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January 29, 2004Oprah or Marquez? Hmmm......
I’m struck sometimes at how perfectly events in my life will mirror themes that have just come up in books or stories I’ve read.
Case in point: In my Early Japanese Literature course today, we discussed an excerpt from the Heike monogatari in which a renowned samurai wrestles a foe into submission and demands his name, intent on knowing the man’s identity before chopping off his head. He finds out that his foe is actually a young man, no more than eighteen years in age, and thinks back to his own dead son—who would have also been eighteen, had he lived that long. Explaining his rationale, the older man spares his young foe’s life. The eighteen-year-old warrior promptly turns around and kills him. After all, he was the enemy.
In class, opinions were pretty contentiously divided between those who though the young man behaved treacherously and dishonorably, and those who felt that all’s fair in love and war.
I get home this afternoon, only to read online that Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude is selling like Spanish hotcakes. The problem? The credit for the novel’s sudden meteoric popularity goes completely to Oprah Winfrey and her book club.
Boy, am I conflicted. I love Marquez, even to the point where I went against all logic and assigned One Hundred Years of Solitude to my high school seniors last year. But I’ve always hated the idea of the masses rushing to the bookstore like so many lemmings, eager to hop off a celebrity’s cliff of choice.
And believe you me, they’re hopping off of One Hundred Years of Solitude:
“Online bookseller Amazon.com reports that immediately after Winfrey's selection, One Hundred Years of Solitude jumped from No. 3,116 to No. 1. Barnes & Noble's Bob Wietrak says it has always been a steady seller, but after Winfrey's selection, sales of the Spanish edition doubled and sales of the English version are 15 times greater. Borders' Jenie Dahlmann says it sold half as many copies last week as in all of 2003.”
My enemy has granted me an unexpected boon, but war is war. Do I change my tune just because her attention has benefited a novel and author I like, or do I stick to my principles and shake my curmudgeonly fist at her book club?
Posted by patrick at January 29, 2004 06:25 PM
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