On Sunday, Tribune cultural writer Julia Keller expressed reservations about how Oprah Winfrey runs her book club. Oprah’s latest picks are Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, and Keller thinks they shouldn’t be.
“I don’t mind that Oprah sometimes picks classic novels by dead authors for her wonderful club,” Keller writes, but “this time around” she admits to a “slight disappointment.” Classics come “pre-approved.” They’ve been “analyzed and lionized.” They have even been “sanitized for our protection.” (Well, at least Huckleberry Finn has.)