"Tolstoy's Translators Experience Oprah's Effect."
By EDWARD WYATT
Ms. Winfrey's selection of ''Anna Karenina'' was notable in several ways, not least because she has not read the book, which is about a woman who abandons her husband for a lover and is set in 19th-century Russia.
''I've never, ever chosen a novel that I had not personally read,'' she said on her show last week, introducing the selection. ''It's been on my list for years, but I didn't do it because I was scared.'' Now, she said, ''I am going to team up with all of you and read it together.''
Ms. Winfrey has chosen translated novels before, including most recently ''One Hundred Years of Solitude'' by Gabriel García Márquez, the Colombian who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. But that book, like nearly all of the other selections Ms. Winfrey has made since 1996, was still under copyright, with one English translation.
In contrast, at least a half-dozen translations of ''Anna Karenina'' are in print in North America. Because Oprah's Book Club uses online readers' guides and other materials specific to the book, Ms. Winfrey recognized the importance of having everyone on the same page.
''First of all, get this edition,'' she told viewers. ''You see the one with the little flowers on the cover, and it'll have the little banner? Look for the Oprah's Book Club little sticker there because there's lots of different editions. This is an award-winning translation, so you're really going to get scared if it's not translated well, O.K.?'' Ms. Winfrey revived her book club last June after a hiatus of more than a year. The club had been discontinued in 2002 when she decided she could not keep up with the reading required to find contemporary books that she enjoyed.
With 46 recommendations in six years, Ms. Winfrey had championed a diverse group of modern authors -- Toni Morrison, Wally Lamb and Mary McGarry Morris among them -- whose members saw sales of their books grow exponentially, as hundreds of thousands of loyal viewers rushed out in search of the latest selection, often sending it zooming up best-seller lists.
When Ms. Winfrey revived the club, she do so with a twist. Now she would recommend only classics, ''great books that have stood the test of time,'' as she put it, with three to five selections a year. The first pick, ''East of Eden'' by John Steinbeck, spent seven weeks at the top of the New York Times list of paperback best sellers, a feat unheard of for a 51-year-old novel.
Last week the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of ''Anna Karenina'' also shot to the top of Amazon's online best-seller list, and it has been at or near the top of Barnes & Noble's online list. Penguin has by now returned to press twice to print 900,000 copies since being notified of the pending selection -- under a veil of secrecy -- on May 5, compared with about 60,000 copies since the book's American release in 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/07/books/tolstoy-s-translators-experience-oprah-s-effect.html
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In my synthesis essay I would use this article to support my belief that, although new technologies that seem to threaten the existance of books such as vooks, audio books, ebooks, sparknotes, etc, are being developed with unbelievable speed, this essential part of our culture will never disappear as long as powerful and influential people like Oprah continue to encourage millions of people to read. (I mean, now she's only recommending classics! ''great books that have stood the test of time.'' Another good fact you could use as evidence is: "''East of Eden'' by John Steinbeck, spent seven weeks at the top of the New York Times list of paperback best sellers, a feat unheard of for a 51-year-old novel.")
ReplyDeleteThis document is an interesting addition to a synthesis essay on the future of books because Oprah's Book Club is flourishing right along side new technologies that threaten the tradition of books. I would use this document in a synthesis essay to support the continuing popularity of books despite these new technologies.
ReplyDeleteIt would also be interesting to point out that Oprah has abandoned contemporary novels. Due to copyright issues like the ones behind the Kindle lawsuit, most old "classics" that Oprah will now favor are only found in book form. This means that Oprah's new choice in types of books will also help perpetuate, not only reading, but also reading from paper bound texts as opposed to using new technologies.
This article is very interesting, it shows how despite technology, people will keep reading, and that Oprah will keep encouraging people to read. Also, how influential this woman is to people; the book she reads in her book club becomes the most popular for months.
ReplyDeleteI would use this document in a synthesis essay to demonstrate how popular books can become and how people will keep reading regardless of any technological advancement.