Translated material
The price of the book
A new publication of a full catalog of Picasso's work will soon appear on the book market. Created with the participation of the master, he is known by the name of the compiler “Zevros” and consists of 33 volumes and 16 thousand black and white (the requirement of the artist) illustrations. The price is intriguing - 15 thousand dollars. The first, antique edition of the catalog is sold at auction for 200,000. And yet such books find the owners. Super expensive publications become more and more popular if this word approaches their, to put it mildly, limited circulation. Among the recent examples are the nine -thousandth two -volume photographs of Sebastiano Salgado. Rolling Stones with autographs of all four rockers is being prepared for the exit. And the colossal volume of photos of Annie Leibovitz. Each of these fabulously expensive publications silently participates in the acute dispute about the fate of the book, which has strongly entered the electronic phase of its long evolution.
The book in America, unlike Russia, has never been neither scarce nor especially valuable goods. The Americans, say, are not delayed. They rarely collect them and inherited even less often. Therefore, each generation has its own books. Taking care of the fashionable bestseller is as absurd as yesterday's newspaper. Actual, dedicated to the occasion, momentary, "fresh" book is a kind of newspaper.
The long -standing tradition of public and ubiquitous publications prepared the current mobile. Having released the soul to the will, the book will leave the bookstore only a rough cover - its material body, an unnecessary corpse in the binding.
In fact, what is a book? Half of the stained paper, a spoonful of glue and two cardboard? The meaning of the book, of course, is not in form, but in content. However, the mass success of the e -book raised the question of the book as things. The very threat of the loss of the paper book made us re -open its beauty and value. In recent years, even elegiac or hysterical panegyrics of the paper book have been heard all the time. Perhaps the most fiery speech in her defense was made shortly before his death, John Appadike. Calling to save the book, he indicates those qualities that are in no way related to the content.
“The book,” wrote an American classic and a thin hedonist, “the best furniture. Surrounding us, it gives peace and comfort. Reading - a sensual pleasure associated with a touch no less than with intelligence. A book is an embodied memory of a life lived: a personal library is a personal memorial.”
As a result, he came to the conclusion that "no computer could replace the property, real, objective side of the book culture." But today we can say that the Appadike could not convince the 21st century: aesthetic considerations have always lost comfort and cheapness. The parchment manuscript is also more beautiful than Roman Gazeta or Payperbek, but there is not much any use.
The question, in my opinion, is different. So that an ordinary book can successfully fight with electronic, it must become extraordinary. Mandelstam wrote: "The book, approved on the readership of the presenter, is likened to the canvas stretched over the subframe." In essence, the recipe for the salvation of book culture is hidden in this likening. To save the book as a thing in order to return the status of an event to the book, it must be an event - to be.
I happened to know the ascetic, who conducted a courageous struggle against progress, publishing a book unique in beauty and values. Sid Schiff was the owner, president and only employees of the New York publishing house "Limited Edishnz Lab." In his office on Madison Avenue, I saw a meter high and a five kilogram weighing-Akhmatova's Requiem. Nearby is a little smaller Pasternak. On the shelf the same luxurious books of Gunter Grassa, Derek Walcott, Octavio Pas. Everything is a circulation of three hundred copies. And each of the books is made in a special way. Even paper is made for them manually. So, for Pasternak, a Russian artist from New York, Yuri Cooper, made paper from old Soviet newspapers. In the black velvet binding of the same “Requiem” there is an elegant neckline, into which a disc with John Tavern’s music specially written for the poem Akhmatova is inserted. The first illustration, more precisely, the original work done for this book is a pair dancing on the base of the monument. This is the etching of a New York artist Grisha Bruskin.
One copy of such a book, which cost tens of thousands of dollars at the time of publication, becomes more expensive every year. Which, in essence, guarantees a long, if not the eternal life of the book. The object of artistic admiration, collecting, and simply profitable investment, such a book returns us to the past. In Dogutenberg times, a personal library was exhausted only by dozens of volumes, but they were often works of art that we now admire the museum.
Maybe the book is waiting for an enviable fate of a spoiled rarity again? Having given the content of the electronic reader, it will retain, becoming a luxurious, like a precious picture, a decoration, for which the owner will not skimp.
“The book,” wrote Vasily Rozanov, “should be expensive. And the first testimony of love for it is the willingness to buy it.”
The book in America, unlike Russia, has never been neither scarce nor especially valuable goods. The Americans, say, are not delayed. They rarely collect them and inherited even less often. Therefore, each generation has its own books. Taking care of the fashionable bestseller is as absurd as yesterday's newspaper. Actual, dedicated to the occasion, momentary, "fresh" book is a kind of newspaper.
The long -standing tradition of public and ubiquitous publications prepared the current mobile. Having released the soul to the will, the book will leave the bookstore only a rough cover - its material body, an unnecessary corpse in the binding.
In fact, what is a book? Half of the stained paper, a spoonful of glue and two cardboard? The meaning of the book, of course, is not in form, but in content. However, the mass success of the e -book raised the question of the book as things. The very threat of the loss of the paper book made us re -open its beauty and value. In recent years, even elegiac or hysterical panegyrics of the paper book have been heard all the time. Perhaps the most fiery speech in her defense was made shortly before his death, John Appadike. Calling to save the book, he indicates those qualities that are in no way related to the content.
“The book,” wrote an American classic and a thin hedonist, “the best furniture. Surrounding us, it gives peace and comfort. Reading - a sensual pleasure associated with a touch no less than with intelligence. A book is an embodied memory of a life lived: a personal library is a personal memorial.”
As a result, he came to the conclusion that "no computer could replace the property, real, objective side of the book culture." But today we can say that the Appadike could not convince the 21st century: aesthetic considerations have always lost comfort and cheapness. The parchment manuscript is also more beautiful than Roman Gazeta or Payperbek, but there is not much any use.
The question, in my opinion, is different. So that an ordinary book can successfully fight with electronic, it must become extraordinary. Mandelstam wrote: "The book, approved on the readership of the presenter, is likened to the canvas stretched over the subframe." In essence, the recipe for the salvation of book culture is hidden in this likening. To save the book as a thing in order to return the status of an event to the book, it must be an event - to be.
I happened to know the ascetic, who conducted a courageous struggle against progress, publishing a book unique in beauty and values. Sid Schiff was the owner, president and only employees of the New York publishing house "Limited Edishnz Lab." In his office on Madison Avenue, I saw a meter high and a five kilogram weighing-Akhmatova's Requiem. Nearby is a little smaller Pasternak. On the shelf the same luxurious books of Gunter Grassa, Derek Walcott, Octavio Pas. Everything is a circulation of three hundred copies. And each of the books is made in a special way. Even paper is made for them manually. So, for Pasternak, a Russian artist from New York, Yuri Cooper, made paper from old Soviet newspapers. In the black velvet binding of the same “Requiem” there is an elegant neckline, into which a disc with John Tavern’s music specially written for the poem Akhmatova is inserted. The first illustration, more precisely, the original work done for this book is a pair dancing on the base of the monument. This is the etching of a New York artist Grisha Bruskin.
One copy of such a book, which cost tens of thousands of dollars at the time of publication, becomes more expensive every year. Which, in essence, guarantees a long, if not the eternal life of the book. The object of artistic admiration, collecting, and simply profitable investment, such a book returns us to the past. In Dogutenberg times, a personal library was exhausted only by dozens of volumes, but they were often works of art that we now admire the museum.
Maybe the book is waiting for an enviable fate of a spoiled rarity again? Having given the content of the electronic reader, it will retain, becoming a luxurious, like a precious picture, a decoration, for which the owner will not skimp.
“The book,” wrote Vasily Rozanov, “should be expensive. And the first testimony of love for it is the willingness to buy it.”