littlesnapper

Shelley was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. Her husband, Precy Bysshe, was anxious, she writes us in her introduction to the 1931 edition of Frankenstein, that she should prove herself worthy of her parentage. But, she tells us, life, reality and ultimately a family got in the way. But she eventually did get round to it. And here’s the proof: Frankenstein is a phenomenon. There’s no other way around the summing up of it. The first striking aspect of reading Frankenstein is that, as a novel, it is nothing similar to the various forms that it is popular assumed to be. First of all there is no Igor. There is no Igor! Where does Igor come from? Frankenstein operates entirely alone which casts a far more sinister shadow over the proceedings then does the ultimate creation of the monster. We all know the monster exists, the whys and wherefores are entirely at odds with what a modern reader new to the text would expect. We are not prepared for the savagery with which the creation forces itself on the creator. There is no way of being prepared for the blinding egotism of Frankenstein who, again contrary to popular belief is not actually in the novel a titular doctor. The orgasmic freedom that he creates the monster comes solely from within him. His madness isn’t portrayed as insanity but rather beyond the boundaries of socially acceptable self-indulgence of the intellect. The appeal in creation is obvious; who is there who would not secretly admit to the wish of seeing a physical end-product solely derived from imaginative intelligence? His creation of the monster is in defiance of the rules of the university and the society of academics that he travelled to the Bavarian university of Ingolstadt to join. All of his subsequent actions are trapped by the consideration of the effects that he might have on his immediate world around him and the wider effects on the community he considers himself part of. I’m sure that Burroughs loved this novel as it illustrates, no, illuminates, systems of control like no other gothic novel. Gothic novels tend to demystify. Frankenstein tends towards inversion, inwards towards the question of mystery. The mystery is that of Frankenstein. he commends himself to the higher power of god. The creation Frankenstein commends himself to his known creator. I could be glib and invoke Dawkins to tackle that as I consider it as proof positive that God must have existed at some point for someone. But then again I hate Dawkins and would do anything to turf him out on his pious arse.

I had originally read the 1818 text which should still be available from Oxford’s Classics when I was a precocious reader of 12 and the importance of these things were completely unknown to me. I then gae up on reading for about 2 1/2- 3 years. I reread the book last week that put me back onto the path of righteousness and belive it or not it was John Grisham’s Pelican Brief. I love thrillers and John Grisham is one damn fine legal thriller writer. Don’t bother with any of the later stuff as he runs out of tangible ideas but the Pelican Brief, The Rainmaker, The Client, The Partner- all those and several more are just damn good reads. You can feel the author reveling in being anti-capitalist and left-wing. The characters are quickly sketched and fleshed out by their actions. I’m always being told by way of excuse for buying these books that they’re easy to read. Not so. They may be easy to scan but anybody can read any book. His pace is unerring and he’s certainly no Dan Brown. Grisham has an eye for detail and research. Each character’s routine is loved and tread with a light step endearing the reader to them or not,.Coal, a presidential exectuive in Pelican bears remarkable resemblance to Mr. Slope from Trollope’s Barchester Towers. It just can’t startle me in the slightest if there is some connection there. Just read the damn thing and be done with it. It’ll only take a couple of hours and I guarantee you’ll have a rollicking good time.

Or, and here’s something that I would personally find fitting, let’s have phd candidates in tweed jackets & bespectacled arty students behind the desks at Tesco’s pushing Dickens and Hunter S. Thompson. Let’s have Amazon sending free sample chapters of Ibsen along with the latest tome on the Bush dynasty. If you’re going to do something might as well do it all the way.

For those of us who don’t really feel like handing in to the large consumer empire I discovered a shining example of commonsense in André Schiffrin. Son of Jacques Schiffrin who started both ‘La Serie Pleiade’ and the Pantheon Press, André advocates the decentralisation of the book publishing industry which by extension can be made for the bookselling industry too. Centralisation encourages the homogenisation of an industry which, for the most part, has played its most important roles in the communication of revolutionary ideas and then counter-revolutionary ideas. It is also, by any account, an industry which thrives economically on that which is personal and quirky. You can’t sell a million books the same way you can sell a million ipods. Here’s how it works.
Bookshops mostly have their ordering done for them by central hubs. I won’t go into any details but you know who the culprits are. Thus the ordering is done by popularity, what sells the most and is in The Bookseller as a best-seller is ordered in and kept in order to satisfy popular demand. Fine. What is not fine is the refusal of booksellers to stock a book on the grounds that it won’t be profitable enough. Well, y’know guess what? Books don’t make money if you only have the same ones in stock! Whereas six people might each buy a copy of one book and six other customers buy a copy of any other book, if you don’t have the variety in stock you’ll only sell seven of the original best-seller to those twelve customers.

If you have managerial status and are looking into how to make more money in your business without turning into a mere vending machine, book-selling by the best-selling numbers read André Schiffrin’s book The Business of Books. I need to go to work right now otherwise i’ll have one less reason to be able to call myself a bookseller. More on this issue later on.

Some of my favourite books tend to be referred to as cult books. These books tend to be single books in the body of an authors work and are marked as being distinct from anything else the author has written. A one of a kind book that ticks all the boxes and is revered by smallish groups usually outside the mainstream audience of readers. For example. Terry Pratchett, Anna Kavan & Marian Keyes are cult authors. The body of their work appeals to the same audience and their books are easily recognisable as being part of their ‘oeuvre’. I’ll write more about them in a later post. Cult books are generally difficult to transpose into different mediums such as film, theatre, or godmercifulsaveus, the broadway musical because they isolate and highlight peculiarities of text and story that become their emblems. A few examples.

Perfume by Patrick Suskind: Brilliant book about evil incarnate that becomes a master of scent &the manipulation of the olfactory senses. You’ll be fascinated by 18th century France and its surrounding atmosphere that faintly suggests parahuman conditions that can shape our lives and yet be invisible to us.  The laboratories that Grenouille, the main character, uses are reminiscent of alchemy and they are, perhaps a little obviously, the means by which Grenouille transforms himself into a murderer. The translation is damn good. Writing which cuts clear and concise images and builds Grenouille from a freak into a figure worthy of lore. Made into a film in 2001 where the filmakers overcame the difficulty of showing scent by using colours. This was followed by the two novella’s The Story of Mr Sommer, which is illustrated by Sempé & The Pigeon which wasn’t so well received. Both gems in their own right but the subject matter is so dramatically redisguised in the slow-moving tales that they become almost parables and much more difficult to identify.

And there are, of course others. But I’ll keep them for another time. I’ve got to keep something to stuff up my sleeve, otherwise what would be the point?

Yesterday another old Irish guy comes into my shop. He’s from Bournemouth and apparently the name of his shop fell down and he’s never bothered replacing it. During the day he sits in the Brazilian café next door while the sign in the window of his shop lets you know where to reach him. “I made my money long ago,” says he to me, “If I didn’t own the damn building I would have been out long ago.” Pulling out another book from the shelf he literally shouts at me. “This was remaindered thirty years ago, WH Smith had a bin full of them for threepence each.” He shoves the film tie-in Raymond Chandler back on the shelf. “Bought loads of them an still have them.” We started talking about the state of bookselling &c &c. It’s a conversation that always follows the same lines and doen’t do much to deviate but it’s always a fresh topic that all booksellers like to harp on. “It’s sad when you can see in The Bookseller that you can buy a shop with all its stock,” and this is the shocking bit, “for cost.”

It’s true. If you wanted to buy a bookshop and had enough cash to do it, there’s no stopping you. In fact now is the time, my friends, to take advantage in a business-like manner of other people’s misery. Buy the goddamned bookshop you’ve always wanted with your friends. Learn from the business model of such shops as Shakespeare&Co and the folksdown at the lovely, though for me still unseen, Atlantis Books and start trading. Trade online and trade hand to hand. Door to door if you need to. Convince people to read Ezra Pound just because you love the idea that life slips by like a field mouse/ not shaking the grass, and because you need to meet the rent this month. You will learn so much from yourself it’ll be surprising. Give it a while and you’ll have been elevated by your craft, humbled by the fact that you will never ‘make money’ from the trade and will have read such diffferent genres, books of all kinds, learned to tell a book by its cover, the year by the paper. All automatically becoming intrinsic. That’s the great thing about bookselling. All you’ll ever need to know about what you’re doing is right there in the copy you’re holding in your hands. Hardback, paperback, dustjacket and without, broadsheet, poster, artwork. Then you’ll get around to the cynicism that lets face it, you have to deal with in any trade though none schools you quite as thoroughly as the book trade. You’ll believe that the only bookshop is one without anyone in it (for various reasons). That the majority of the book-reading public are idiots led by the fresh-slaughter scent of mass-production-fed marketing. Can you believe that The Reluctant Fundamentalist been promoted on poster with the words”the Man Booker nominee that everyone is talking about.” or that “no one can go without reading. And it’s working!!! since the ad came out people are buying that book over others! Lambs, if you’ll excuse my french. The only thing that stands between the vat of disinformation is you. The bookseller. ‘Nuff said.

Last in the Emitron series and produced by the outrageously talented boys at Borbonesa, indie publishers, indie booksellers, bibliofanatics. It’s enough to make you sick with envy and jealousy. Did I mention they were beautiful too? Yep, all Swedish blondes who’ll welcome you with open breasts should you ever make the pilgrimage down to Brighton to see them. Just mention you bought Emitron 4 and you’ll be in like Flynn. It’s 3.5 UK pounds so that means it’s within grasp of everyone. It’s a beautifully intricate little designed booklet that contains all the sum of knowledge in the universe which veers somewhere close to the direction of art. As much a collector’s piece and artwork as much as a book buy two, one to read,& one to keep in the original packaging. You would be an idiot to have them sell all of the numbered first editions without you having one for yourself. I got mine in the post yesterday so I’m good. You heard it here first.