Is it possible to judge a book not only by its substance, not just the words on the page, but by it’s design, by it’s font-choice and size, it’s cover-design, or even by it’s publisher?
Of course it is, no? All judgments are possible, as Nietzsche might have put it, but are they preferred? Can we - should we - judge a book by it’s quality of paper, by it’s Simoncini Garamond type, elegantly catching the overhead light and appearing as a soothing, old-style that draws you in with its delicate ovals on the “q” and the “d”, the winking shyness of the little-“e” and even the sly, you-can’t-catch-me-if-you-try flirtatiousness of the lower-case “a”?
Should we appreciate the pleasure of the author’s story, the teller’s tale, absent from its packaging? To be sure, a book’s design is a judgment made by more than its author - a targeted readership spied by the publisher, or a preference for simplicity that advertises the heft of the narrative’s contents (one thinks here, of course, of Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics as a prime example). But even though created purposefully to engage our attention amidst a table full of similarly competing - how else to call them? - stacks of paper with writing on them - does a book’s design increase the pleasure, or the experience, of the text itself?
Surely some portion does - otherwise, why do poets insist on staggered, unevenly spaced lines and punctuation? Why add a photograph, when descriptions of the person or event photographed are often described in the same space? Why include a top-stain or a deckle-edge, if not to increase the book’s presence as an object itself, and not limiting it to what it really is - a vessel for imparting information, an apparatus for delivering words and ideas to the recipient, intended, as we know, in only a general sense, for a time of the recipient’s choosing?
These questions came to me over time - but most recently when I realized I was purchasing - for the fourth time - a copy of a book I had already thrice-purchased. Not only do I already own a well-read hardcover, but also a first-edition mylar-ed hardcover, a worn paperback rescued from a dusty bookshop on the edges of backwater Arcadia in southwest Florida, but now the re-issue paperback complete with new introduction by an industry-respected author.
Which brings me, then, to the Knopf Project.
I can spot a Knopf book, with likely 80% accuracy or better, at eight feet (usually the distance from the entrance of my local Barnes and Noble to the first octagon display, pre-Nook, to be sure). I can look at a page of printed text and tell you with close to 100% accuracy whether it is a Knopf book. Somehow, in my many years of reading books and buying books and browsing for them in an incantatory state of wonder, jealously brooding over whether I’d ever join the ranks of the published, I have naturally gravitated to books published by Knopf, and been introduced to authors and subject matter solely because they had been published by the house that advertises as dedicated to only publishing “distinguished” fiction and non-fiction.
Suddenly, I realized that many of my book purchases, my future reading, became Knopf-oriented in an unhealthy ratio - unhealthy, of course, for the many books and authors and their publishers whose books would normally otherwise interest me. I considered buying this book about Grant Wood because of its textured paper dust jacket, and the deckle-edged double-thick pages, and the font, and the pleasant menace of the painting chosen for the cover, and overall, it’s general feeling of heft - I had no tangible interest at the time in the material itself, knowing Grant Wood because of American Gothic, but not necessarily that he painted American Gothic (basically, I knew the work, but not the artist).
I engaged in all manner of attempts at rationalization for the purchase. “It’s time to learn about art! Specifically, iconic American art! More specifically, to spend 10 to 15 hours reading about the life of one American painter, whose overall work I could not place in any context (duh! that’s what reading the book is for!) nor critique with any reference point!”
But the most convincing rationale, ultimately untaken, was that the book itself would be a desirable object on the shelf, whether read or not. Of course, like any bibliophile, I own many books I will probably never read. I own a book of criticism of Ulysses, but will likely never make it through the book again (and have only vague memories of doing so the first time). I own novels by favorite authors whom I’ve not finished, nor, for that matter, even cracked, but purchased in the name of author-work completeness.
But this purchase could be different! I had told myself this many times before. I have within my sight-line now at least six books that I’ve purchased but, for one reason or another, not had time to read yet. Some were discounted bargain treasure finds, others received stellar reviews that convinced me they must be purchased and read immediately. So how does one exorcise an otherwise not unhealthy - dare I say it? - fetish for something that is otherwise (assuming one can afford it) a harmless obsession, one that, as with all obsessions, is likely to go ultimately unsatisfied, even as it matures into a problem best addressed by simply appreciating a book, and then putting it down, and not purchasing it (my apologies to R. Tripp Evans, the author of Grant Wood)?
How? By going all-in, chips pushed stridently into the center of the table. By fanning my borzoi-covered plumage train all the over the world! Yes, I will read each. and. every. book. published by Knopf this fall. Everyone of them, cover to cover, and critique them from all angles.
Does the paper quality add to the narrative the way tissue-thin paper in modern Bibles requires a delicate reverence as one turns the page? Why is there not a top-stain on this book, but a full-bodied one on that one? Could a different font, or book-shape have done this book a better service? Is there a relation to the cover that provides clues to the narrative itself? Is the author photo designed to simply show us the artist herself, or to draw us in further, and make us ask ourself - is Glen Duncan, author of The Last Werewolf, actually a werewolf? His cover photo makes me think the answer could be a strong “maybe”.
So, each book published this fall by Alfed A. Knopf. Posts may be sporadic or clustered - Murakami’s forthcoming 1Q84, is, after all, more than 900 pages strong. That’s plenty of jazz and black cats. Most of the books will be purchased, read and reviewed as they are published. I am not a professional book critic, and will not pretend to be one (but I might use the word “limn” just to see how it feels!) For readers who may be expecting a more play-by-play plot synopsis, links to other reviews will be provided when available, as I agree with Ron Charles that book reviews that reveal too much plot seem beside the point (it’s the difference between being told all about a great sports play, for instance, and then seeing the replay yourself - it’s never as impressive as it might otherwise have been).
Older Knopf books will be reviewed too; just the other day, I struck gold in a small used bookshop and scored two first-edition John le ‘Carre books published 30 years ago. To be sure, this site is about books in general, and my relationship to them, with them, among them - the literary life, so to speak, and will expand to include other items as well. But the Knopf daemon must be bottled, or at least tamed.
Onward, then.
0 comments:
Post a Comment