Fwd: Pynchon's fat novel repudiated?

[WHPI at aol.com]

You wrote:

You're misremembering the circumstances and
overvauling (at least in this instance) the impact of
Orphan's imprimatur.

Francine was invited onto her show; he publically
expressed some qualms about the idea, she disinvited
him, and never discussed his book on the air.  Some of
the books went out with her little seal on them but,
in light of the flap, and the perceived insult to
Oprah and her fans, it's difficult to credit her for
the book's popularity.

Further, The Corrections got all but unanimously good
reviews and won the National Book Award only a few
weeks after the disinvitation.

I respectfully disagree. Even before word went out that The Corrections had 
been made an Oprah selection, FSG, which had been discreetly informed of the 
choice, increased their print run by many hundreds of thousands of copies at 
once in order to fill the inevitable demand from the chains. That set the ball 
rolling. The books were shipped, the announcement was made, and the book took 
off and soon was a bestseller.  The good reviews helped, to be sure, as did the 
National Book Award, but anyone who was there at the time, in the business, 
that is, knows that without Oprah's imprimatur, The Corrections would never have 
reached anything like the sell through it achieved.  Not even close.  The 
scandal created by Franzen's derogatory comments about the Book Club and Oprahs' 
decision not to have him on the air only added more fuel to the fire, and 
increased sales even more.

PS. Watch your spelling, please -- overvauling/publically
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