading, and so I wonder if academics might learn something from Winfrey about how to tap into the interests of general readers.

"In my experience, the treatment of literature in the classroom often kills the joy of reading for many students. By contrast, Winfrey fosters the deeply felt pleasure that hooks readers and keeps them engaged."