Oprah Winfrey's much anticipated Book Club program featuring Paradise was broadcast in the U.S. on March 6, 1998. It was an honest presentation in which Oprah admitted having difficulty herself with the novel, but was able to mediate it for her audience after interviewing Toni Morrison personally and taking part in a study group session at Princeton University led by Ms. Morrison. [transcripts of the program are available from Burrelle's Information Services, Box 7, Livingston, New Jersey 07039 USA]
For a discussion of the Winfrey show's nostalgic, positive depiction of the all-black Oklahoma towns, see the abstract for the Collegium of African-American Research (CAAR) paper on our "Paradise" menu. Toni Morrison's metaphorical use of those towns in her novel is of course much more multi-dimensional, although both the TV program and the novel have certainly served to popularize those little known idealistic settlements!
Click on "Bibliography and Links" for on-line info about Winfrey's Paradise Book Club program.
And look forward to our expansion of this page next summer to include discussion of the new film BELOVED, produced and starring Oprah Winfrey!!
Below you will find some thoughts and information (prepared in the graduate seminar of fall/winter 1998/99) on Oprah Winfrey's first Book Club program which featured Morrison's novel Song of Solomon:
Despite Oprah's charisma, her obviously genuine appreciation of books, and her admirable philanthropic activities, we graduate students have to be skeptical about her strategy of combining gourmet dinner, superficially subjective or global judgements, and advertisements into a 'show'. Toni Morrison's carefully phrased and thought-through responses do not lend themselves well to quick cuts and razzmatazz clips. Her sovereign presence was not eclipsed by Oprah's perfectly timed but often irritating insertions or cut-offs, although the viewer would have preferred to hear more from Toni Morrison and less from Ms. Winfrey. The emotions evoked from the dinner guests certainly seemed authentic, but at times the viewer found himself feeling somewhat like a voyeur. Nonetheless, German book review broadcasts could learn a great deal from the warmth, enthusiasm, and commitment of the Oprah Winfrey show! The active participation of the dinner guests and the indirect participation of the viewers who actually bought Song of Solomon indeed make the Oprah Winfrey Show exemplary for 'interactive' TV!
Michaela Malich
Oprah Winfrey's handling of Toni Morrison and Song of Solomon appeared in some ways exaggerated and undignified. To the unfamiliar viewer, this particular show represented the best and worst of American stereotypes--warm colorfulness but also superficiality and preoccupation with consumer-selling. All in all, however, it achieved something very important: Despite the nervous laughter, dramatic bursts of motion, and neglect of important aspects of the novel, the broadcast succeeded--at least in the U.S.--in irrevocably exposing the author and Song of Solomon to the mainstream TV audience.
By reaching the average television viewer, Toni and Oprah align their public intentions. They focus their attention not upon the academic world, but instead upon the everyday person whose habits and styles are flawlessly captured in the book. Although Toni Morrison's outstanding accomplishments were unfortunately marginalized by Oprah's commercial-like segments, the message was conveyed that reading Song of Solomon is an individual act to be shared with people from various backgrounds and should not be kept only in academic circles.
Laura Guerra,
American student "in exile" at the Universität Siegen
See also:
"Books discussed on Oprah's Book Club"