Via PublishersMarketplace’s PublishersLunch, here’s an interesting piece from the Chicago Sun Times about writers’ efforts to get on Oprah. Some have succeeded, most have failed, and quite a few have embarrassed themselves.
Anyway, let’s hope they’re embarrassed ;-)
[tags] writing, Oprah [/tags]
Jeffrey Trachtenberg wrote about an interesting publishing trend in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required): issuing new translations to boost sales of classics.
Many of these books are in the public domain, although in some cases the translators get royalties.
I’m in awe of people able to debate the merits of particular translations, i.e. in terms of how faithful they are to their originals; it’s beyond me, I’d never presume–translations are always approximations, how can you compare one approximation to another unless you’re fluent in the original language? I’d never presume. (I read Julio Cortazar’s Hopscotch in the original in college, having learned enough Spanish to manage just that, and to acquire a bit of humility on the subject of foreign languages . . .)
So set that aside, and take a look at the sales data.
The Oprah Effect: since she picked Anna Karenina for her book club in 2004, the 2001 translation by Pevear and Volokhonksy has sold 635,000 copies.
Translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey by Robert Fagles, published by Viking Penguin in the 1990s, “were highly praised and have now sold an estimated 1.5 million copies.”
A 2006 edition of War and Peace (translated by Anthony Briggs) has already sold nearly 11,000 copies.
A successful translation can “generate sales for 30 years or more.”
Those are good numbers. Trachtenberg notes that fewer than 1000 of the 170K books published in the U.S. last year were “literary works in translation,” but it appears to be a solid little niche, doesn’t it. Solid little corner of the “neglected middle” ;-)
Over at Bibliobuffet, Daniel M. Jaffee has an interview with Samantha Dunn. Dunn began her career as a novelist (Failing Paris) and magazine writer, but after she was badly injured falling from a horse she found herself writing her first memoir, Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life. She’s since written another, Faith in Carlos Gomez: A Memoir of Salsa, Sex, and Salvation.
Of memoirs, she says,
I’ve come to realize that . . . one of the things that makes memoir writing unique . . . is the level of direct self-inquiry that is not demanded in other forms. That’s why I don’t call it ‘creative nonfiction’; to me that label goes to great reportage, in the school of Wolf or Capote.
She found her home, as a writer, in this genre.
I have read Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” twice. The first time, however, was under the direction of an undergraduate Russian literature professor, so it might more accurately be characterized as having been taught “Anna Karenina” ;-)
College was a long time ago. I remember only one snippet of one lecture of that course, when the professor drew our attention to the scene early in the book that depicts the nature of Anna’s intimate relations with her husband — or rather, of his intimate relations with her:
Precisely at twelve o’clock, when Anna was still sitting at her writing table, finishing a letter to Dolly, she heard the sound of measured steps in slippers, and Alexey Alexandrovitch, freshly washed and combed, with a book under his arm, came in to her.
“It’s time, it’s time,” said he, with a meaning smile, and he went into their bedroom.
She’s already met Vronsky at this point, and Tolstoy uses this scene and that immediately preceding it to contrast Anna’s spontaneous and powerful physical attraction to her soon-to-be lover with her growing physical revulsion to her husband:
“And what right had he to look at him like that?” thought Anna, recalling Vronsky’s glance at Alexey Alexandrovitch.
Undressing, she went into the bedroom; but her face had none of the eagerness which, during her stay in Moscow, had fairly flashed from her eyes and her smile; on the contrary, now the fire seemed quenched in her, hidden somewhere far away.
It’s a heart-wrenching situation, to be sure; one can’t help agonizing for the woman, and although I can’t say for certain that my professor intended us to interpret the novel as a romantic tragedy (as per the tagline from the 1997 Warner movie: “In a world of power and privilege, one woman dared to obey her heart”) that’s how I, as a college student, did interpret it.
Then I reread it years later, and to my astonishment, discovered a completely different book.
With “Anna Karenina,” Tolstoy was not arguing that women must obey their hearts; he was showing that when people let their passions drive them, they may find themselves driven to self-destruction. Granted, social convention is the cause, to some extent, of Anna’s growing unhappiness, but the love affair itself becomes a source of torment at the end. Anna gets what she wants, and it solves nothing.
My discovery was pure pleasure, too. Not that there’s anything wrong with women daring to obey their hearts, but what a pleasure to realize that the book’s themes were more complicated than “defy social convention/get yourself punished.”
It was with similar pleasure that I finished “A Suitable Boy.” (Which I discovered, btw, via A Snarkling Reading List commenter.) Again you have, as a central figure, a woman under pressure to conform to restraining social convention (in this case, the custom of arranged marriage). Again, you have a writer who uses his heroine’s predicament as a lens through which to examine the choices of other individuals connected to her through a network of family and their associated social circles. “A Suitable Boy” is also as rich with details about 1950s India as Anna Karenina is with details about 19th century Russia, its path winding freely into contemporary politics and religious ceremonies, through both urban and rural settings.
But where Anna Karenina’s story ends tragically, Lata Mehra’s does not.
When I finished “Anna Karenina” the second time, I remember thinking that such a novel could not be written today. But Seth has written a novel that is very much in the same league, and which deserves the praise its earned. It’s a big book, but a book that merits, for the most part, its 1400-page length. I highly recommend it.
For unpubbed writers, it sometimes seems that the “standards” held by agents and publishers are, at best, too stringent; at worst harsh, opaque, even perverse or malicious.
I don’t subscribe to that view. I think the actions of both agents and publishers are completely understandable when you consider the margins in the print publishing business. According to this New York Times article, for instance,
Publishers generally receive a wholesale price for new books that is about half of the retail cover price, or $13 for a hardcover book with a $26 jacket price. Thirty percent of the publisher’s share, or 15 percent of the cover price, goes to the author as royalties, and another 40 percent of the publisher’s take goes for the production, distribution, marketing and publicity costs of the book.
That leaves about $3 to $4 a book for the publisher, before accounting for the cost of corporate overhead or the books that will be returned — on which the publisher earns nothing.
For paperbacks, authors generally earn only 7.5 percent of the cover price as a royalty. But the lower price also means publishers earn far less, about $1 to $2 a book, before returns.
If you look at these numbers, it’s obvious that publishers can’t make too many bad acquisitions or they’d be bankrupt in a matter of months, if not weeks. Large publishers, in particular, can’t survive if they acquire books that only sell a few hundred copies. They need books that appeal to a wide audience, generate buzz, and inspire word-of-mouth.
It’s not their job to do me, the novelist wanna be, favors. I need to write a book that will meet their criteria. If I want them to publish it.
In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Thomas Benton, “the pseudonym of an associate professor of English at a Midwestern liberal-arts college,” writes about why students choose to major in English.
English is, among my undergraduates at least, one of the last refuges of the classical notion of a liberal-arts education.
I ended up a Comparative Literature major because I recognized, however dimly, that academia would let me postpone a bit longer the pressures of real adulthood–it would let me savor, for a few years at least, the freedom to do nothing but think, and read books, and write . . .
Several people nominated awefull books on Miss Snark’s blog after I’d posted my compilation.
Here they are.
Bangkok 8 by John Burdett
Beach Music by Pat Conroy
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg
THE BELIEF TEST by Kate Chaplin
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
THE CRYSTAL THRONE by Kathryn Sullivan
The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
THE HOUSE OF PENDRAGON I; THE FIREBRAND by Debra Kemp
What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt
At this point it’s been 10 days since Miss Snark’s original post, so although I’m happy to keep making any corrections I won’t be adding any new books. Cuz if I did, the fun spontaneous bloggy feel might get compromised, and we can’t have that.
(If Heart is a Lonely Hunter was published in the last ten years, btw, then yours truly is about 19 again. Kewl.) (Ooops, sorry, that’s “Cool” — Kewl hadn’t been invented yet.)
(Not that some of the books on the original list weren’t more than 10 years old, too — actually quite a few would have been disqualified on that basis . . . )
This is fun: The Mississippi Review has published an edition of Freymoir-inspired short stories.
Here’s an excerpt from editor James Whorton Jr.’s intro:
We talk about the various narrative genres — novel, memoir, short story, straight journalism — as though these categories have a separate existence from the particular works they describe. Credibility does not reside in the genre, however, but in the person of the writer. Books don’t lie to us, people do: we’ve been lied to by neighbors, Presidents, and novelists alike, and skepticism will never be made obsolete by any refinement of the literary categories. It will always be indispensable both to citizenship and to literacy.
A few days ago, Miss Snark invited her readers to nominate three “awefull” books:
They should be relatively recent, within ten years of first publication. Novels you loved, novels that made you see the world in a new way, novels that made you give up writing for a month cause you couldn’t imagine writing that well.
She kicked it off by nominating three herself:
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
Motherless Brooklyn by Jon Letham
Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
Then her readers took over.
I just compiled the list: 285 284 283 books (excluding dupes). Just in time for your summer vacation!
(Note: I didn’t cross-check any of these. I didn’t try to exclude books that didn’t meet Miss Snark’s criteria — e.g. some are over 10 years old. I didn’t include authors’ names when a book title wasn’t specified. I just copied the comments into a word file, edited outanything that wasn’t a title/author, did an alphanumeric sort and deleted dupes.)
1632 by Eric Flint
A College of Magics, by Caroline Stevermer
A Conspiracy of Paper, David Liss
A Home At the End Of the World, by Michael Cunningham
A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving
A PRAYER FOR THE DYING, Stewart O’Nan
A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin
A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher
A Very English Agent, Julian Rathbone
A Widow for One Year by John Irving (1998)
A Year in Provence By Peter Mayle
ABOUT GRACE, Anthony Doerr
Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
American Gods: by Neil Gaiman
An Equal Music, by Vikram Seth
AN INVISIBLE SIGN OF MY OWN by Aimee Bender
Angle of Repose, Stegner’s
Anthem by Ayn Rand
AS MEAT LOVES SALT by Maria McCann
Ash by Mary Gentle
AT SWIM, TWO BOYS by James O’Neill
Atrix Wolfe by Patricia A. McKillip
BAG OF BONES by Stephen King
Baroque Cycle, Neal Stephenson.
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Baudolino, Umberto Eco
Beauty by Robin McKinley
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Beloved, Toni Morrison
BOY’S LIFE by Robert McCammon
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Castles Burning, Magda Denes
Certain Women by Madeleine L’Engle
Child of God, by Cormac McCarthy
CHOKE, by Chuck Palahniuk
City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Clumsy, by Jeffrey Brown
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
COMING HOME TO YOU, Fay Robinson
Coming Through Slaughter~ Michael Ondaatje
Confessions of a Pagan Nun by Kate Horsley
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
Crimson Petal & the White, Michel Faber
Crocodile on the Sandbank, Elizabeth Peters
Cruddy – Lynda Barry
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Digrace by j.m. coetzee
DOOMSDAY BOOK, Connie Willis
Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
Dreamtigers by Jorge Luis Borges, which is actually a collection of various pieces.
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Packer
Earthly Powers, by Anthony Burgess
Einstein’s Dreams by Aaron Lightman
EMPIRE FALLS, Richard Russo
Ender Series, Orsen Scott Card
EUREKA STREET by Robert McLiam Wilson
EVA MOVES THE FURNITURE, by Margot Livesey
Eveless Eden by Marianne Wiggins
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Far from the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins (1986)
Fevre Dream – George R. R. Martin
Fight Club
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Fool’s Fate by Robin Hobb
Foreigner Series by C. J. Cherryh
Fortress of Solitude–Jonathan Lethem
Foucalt’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz
Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
Galveston, Sean Stewart
GATES OF FIRE by Steven Pressfield
GILEAD, by Marilynne Robinson (2004)
Girl Talk, by Julianna Baggott
Girl With a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
Gone for Good by Harlan Coben
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
GOODBYE, CHUNKY RICE
Green Grass Running Water by Thomas King
Harry Potter
History of Love
His Dark Materials Series, Philip Pullman
Hocus, Jan Burke
Homestead by Rosina Lippi
Hominids by Robert Sawyer
Hotel World–Ali Smith
House of Leaves by Danielewski
House of Sand and Fog
Housekeeping–Marilynn Robinson
HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff
How We Die by Sherwin B. Nuland
Hyperion:Cantos, by Dan Simmons
IDEAS OF HEAVEN by Joan Silber
INCOMPETENCE by Rob Grant
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
ISLAND OF THE DAY BEFORE by Umberto Eco
Jazz by Toni Morrison
JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL, Susannah Clarke
Journey into Moonlight by Antal Szerb
JURASSIC PARK
Just One Look by Harlan Coben
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
Katherine by Anya Seton
Keeping Watch by Laurie King
Kiss Me, Judas by Will Christopher Baer
KISSING IN MANHATTAN, David Schickler
KITE RUNNER
Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey
L. A. Confidential by James Ellroy
Lamb by Christopher Moore
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquival
LIVES OF THE MONSTER DOGS by Kirsten Bakis
Living on Love – The Messenger by Klaus Joehle
LOOKING FOR ALASKA by John Green
Looking for Ali Brandi by Melina Marchetta
LULLABY, by Chuck Palahniuk
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Memoir from Antproof Case, Mark Helprin
MICROSERFS by Douglas Coupland
MIDDLESEX by Jeffery Eugenes
Misery, Stephen King
Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN, Jonathan Letham
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
My Voice Will Go With You by Sidney Rosen
MYSTIC RIVER, Dennis Lehane
Neuromancer_ William Gibson
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
No Great Mischief, Alistair MacLeod
Norweigan Wood, Haruki Murakami
Old Boys, Charles McCarry
Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip
One Good Turn, Witold Rybczynski
One Hundred Years of Solitude
ORYX AND CRAKE by Margaret Atwood
Otherland (all four books) by Tad Williams
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Outlandish Companion, Diana Gabaldon
Passage by Connie Willis (2001)
PATTERN RECOGNITION by William Gibson
PEOPLE OF PAPER, Salvador Plascencia
Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
PETTY TREASON and POINT OF HONOUR, Madeleine Robins
Possession by A S Byatt
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
QUARANTINE by Jim Crace
Queen of the South – Arturo Perez Reverte
RIDING WITH THE QUEEN, Jennie Shortridge
ROMAN BLOOD by Steven Saylor
Runaway by Alice Munro.
SABBATH’S THEATRE, Roth
Saint Maybe, Ann Tyler
SAVAGE THUNDER by Johanna Lindsey
Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
Servants of the Map, Andrea Barrett
SHALIMAR THE CLOWN by Salman Rushdie
She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
SIAM MIAMI by Morris Renek
Slammerkin, Emma Donoghue
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson.
SPECIMEN DAYS, Michael Cunningham
SPIN, by Robert Charles Wilson (2005)
STANDING IN A RAINBOW by Fannie Flagg
STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER by Tom Robbins
Storm of Swords by George RR Martin.
Sunshine by Robin McKinley (2003)
SWEET DREAM BABY, Sterling Watson
Sword of Shadow series: A Cavern of Black Ice & A Fortress of Grey Ice, JV Jones
Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich
Talyn by Holly Lisle
Tam Lin by Pamela Dean
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY by Michael Chabon
The Angel of Darkness, Caleb Carr
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King
THE BEHOLDER by Thomas Farber
The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
THE BOOK THIEF, by Markus Zusak
The Border Trilogy (ALL THE PRETTY HORSES, THE CROSSING, CITIES OF THE PLAIN), Cormac McCarthy
The Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart
The Burning Land & The Awakened City by Victoria Strauss
The Centaur by John Updike
The Club Dumas (or any of the books by Arturo Perez-Reverte)
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid~ Michael Ondaatje
The Color of Distance & Through Alien Eyes by Amy Thomson
THE CONFESSIONS OF MAX TIVOLI, Andrew Sean Greer
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Crimson Petal and The White by Michael Faber
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud? By Ben Sherwood
The Disenchanted by Budd Schulberg
The Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters
The First Betrayal by Patricia Bray
The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Stephen King
The Girl Who Played Go by Shan Sa
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Grass Widow, Teri Holbrooke
The Ground Beneath her Feet by Salman Rushdie
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake
The Hottest State, Ethan Hawke.
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Known World, Edward P. Jones
The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (and Watchmen), Alan Moore
The Light Ages, by Ian McLeod
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Lives and Loves of a She Devil, Faye Weldon
The London Pigeon Wars, by Patrick Neate
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
The Madam, by Julianna Baggott
The Mammoth Cheese by Sheri Holman
THE MASTER Colm Toibin
The Mists of Avalon by Marian Zimmer-Bradley
The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie
THE NAMESAKE and INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpra Lahiri
THE NIGHT COUNTRY, Stuart O’Nan
The Other Wind, Ursula K. LeGuin
The People of Paper by Salvador Plasencia
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver
The Power of One by Bryce Courtney
THE PRAISE SINGER by Mary Renault
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Republic of Love by Carol Shields
The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills
The Road Home_ Jim Harrison
THE ROOFER by Erica Orloff
The Rule of Four, Odd Thomas, The Hummingbird’s Daughter, Elaine Corvidae
The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
The Secret History, Donna Tartt.
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (2002)
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx
The Short Day Dying by Peter Hobbs
The Soloist by Mark Salzman
The Sound of Waves, Mishima
THE SPARROW by Mary Doria Russell
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Tree of Man, Patrick White
The Wheel of Time Series
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
THE WOODEN SEA by Jonathan Carroll
THE ZOO WHERE YOU’RE FED TO GOD by Michael Ventura
THIS BLINDING ABSENCE OF LIGHT by Tahar Ben Jelloun
To Say Nothing of the Dog , Connie Willis
TO THE POWER OF THREE by Laura Lippman
Tourist Season, Carl Hiaasen
Tropic of Night by Michael Gruber
Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow by David Gemmell
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
UNDER THE WOLF, UNDER THE DOG by Adam Rapp
Unless by Carol Shields
We Need To Talk About Kevin – Lionel Schriver
WELCOME TO THE WORLD, BABY GIRL by Fannie Flagg
What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg
White Teeth and On Beauty, Zadie Smith
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Winter and Night S.J. Rozan
Winter’s Orphans – Elaine Corvidae
Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
Wittgenstein’s Mistress, David Markson
Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind
WONDER WHEN YOU’LL MISS ME by Amanda Davis
WONDERBOYS by Michael Chabon
Year of Wonder by Geraldine Brooks
UPDATE: Welcome, snarklings! And thank you Miss Snark for the link!
UPDATE 2: A few late additions here.
You may have read about the tussle between James Joyce‘s heirs — in particular, his grandson — and the scholars who want more and freer access to Joyce’s writings — including, of course, his personal writings.
Here’s a Globe and Mail article about it, linked today by Booksquare.
It’s an interesting conundrum, but on balance, I’m on the grandson’s side. I daresay he’s a curmudgeon. But I don’t believe, for a second, the claim made by those he’s fighting that this will “drive young scholars away from marvels of James Joyce’s writing.” That’s a red herring — it’s intended to make this sound like a noble fight, when really it’s just a bunch of guys who are irritated that there’s a bump in the road to prestige and tenure.
Joyce wrote books. He wrote them for the public. Anyone who wants to marvel at his writing can just read his books.
Ironic that deconstructionist scholarship opens the door to inhuman attitudes toward writers’ personal lives. Nobody can just leave Joyce’s books to stand as discreet works of art. Nooooo. They have to be dissected, all their parts pinned to a board and labeled and cross-referenced to minutiae about his personal life.
I nearly burned all my journals, once. I didn’t do it. But I might, yet. I can understand the impulse to frustrate the inappropriately curious, the people who assume an entitlement without regard to another’s dignity or privacy . . . or, even more heretical yet, another’s wish to control his own life’s narrative . . .
