Anna Karenina and Oprah

[Derek C. Maus]

> Whatever our opinions of Oprah's recommending (and talking about) a novel
> we claim as our own, we can be sure that it was precisely this type of
> mass readership for whom Tolstoy wrote.

I wonder if he would have said the same for the recent film version of his
novel in which the blond-haired and relatively straight-haired Sophie
Marceau portrayed his (anti-)heroine with her untamable black curls...

For what it's worth, I think getting people to read the novel is
wonderful, regardless of the source, and I've never known book clubs to
engage in the same sort of one-upmanship (or one-up-womanship, for that
matter...) that literary critics do when it comes to "accurate"
interpretations of a novel. I just wish they'd focus a little more closely
on details than just surface emotional impressions, but hey, different
tropes for different folps.

        Derek

Derek Maus
Assistant Professor of English
SUNY Potsdam

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