THOSE DARNED DW'S
There are times when I seriously doubt the propriety of my claiming to be a bibliophile. Yes, I love books - but it is that which is between the covers that really claims my devotion: information to feed my indiscriminate craving for knowledge; a fine turn of phrase; a new word that has to be explored as to meaning and derivation; a tidy plot; a twisty ending to the story; a beautiful map of far-flung places to be pored over and lastly - a workmanlike illustration that elucidates on the text but does not detract from it.
But what of the binding; the fine paper; the painstaking gilding of textblock edges; masterly lithography of the plates; the marbling of the endpapers; the fine tooling of the leather and the blind-stamped decorations ? I hear the anguished cry of the real bibliophile. True, true, I must admit - all these, and many more attributes contribute to some small part of the fascination of mankind with his intellectual legacy. What is commonly termed 'eye-candy' for one, may not be another man's Mona Lisa. There are other aspects that delight some of us rugged individualists - such as minutiae of bibliography; differences that may have occurred in the print run after copy 127 of 503 total copies, of which it may be that the printing works' fire accounted for 278 copies lost in the inferno, while in the heat of the moment, the accountant fled with the housemaid, the cash-box and another copy, leaving only 222 copies actually accounted for as two more copies were probably shoplifted from a prominent dealer's shelves - but which fact only emerged during the biennial stock-take two years after publication. Ah, the intricacies of bibliophilic history don’t have to take a back-seat to the microscopic imperfections of even stamps and coins.
There is one glaring omission from this catalogue of delights that I have to confess to: the dustwrapper, or dustjacket - call it a dw, a dj, a dustcover or anything else - it remains in my eyes an abomination. This accoutrement to that fine work of intellect, the book, has become an integral part, a sine qua non of collectability, without which no self-respecting tome should be seen in public - not even in the privacy of the bibliophile's home it would seem! The dustwrapper has evolved into the canvas onto which the marketing department of the publishers can run riot. Lurid pictures adorn the dw, snazzy fonts, red banners, proclaiming loudly "Buy me - 10% off". The front flap normally sports a blurb, to let you know what you should find inside the covers. This presupposes that the writer of the eulogy has actually read the book - which is not absolutely necessary, since it could negatively impact on what should in all honesty be classed as something different from ' an engrossing book '. Just to complicate life a little, there is a suggested retail price in £ or $, sometimes Rands or Rupees - which presents the purchaser with the dilemma of whether to clip or not to clip the offending corner. If he does the dastardly deed, be assured the value of the book plummets. If he doesn't, the recipient gets a fair idea of the donor's generosity or lack thereof. Either is not desirable.
The back flap normally runs a short biography of the writer - not a crime as such, but even a moderately priced hardcover novel by Mary Wesley manages to put both her portrait and life-story on one of the prelim pages, where it is perfectly safe and will be kept in as good a condition as the rest of the textblock. Speaking of authors' portraits - why is it that whenever I do a little sum to find out how old a paragon of literature is, I mostly land up with an age between fifty and seventy, while the face staring at me from the dw is that of an infant of thirty odd summers? Then we still have the back of the dw. Once more this is an open invitation to run riot with ' soon to appear on your friendly bookdealers' shelves', rave reviews of the book, or other totally unrelated volumes. No matter, your friendly publisher has decided to let no space remain untouched by marketing efforts. One of the more unattractive inventions of modern publishing, only exceeded by the ubiquitous paperback, is the laminated hardcover. Some excuse can be found in that this type of publication can stand some rough handling, hiking and exposure to poor weather. But why in the name of all that makes sense would a laminated hardcover book need another dustwrapper of exactly the same design and finish over its covers? To save on manufacturing costs? Perish the thought. I have it from reliable sources that the serious collector of modern ‘firsts’ buys a book from the bookseller, if possible in shrink-wrap, and hides it in his safe for the next twenty years to acquire some dubious value – without ever perusing the contents! If books are not already shrink-wrapped, there are criminals out in the dark alleys who may do that dirty deed for the brain-washed victims of the marketers.
Now to the hated thing itself - 'Das Ding an sich' as the immortal Emmanuel Kant once said, although in a more philosophical context than this diatribe. Does it actually keep dust from the covers ? Certainly not; in fact it promotes the hidden assembly of ragged weeping lines of dustmotes from the top edges of the bindings, not to speak of fungus spores galore. The dw becomes a refuge for all that chews, stains, slithers and defecates over and through your beloved volumes. While it can be said to hold at bay the deleterious effects of ultra-violet radiation, no bibliophile worth his calling would expose his treasures to the inimical glare of the sun anyway. From the many tatty and droplet-stained dws I have been forced to examine, one could conclude that spatters of liquid would certainly be one of the hazards of librarianship from which books could be protected by the dw. On the other hand it could be argued that books don't belong on the lawn under the sprinklers, nor should they be read in the shower.
How then does one hold a book in a dw, when reading it? The book having a certain mass, has a downward trend. The dw being light and porous (or glossily sticky) tends to adhere to the hand. The net result is that either the book drops out of the dw, or the dw curls up, tears, crumples or otherwise interferes with the reading pleasure of its new owner. Its only use is for marking one’s place with the backflap – a practice only marginally better than dog-earing the corner of a page. Many is the hour I have pondered on solutions to this problem. So have many other readers, judging by the multiplicity of 'protectors' that I have come across. Of course, these 'protectors' have the disadvantage that they, in turn, are loose and can themselves slip off the dw when the book is held. So the problem is doubled, instead of halved. Enter sellotape. I seem to recollect that a company with several M's had a hand in creating this curse in the form of salvation to would-be dw-saviours. I am sure we have all got several dozen fine books in our collection that have the sticky tell-tale tracks of the dreaded sellotape on the endpapers. Little did we know what would happen in twenty or more years to that innocuous strip of clear plastic. Say no more.
So now we are saddled with protecting our no longer inconsiderable investment in a literary work, bound in various finishes (even the occasional paperback) with a supernumerary sheet of paper folded about the whole. THIS WE DARE NOT DISCARD. No, we have to cling to this steadily degrading bit of kit, which robs us of savouring the vision of a fine linen - or cloth - or leatherbound volume, intricately decorated in some cases, certainly with gilt titles, in colours that delight the eye - all because the market forces dictate that the value of a book shall be halved if it is incomplete, to whit, it does not have a dw.
So to you, bibliophile, I say: free yourself from the tyrrany of the marketeer and his weapon, the dustwrapper. Liberate yourselves, rip off your dustwrappers and cast them into the fire on a cold winter's evening.
by Arne Schaefer
Published in Philobiblon 2006
Journal of the Society of Bibliophiles in Cape Town
No comments:
Post a Comment