Butt was uninjured . . .

I had one of those it-never-rains-but-it-pours days today – one mishap and disruption after another. But certainly nothing nearly as bad as what happened to a poor US skier. Thanks, Mike, for alerting me to this story and wrangle a smile from me. You can see the picture on the BBC website, here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7816336.stm

Now, going back to what I said yesterday about typos and punctuation, I think the editor here missed a trick. The final paragraph could have read, much more perspicuously:

"The resort operator said the 48-year-old man was suspended for about seven minutes – butt was uninjured."

* * *

I had lunch with John Calder today – which is a dangerous affair if you are planning to go back to your office and do some work in the afternoon. He gave me some wonderful tips which I'll look into tonight, plus the typescript of his 600-page magnum opus, The Garden of Eros, which I am hoping to publish towards the end of the year. It's a partly biographical, partly autobiographical account of his life in publishing, with a focus on the publishing and cultural scene in the Fifties and Sixties, and such iconic figures as Girodias (Olympia Press) and Barney Rosset (Grove), whom I met in December in New York. I read the first draft last year, and the revised draft promises to be even better and chock-full of anecdotes.

John is in great demand these days, and extremely busy with a number of literary and theatre projects. As well as penning articles, giving lectures, touring with his company of actors and giving talks at literary festivals, he keeps writing obituaries (he's written thousands apparently) and adding to his opera diary, which he has been keeping for at least the last sixty years. He has promised to contribute again soon to this blog, so be on the lookout. . .

AG

“Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite.” (Alexander Pope)

As if aspiring authors were not enough of a bane for publishers (especially those starting with the letter “A”) with their paper, email and phone submissions, every day we receive a mountain of letters and emails from people offering us proofreading and editorial services. Although we have five editors in our six-strong team – a bit of an anomaly in British publishing – we occasionally could use an extra editor or two to help us on big projects with tight deadlines, so it would be great to find some good external proofreaders. The trouble is, finding a good proofreader is almost as difficult, if not more difficult, than finding a good writer.

Most of the people who approach us boast years of experience working for big and small publishers, enclose copies of their proofreading diplomas and offer the most competitive rates. We duly send them our standard proofreading test, and they post it back the following day by special delivery (bad sign, as you know this will be charged to you at a premium rate when you send them a real job), having missed between thirty and fifty per cent of the typos we had planted into the texts, and querying things they were not supposed to correct.

But the most annoying kind of would-be proofreader is the one who litters his introductory letter with spelling mistakes or bad punctuation. I had two such submissions today, which is what prompted me to this post. I’ll give you an example, and I am not making it up – hearken, ye Lynne Truss!

From the cover email:

“I’m a trained journalist with three years experience…” (missing apostrophe after “years”)

From the attached CV:

“I also organise interviews, photography and illustrations, as well as managing an editorial assistant and a number of volunteers, contributors and work placement staff.” (slightly dodgy grammar, plus missing hyphen between “work” and “placement” – poor editorial assistant…)

This will be enough, I hope, to prove my point. You’ll say these are little things, and that I am of the pernickety sort. Well, no: if you want to be an editor, you should know the basics of your job, so that is simply unforgivable. I wouldn’t use or recommend a mechanic who forgets to tighten the bolt that drains the oil out of the pan – would you?

AG

Back to business

I hate Mondays – they are an unwelcome necessity – and Monday the 5th of January is a day that should be scrapped altogether from all calendars. Significantly, our Italian and Spanish friends (and probably the rest of civilized Europe) go back to work only on Wednesday 7th.

But I'll have to admit it wasn't a bad day at all: it was actually quite well organized and somehow even relaxing. We sent two books to the printers and prepared two more to go tomorrow. Apart from an excessive consumption of caffeine (or rather teine) and a translator's rant against some other publishing company I will not name – described as a "bunch of clowns" – there's very little to report on this page.

I am getting on with The Catcher in the Rye, and I am finding it very well written and tremendously funny. I'll ask Einaudi if they'll let me translate it for them at the next printing. The trouble is that in standard Italian there's no equivalent to the kind of jargon used by young Holden. I suppose colloquial here wouldn't do: ideally it would have to be translated in one of the national dialects – but nobody would publish it then. I can see why Motti's translation didn't work.


AG

Bely's Petersburg

Not only have I the great fortune of choosing all the titles for our Oneworld Classics list, but I have also had the pleasure to work with Pushkin Press for the last three years, becoming more and more familiar with their wonderful list. Next month, they’ll be publishing one of my favourite books of all time (but don’t worry, I am in good company: Vladimir Nabokov rated it one of the four most important novels of the twentieth century): Andrei Bely’s Petersburg (first published in 1916 – a revised edition published in 1922). It’s a wacky, 576-page-long book – a bit like The Master and Margarita and Ulysses – and the great thing is that the Pushkin edition is a brand new translation by Bely specialist and scholar, Prof. John Elsworth.

Here’s how Petersburg begins:

“Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov was of exceedingly venerable stock: he had Adam for his ancestor. And that is not the main thing: incomparably more important here is the fact that a high-born ancestor of his was Shem, that is to say, the very progenitor of the Semitic, Hessitic and red-skinned peoples.

Here we shall make a transition to ancestors of less distant times.

These ancestors (so it appears) had their dwelling in the Kirgiz-Kaisak Horde, from where, in the reign of Empress Anna Ioannovna, Mirza Ab-Lai, the senator’s great-great-grandfather, valiantly entered the service of Russia, receiving at his baptism the Christian name Andrei and the sobriquet Ukhov. Thus the Armorial of the Russian Empire discourses upon this descendant scion of the Mongol race. For the sake of brevity Ablai-Ukhov was later turned into simply Ableukhov.

This great-great-grandfather, it is said, proved to be the source of the line.”

Well, I hope this will persuade you to reserve a copy from Pushkin’s website or our Calder Bookshop. The book should be in the shops by the end of January, and if you order from us you’ll get it about ten days earlier.

AG

J.D. Salinger - Lost in Translation

Going back to what I said the other day – my belief that "a book speaks differently to different people at different ages" and that our perception of certain authors and books may vary over the years – on reading that J.D. Salinger has just turned ninety, I thought I'd grab a copy of The Catcher in the Rye and see what my impressions would be fifteen years after I read it first.

At that time, I remember I mostly read poetry. The little prose I read were works by Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Pushkin and, from the English front, Joyce, Carver, Arden and McEwan. Salinger was recommended to me by a young student who I had met at a local creative-writing course. She was a promising writer, so I was curious to have an insight into one of her major influences.

I read The Catcher in the Rye (Il giovane Holden in Italian) and a collection of short stories, but was left completely unimpressed. I missed the point of the stories, and didn't particularly respond to the novel. My friend was disappointed when I told her.

Now, reading The Catcher in the Rye in English for the first time, I can appreciate its idiosyncratic style and language. This was totally lost in translation. I have been reading readers' comments on an Italian online bookstore, and many seem to criticize the writing itself. "True, the story may be interesting, but Salinger's writing is absolutely atrocious," says one reader. That had been my original impression too: maybe the translation wasn't that good.

So I look forward to reading the novel again with a fresh mind, and possibly rehabilitate an author who has long been banned from my bookshelves.

AG

Notes from the Necronauts

Just a quick post to let you know that on Saturday 17th January, at 4.30 p.m., the INS Joint Declaration on Inauthenticity, by Tom McCarthy and Simon Critchley, is to be delivered in the Clore Auditorium of Tate Britain. This is the statement, originally delivered in The Drawing Center, New York, that Zadie Smith goes on about at some length in her recent New York Review of Books piece on Remainder, and that Peter Schwenger claims in Triple Canopy "didn't actually take place". Please go and decide for yourself how authentic or in- it is, and say hello to Tom and Simon afterwards (the Tate's generously serving free drinks to all who come).

You have to buy a ticket in advance:

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/eventseducation/talks/16800.htm or 020 7887 8888

If you think you qualify for a press pass, contact INS Propaganda Dept, explain who you're writing/filming for and you'll get in free:

propaganda@necronauts.net or Anthony Auerbach on 07775 785112

INS Propaganda Dept has provided "additional notes" here:

http://necronauts.net/declarations/inauthenticity_tate.html

Map: http://necronauts.net/bulletin/map.html

The event is the fulcrum of the Tate Triennial Prologue, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud:

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/tatetriennial/default.shtm

Hope to see you there!

AG & Tom McCarthy

“Gli eroi dimenticati il suol quasi dischiude.” (Giacomo Leopardi)

“Forgotten heroes almost springing up from the earth.”

I love reading the “Heroes and Villains” pieces at the end of the year. Elisabetta and I were made into heroes once – by mistake I suppose – in the Independent’s end-of-the-year roll call when we launched Hesperus.

I especially loved these two comments, posted on the Bookseller online.

… (7 comments)

“By Bunny
Villain. How about J K Rowling. Rolling in cash, pal of PMs wife. Chooses to hand over one million to the mendacious coward Gordon Brown and his party of goons. He wrote the cheques for the Iraq war and sat ildly by for eleven years as Chancellor with his 'light touch regulation' attitude to the banks. Oh and her latest offering is shockingly bad.
30 Dec 08 13:20”

I doubt Bunny will vote labour at the next general election. A quick search will show you that “Rolling” Rowling’s gift to Gordon the “Moron” Brown is one of the most criticized celebrity acts of 2008. People think that being charitable to labour, these days, is a huge mistake: euthanasia would be a much more humane solution.

“By Ray Hollingsworth
I'm told JKR's latest offering is complete rubbish ... both by children and adults. She burned out long ago. Fair play to the woman for saving the book trade from a worst fate though ... but, if I was her, I'd look to do something else.
30 Dec 08 16:21”

Ray Hollingsworth has quickly established himself as the voice of dissent and controversy in the bookselling world. He comes across as a nice chap who says what he thinks – and, usually, what I think too! Truths tend to be unpalatable, so reaction to his comments are usually mocking or splenetic, but his assessments are generally spot-on. It has to be said, in Rowling’s defence, that killing off reputations is one of the nation’s national sports, more popular than fox-hunting or darts, I reckon.

Luckily it’s not all bad news for women in publishing, as Victoria Barnsley of Fourth Estate and HarperCollins glory got an OBE for her services to publishing. I am just amazed and slightly peeved off that Jamie Oliver, Ian Rankin or A*** C*** weren’t knighted. Sexism in reverse, I suppose.

AG