|
Sunday, December 21, 2008
A Holiday RantImagine you’re at your sixth Christmas party in so many days. The warm
room is cluttered with people, decorations, food, drink. You’re enjoying a vaguely monotonous discussion of weather
when a woman just to your left begins her rant: "It’s just that it’s getting SO AMERICANIZED! Why yesterday
I saw a banner that read ‘Happy Holidays!’ Can you believe that? Now they have to do that in the states to avoid
offending the Jews and such. But why here? What’s so offensive about Merry Christmas? I tell you…”
Before you realize what you’re doing she realizes you are staring at her. What do you say? Nothing, as it turns
out because she’s busy stuttering something about how she wasn’t talking about you and when you reply, “Of
course not.” Everyone lets out his and her collective breath. And you slip out quietly.
It could be days before you realize what you should have said. Maybe you should have explained how
“Merry Christmas” reflects the blithe assumption that everyone is the same and that’s why you use the phrase
with care. Or maybe you should talk to her about what used to go on in Eastern European Ghettos around Christmas and
Easter. Or maybe you should point out that ‘Happy Holidays’ isn’t a compromise but a way of embracing the
multitude of festivals happening even here in New Zealand around the solstice. And, hey, you're not offended. She wasn’t
talking about you. Happy Holidays!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Books are Never Done
This weekend in a post-modern moment I realized not only that books are
never done, but that books aren’t even things. I love their smell as much as anybody and I still get a charge from that
crack the spine gives when you open one for the first time. But the essence of book is not a thing. It’s a process
In 1992 my PhD thesis was published as a book. Months after the writing and re-writing and editing and proofing were
done a heavy cardboard box came in the mail. It opened like a Christmas gift and there, with their tidy spines all in a row,
were a dozen volumes from the first run of my first book. I eagerly chose one from the middle and cracked its spine. Staring
me straight in the face was the title – but not the title I had chosen. This title had a word missing. To me, it was
a very important word. Adrenaline pumping, I called the publisher and a woman who was way too calm promised they would issue
a corrected title page. So there it is. The entire first run of my first book has this sloppy little sheet sticking out that
actually says, ”Corrected Title Page.” Luckily that book had a second printing.
Fast forward to 2006.
By now I have a few books under my belt, but I still hold my breath when I open that heavy cardboard box. This co-authored
volume had already endured a fair share of drama. A copy editor named Polly insisted on changing the meaning of sentences.
My co-author and I spent hours reversing Polly’s changes only to find ourselves required by some bureaucratic torturer
to explain why they were wrong. Still, months later, there was the box and the perfect spines all in a row. This time I went
for the far right copy. After that resonant crack I paged through with a blossoming sense of relief -- all the way to the
very last page. Then I looked at the author photos on the dust jacket. There smiling gleefully was my co-author and underneath
her, smiling with comparable glee, was a lovely woman masquerading as me. They had my name right – I always check that
– but the picture was definitely wrong. This time I was able to laugh. And this time, to my immense satisfaction, the
woman at the publishing house was mortified. They issued a new dust jacket, and I gave copies of the original as gag gifts.
So no wonder, really, that it took me five months to sit down and examine my third edition. A sloppy pile of corrected
page proofs sat next to the tidy volume on my fireplace mantle calling out for attention. But it’s no wonder that I
didn’t even crack the spine until sun was gushing in and a whole day yawned before me. No wonder I held my breath, paging
through to see which of my corrections got in and which didn’t. Mostly the commas didn’t – I’m awful
with commas. Italics, too. Five hundred and fifty five long pages later I breathed a sigh of relief. An extra word, a few
dashes missing, and a table heading that didn’t get fixed. Not bad, eh?
How does a perfectionist cope with
imperfection? I used to scream, moan and beat my breast. Then I laughed. This time I turned to reflection. What, after all,
is a book – really?
When I moved office from Salt Lake City to Dunedin I gave away a lot of books. The ones
I kept weren’t tidy volumes with smooth spines. The ones I treasured enough to ship almost as far as a book can go were
messy with scribbles and fingerprints. The best had scribbles from friends who had given them to me – sometimes with
apologies. “I hope you don’t mind my used copy!” is written on the fly leaf of a treasured spelling book
from my undergraduate days. Some have loose pages and some barely hold together. A collection of Persian poetry got wet in
a rainstorm on a backpacking trip, but a rubber band holds it together just fine. These are the books I won’t do without.
They’re chockful, not with perfect prose or flawless typesetting, but with ideas and memories shared – sometimes
with my later self and sometimes with a friend.
It’s the dialogue between writer and reader or reader and
reader that makes a book worth having. So if you’ve got a copy of my third edition please insert some dashes in Table
2.1, delete the extra “with” from page 256, and change the heading on Table 11.1 to match the text. Then your
copy will be on its way towards being well-and-truly perfect.
4:35 pm est
|
