A Dying Art?
Roberto Calasso, The Art of the Publisher
Penguin, 160pp, £5.99, ISBN 9780141978482
reviewed by Robin Baird-Smith
The first thing to draw attention to in this book, by the Italian editor of great distinction Robert Calasso, is its title. The art of macramé, the art of fly fishing perhaps; but the Art of the Publisher strikes one initially as strange. But Calasso is of the old school where every detail of a book is fussed over – the jacket, the blurb (which he describes as the editor`s mission statement) and the typography – not to mention the hours on editing the author's text. Calasso writes short profiles of some of the great publishers of the past century, most notably Giulio Einaudi, Roger Strauss (Farrar Strauss and Giroux) Peter Suhrkamp (Suhrkamp Verlag). We understand that in publishers of that generation (all the publishers he describes are deceased) publishing was a matter of taste, discrimination and passion. These people were also smart businessmen, it should be added.
Not a man to bury his head in the sand, Calasso devotes a significant part of the book to the so-called digital revolution. I suspect that Mr Calasso must be extra sensitive to this at a time when book sales, as reported in La Stampa, are in dramatic decline in his own native country of Italy. Here is some background. Google have scanned seven million literary works which are out of copyright, i.e. the text and typography are open to all without payment to the author`s estate or the publisher. These scanned books often contain margin notes and jottings which came with the book. Calasso sees the appeal of all this: with these books available on line, a world community can open up in which the reader`s comments and amplifications can be added. You don’t need a publisher to make these books available; they are free of copyright and you can now get the book from a so-called 'Book Machine' which produces the book in minutes. Customers are happy with this particular form of print-on-demand, and small independent bookshops do not need to fear the on going monopoly of the large book chains. They can provide an excellent service just as well. This is, of course, a dream also for the ever growing number of self-published authors.
So what is the danger of all this? Well, for one thing most publishers have to devote time these days policing illegal scanning of books that are actually in copyright. Such illegal activity is brought to a publisher’s attention every day. Publishers can send a formal threat of legal action to the miscreant, for it prevents the rightful earning of the author and of his or her publisher. There is a danger of an unstoppable free-for-all. Calasso is extremely well informed about all this but does not seem overly exercised about it: he appears not to have strong views. He moves on in this short book to the skill and practicalities of being an editor, which he clearly believes is indeed an art. This charming little vignette shows that publishing is indeed an art, reading is an art and maybe a path to sanity in an insane world.
The art of publishing per se, as Calasso means it, is more or less obsolete. As all books sell dramatically less well that they used to 20 years ago, to make up the turnover an editor has no choice than to publish more and more books but makes money out of a few. What is worse, a publisher will often decide a book is a dud before it is actually published. Invariably the editor has to go down on bended knee before sales and marketing personnel to be allowed to take a book on and the first question the editor is asked is: ‘What is it like?’ The book is plastered with quotes so the reader does not have to make up his or her own mind about the book’s quality. This is to neglect that a work of true genius is entirely unlikely to be like anything else.
But at a deeper level, what is actually going on? How does all this – our obsession with imbibing as much information as fast as possible and communicating instantly with the outside world - affect our culture in the long term? This, perhaps, should be the subject of Calasso's next book.
Not a man to bury his head in the sand, Calasso devotes a significant part of the book to the so-called digital revolution. I suspect that Mr Calasso must be extra sensitive to this at a time when book sales, as reported in La Stampa, are in dramatic decline in his own native country of Italy. Here is some background. Google have scanned seven million literary works which are out of copyright, i.e. the text and typography are open to all without payment to the author`s estate or the publisher. These scanned books often contain margin notes and jottings which came with the book. Calasso sees the appeal of all this: with these books available on line, a world community can open up in which the reader`s comments and amplifications can be added. You don’t need a publisher to make these books available; they are free of copyright and you can now get the book from a so-called 'Book Machine' which produces the book in minutes. Customers are happy with this particular form of print-on-demand, and small independent bookshops do not need to fear the on going monopoly of the large book chains. They can provide an excellent service just as well. This is, of course, a dream also for the ever growing number of self-published authors.
So what is the danger of all this? Well, for one thing most publishers have to devote time these days policing illegal scanning of books that are actually in copyright. Such illegal activity is brought to a publisher’s attention every day. Publishers can send a formal threat of legal action to the miscreant, for it prevents the rightful earning of the author and of his or her publisher. There is a danger of an unstoppable free-for-all. Calasso is extremely well informed about all this but does not seem overly exercised about it: he appears not to have strong views. He moves on in this short book to the skill and practicalities of being an editor, which he clearly believes is indeed an art. This charming little vignette shows that publishing is indeed an art, reading is an art and maybe a path to sanity in an insane world.
We watch a reader in a bookshop: he picks up a book, leafs through it- and for a short instant he is entirely cut off from the world. He is listening to someone speaking, whom other cannot hear. He gathers random fragments of phrases. He shuts the book, looks at the cover flap. At that moment the browser is opening an envelope: those few lines, external to the text of the book, are like a letter written to a stranger.
The art of publishing per se, as Calasso means it, is more or less obsolete. As all books sell dramatically less well that they used to 20 years ago, to make up the turnover an editor has no choice than to publish more and more books but makes money out of a few. What is worse, a publisher will often decide a book is a dud before it is actually published. Invariably the editor has to go down on bended knee before sales and marketing personnel to be allowed to take a book on and the first question the editor is asked is: ‘What is it like?’ The book is plastered with quotes so the reader does not have to make up his or her own mind about the book’s quality. This is to neglect that a work of true genius is entirely unlikely to be like anything else.
But at a deeper level, what is actually going on? How does all this – our obsession with imbibing as much information as fast as possible and communicating instantly with the outside world - affect our culture in the long term? This, perhaps, should be the subject of Calasso's next book.