Long Books and Limp Wrists(The Bandicoot — Leaner and Nosier than the Ferret)
As I mentioned earlier, as a writer I am in process of going over to Ebook. I don’t know why it took me so long. Any author will tell harrowing tales of chasing after literary agents, courting publishers, rejection, rejection after rejection. Hey, it is a rather antiquated system under severe overload. American writer Truman Capote once wrote, that in order to get published, one should endeavour to fuck either agent or publisher — or both. We get his metaphorical point.
So Ebooks is the go! Bugger the paper; if we all do it, think of the pine forests we might save. Over time, the actual book as object, not necessarily it’s content, has become fetish-like, ‘collectables’. On the really serious side, rare ones fetch great prices — not to read, oh no, far too precious for that. We really are strange creatures.
Some weeks ago writer Alex Christofi posted about how he would take really fat books and tear them in half to make them more manageable when reading them. This initiated some internet conversation about how people treat their books.
Quite apart from the reaction of some to this behaviour, with many readers, condemning Christofi as a philistine, a vandal, it became apparent that there was a wide range of opinion. Others revealed an almost reverent attitude to books, and this really goes back to a time when books were certainly rare, and hard to come by. In Soviet Russian times, forbidden books — and there were many — were quite cheaply reproduced, and passed surreptitiously from hand to hand, as so-called samizdat. During those trying times, to be found in possession of samizdat was a serious offence, but these crude reproductions were certainly treasured. This attitude possibly goes right back to the myth of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. It also harks back, for some at least, to the infamous book-burning of the Nazis.
There was a middle ground reaction; some felt it was okay to keep a reader’s place by turning down a corner of the relevant page, some didn’t, but most felt in was not okay to write comments in margins, underline certain passages etc.
Personally, I admit to being a corner folder. If they didn’t really want you not to, they wouldn’t have corners. Sort of rounded off pages, eh. But I cannot stand people who write comments on the pages. Okay, if it is your own book, maybe. I particularly hate those sods who underline passages, and you go mad trying to understand why. Maybe its some sort of message, a Kabbalah thing…
Christofi himself made the point that — as a general rule -we should never bisect the things we love. Friends, nations, puppies. He argued an exception for pizza. Whatever, he did discover that almost everyone on the internet seemed to agree that we should not chop books in half, even if they are very long.
The controversy — or storm in a teacup, depending on one’s point of view — began when a colleague of Christofi’s spotted half a paperback on his desk and called him a book murderer. Thing is, he had been enjoying this great fat book at home, but wanting to carry on reading it. On the spur of the moment Christofi cut the massive unwieldy tome in half, bound the unread part in some cardboard to prevent the pages getting too dog-eared, and brought them to work in his pocket. He thought his colleague was overreacting, but when he posted a picture of his latest victims on Twitter, it started a right kerfuffle. Some even suggested chopping him in half.
Christofi went on to say that he had previously been of the opinion that he just didn’t like long books. But he had come to the realisation that it was their unwieldiness which put him off, not their content. He just didn’t like carrying them around, or holding them open with one tired thumb. He’d found that whenever he had come into possession of a big paperback, he would leave it at home unread, or struggle through eight pages a night before falling asleep.
He also pointed out that authors don’t generally dream of seeing their books cellophaned in mint condition, like Star Wars memorabilia. The biggest compliment you can pay an author, he sez, is to read their book, let them tell you their story — take it to heart and tell others. So in summing up, Christofi doesn’t regard himself as a book murderer. And if anyone finds themselves in possession of one of his admittedly short books, he gives his permission to chop it in half.
Well now Alex, with your permission I want to wade into this fight — in your defence. This brilliant idea of yours, which incidentally I warrant deserves a Nobel prize for literature — or at least a mention. It has offered the reading public a marvellous boon. Books that were previously shunned, are now available to a wider readership. Okay, some of us have limp-wrists.
Speaking for myself, I wish to let people know that next week — yes next Wednesday, I am booked in to have a cortisone injection into my right wrist. True! For some years, I have found it very difficult to hold and read such overweight books and read them without discomfort — in fact it hurts so much I never take such enormous books from a library shelf, let alone buy one. I do however value one I have at home — it is a great door-stop. What is it about? I don’t know, maybe when I have my cortisone injection, I will be able to pick it up from the floor and see…
But what is all this, why this drift to literary gigantism? I maintain that if you can’t write a novel within 100,00 words or so, you have two choices; well three actually. One: get yourself a good editor. Two: write a sequel. And three? write a bloody dictionary.
An incident which I found personally gob-smacking, was once watching a young man aboard a ferry finish reading a paperback. Immediately upon closing the completed novel, he threw it over his shoulder into the water, and strolled off along the deck. Now I don’t know the relative merits of the book, but man that was vandalism. I rest my case.
Bravo Christofi!
Post Scriptum
It is now believed that the entire works of Shakespeare were not written by William Shakespeare, but by another man with the same name. Mark Twain
