Do Publishers Know Anything About Literature?

Reflections of a working writer and reader

A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is. When I speak of writing, the image that comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or a literary tradition; it is the person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and, alone, turns inward. Amid his shadows, he builds a new world with words. This man-or this woman-may use a typewriter, or profit from the ease of a computer, or write with a pen on paper, as I do. As he writes, he may drink tea or coffee, or smoke cigarettes. From time to time, he may rise from his table to look out the window at the children playing in the street, or, if he is lucky, at trees and a view, or even at a black wall. He may write poems, or plays, or novels, as I do. But all these differences arise only after the crucial task is complete-after he has sat down at the table and patiently turned inward. To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy. Orhan Pamuk

Do Publishers Know Anything About Literature?

Tom McCarthy’s article in TimesOnline takes mainstream publishers to task:

. . . the art press Bookworks has just commissioned a series of novels to be guest edited by the artist-writer Stewart Home; the art publisher Sternberg Press recently won acclaim from the TLS for Bedlam, a novel by Jennifer Higgie, the editor of the art-mag Frieze; Metronome continues to publish novels exclusively by artists.

These people have no desire to become mainstream publishers: they are content to stay within the art world – where, they reason, the informed readership is. When the limited edition of Remainder started to pick up momentum, Waterstone’s asked if it could stock the book. Metronome refused, replying: “If people want it, they can go to the ICA.”

With thanks to The Reading Experience for the pointer to this one.

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Filed under art, literature, quotations, writing
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This was posted on Saturday, June 30th, 2007 at 10:48 am. You can follow any responses through the RSS 2.0 feed.

2 responses to “Do Publishers Know Anything About Literature?”

§ Paul on July 3rd, 2007 at 8:18 am

Hi John,
I read this article and loved the idea of someone saying “No!” to the system and the way things are done.
There seems to be an attitude prevalent in the Industry that if anyone criticises what is happening, then they are either naive and ignorant of commercial practicalities, or just a petulant, frustrated, wannabe writer.

jb says: Hi Paul. Loved it, too. I believe we are on the verge of some great and long overdue changes.

§ Mark Thwaite on July 3rd, 2007 at 9:23 am

I think McCarthy captures something very exactly in his Times piece. Certainly — and in this I concur completely with Tom — it is very often artists that I have the most interesting conversations with about Literature (with a big “L”) rather than with publishers. (Indeed, I was recently kindly invited, along with some other bloggers, to spend a very pleasant evening with Penguin and some of the lovely Penguin folk seemed quite taken aback when the conversation turned to Proust and Kafka!)

But some (usually smaller) publishers are trying hard — immediately I think of Alma, Carcanet, Dalkey Archive, Hesperus, Profile, Verso — to publish interesting stuff. The news isn’t all bad.

jb says: Hi Mark. Not really surprising, though, the reaction of the Penguin people to Proust and Kafka. You would find the same kind of reaction in almost any social situation. But I agree with you, things are stirring and changes are on the way.

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