Oprah: Midwife of the Apocalypse

Unless you live under a rock or have no TV (and Zoe says, who's Oprah?), you've heard that Oprah has chosen Cormac McCarthy's The Road for her next book club. Now, this guy is not as reclusive as J.D. Salinger, but he's pretty darned private. That part is interesting for those of us who follow authors and have many opinions. So that's causing a boatload of discussion for McCarthy followers. The David Foster Wallace list I'm on sent so many emails the day it was announced that I turned off the sound for all the beeping alerts. And, as per usual, when Oprah chooses a book outside her normal Lifetime Channel parameters, there is much talk about her power to increase sales of literature and get the housewives of America reading. So that old discussion is also burning up bandwidth.

So I won't bore you with all that - I don't care about the Oprah-watching, non-reading, soccer moms of this country. It's just that the books she chooses that cause the murmuring, like The Corrections, or rather, the Corrections' author, may be a little out there or hard to take for people used to Bridges of Madison County. But they are nowhere near as devastating or haunting as The Road... She may as well ask her audience to watch her butcher a bunny on live TV.

I know I'm rambling a bit but there is just so much to say regarding this pop cultural mashup that I can't really keep my thoughts straight. I had a strange moment at Best Buy the other day, when I was standing behind this, what we used to call a valley girl (what are they called now?), who was wearing a flared, ruffled miniskirt, short, belly-baring top, piled-high hair, and way too much makeup, reading the The Road - IN LINE. Because she couldn't wait to get it home and begin living through the apocalypse. I can't shake this image. And then, I imagine Oprah's audience sitting there with dark circles under their eyes, dirty hair, and perhaps a bunch of pitforks, having turned into a posse like the one chasing Frankenstein, for introducing thoughts into their empty little heads that now will never leave and dammit, won't let them sleep either.

"And everyone gets - A FREE COPY OF THE ROAD!!!!" Audience just sits there, silent. "And now... "CORMAC MC CARTHYYYYYYYYY!"

See? It just goes on and on. It's just not right. This is No Program for Old Men. And yet, I will be there with bells on. Can anyone tell me when it is airing?

And now, to make this blog worthwhile - I found out that a film is being made of The Road, directed by John Hillcoat, who just did the outstanding "The Proposition." How many Oprah fans do you think saw The Proposition? And how excited are the film producers that Oprah chose The Road? Very. How many Oprah fans that read The Road will also see the movie? 0. Well, Deejah, so 1.