Please don’t OPRAH-fy me

You got to read this!” is a line that has led me to many nerdy heartaches as I pass on my books to literature limbo that is friends and even strangers. At the height of my excitement of “I heart this book, please read this,”  I forget that months later I will be waking in the middle of the night looking for that word, phrase or chapter that put me into the throes of hard-bound euphoria. The aftermath is ugly as I try to recall who I gave my book to and when he gave it. Then, dawn breaks and I have to accept that I have lost my dear child  yet again.

Thus, it always puzzles me how Oprah Winfrey can say “You’ve got to read this” and generate tons of zombie-like readers and dollars to go with it. As for me, all I get is eyebags and intellectual mourning. I learned to stop lending books most of the time. Yet, whatever never changes is my depression over unread books. Yes, books screaming with intent and content that are left on dusty shelves. It is indeed a pitiful sight but what is even more distressing is the Oprah Effect that fuels the status-hungry. In the wake of their ravenous appetite, books are turned into mere coffee-table accessories and Oprah acts as their caffeine. Before Oprah or any Oprah-ites get James Frey (see: public humiliation) or  The Corrections (see: loss of books sales) on me, I am not saying that the literature chosen is not laudatory. I am upset over the fact many people use Oprah’s book club as a status compass. You find her finds such as The Kite Runner on the desks of your officemates screaming (silently), “Yes, I am an intellectual.” Despite, upon closer inspection, the awful truth is that the paperback or hardback is neither dog-eared, bookmarked or even unwrapped from its pristine plastic. It truly does make me weep every time I see it. 

Book bubble

Yet another harsh effect of the Oprah Effect is it turns books into fleeting celebrities when they should be timeless. While Harry Potter was not part of Oprah’s choices, he was the latest victim of the book bubble or “You got to read this or you are a loser” mentality. Harry Potter’s 7th year’s success went away as fast as the time it took to Wikipedia the ending or download it onto a PDF. It is because everyone ate up his book too fast for the sake of having it rather than experiencing it. People start reading books not because it piqued their interest but because it piqued the interest of Oprah. Just like everything in this spoon-fed, media-driven, fast-food world, the act of a true choice and opinion has been blurred. What I am actually scared of is that endorsers speak for the books rather than the word and the rhyme of true talent speaks for itself. Even more tragic is the fact that people chomp up any book fed to them. Like food, they forget to read the label on the back and tend to look for mental junk food. For example, I think the world is actually ending when a book sells itself and reaches number by saying that it reveals the most powerful law in the universe without  scientific or historical facts. This can go over your head but this herd mentality really leaves people with nothing left to argue about, which I believe leaves the world too quiet and dry for comfort. The book, instead of instigating conversation, just leads to boring homogenization.

Radical choices

However, to save my life from rabid readers, I want to reiterate not all of my Sistah Oprah’s choices are trashable and even admit to reading James Frey’s “too good to be true, which it was a really” A Million Little Pieces. While researching for this week’s topic, I stumbled onto Into The Wild by outdoor journalist Jon Krakauer. I hesitated picking it up because I also learned it was chosen by Oprah. Yet, this was mitigated by the fact that the film version was directed by Sean Penn and its soundtrack was sung by Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder — two of my personal Oprah Winfreys. Into The Wild is the story of Alex Supertramp a.k.a Chris McCandless who is a true-to-life Don Quixote who decided to chase the mountains of Alaska and met his demise 112 days later by eating poisonous berries. It is about a boy who was well-fed outside but hungry inside. Yet, he ironically died starving, but at same time, fully satisfied. Like Quixote, whose brain dried up from too much reading, Chris’ spirit for the frontier and renouncement of the world was brought about by books. Instead of tales of chivalry, Chris left a literal trail of highlighted passages of Leo Tolstoy and Jack London.

Getting lost in the forest

I was initially drawn by the premise because I had my share of Alex Supertramp days as I used to walk the streets of Manila’s concrete jungle alone and admittedly with a similar hunger and hunt for the great unknown of life. As you read on, I must warn you that Chris’ complexity is as thick as the woods he travailed. I admittedly had a difficult time chopping down the branches of thought that the author Krakauer planted into the mind about his subject Chris. It is because Chris was neither a nut nor a solitary loner. He made friends and even remarkably changed lives as he hitchhiked to Alaska. Furthermore, his thoughts were coherent and even more enlightening than the words of Morrie Schwartz from Tuesdays with Morrie. If you read his letter/manifesto for his friend Ron, who will eventually turn atheist due to Chris’ death, you will see nuggets of uncontrived truth, as he passionately writes “the joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” He then continues: “You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us.” As you can read, Chris was like any of us because he was simply searching for true happiness. The difference was he went to extreme measures to find it.

Into the thick of it

Yet, the deepest pit of enigma in this story lies in the eerie picture that greets you as you venture Into The Wild. It is the actual photograph taken by Chris McCandless right before he expires, “as serene as a monk gone to God,” as described by author Jon Krakauer. His brazen Tom Sawyer smile rotted into my memory, I tried to grasp why it disturbed me so as the “you are past your deadline” flies accumulated over my head more than Chris’ dead body. Many queries raced through my head such as “How can he do this?” and more importantly, “Was he truly happy?” Yet those questions never satisfied my discomfort. Until I realized two days after my deadline, his shameless smile was more than a sign of blissful contentment but a man laughing at this “I Want” world and mockingly asking, “I am happy, what about you?”

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Leave The Trail

Oprah’s Book Club

Latest Books featured: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Available at National Bookstore

Website: http://www.oprah.com/

Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

Available at Fully Booked

Film Site: http://www.intothewild.com

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