Alert! “Since the underlying reason for writing is to bridge the gulf between one person and another, as the sense of loneliness increases, more and more books are written by more and more people, most of them with little or no talent. Forests are cut down, rivers of ink absorbed, but the lust to write is still unsatisfied …”
That’s not Darryl Accone, but WH Auden, opining on the excesses of the publishing industry in 1932. But Accone echoes Auden’s lament in a new piece on the state of our own books scene, where he finds that the post-1994 creative liberation has led to surfeit – surplus – too many books!
Accone wants less haste in publishing, better editing, and writers who scrupulously re-write, like Henrietta Rose-Innes, Alistair Morgan and André Brink:
‘Tell our stories” went the post-apartheid creative mantra in film and literature. A golden age beckoned, unfettered by censorship and government interference.
Predating literary liberation it was neither “sexy” nor seemingly sane to publish political books, or challenging fiction of the type to raise the ire and the fire of the state. A handful of publishers battled oppression, among them the late David Philip. Philip’s publishing was principled and powerful, and hardly bothered by pecuniary motives. Imagine unleashing, in the 1980s, Detention and Torture in South Africa by Don Foster, Dennis Davis and Diane Sandler.
Tell our stories we have certainly done in the past decade and a half. But it is clear that the writing and publishing revolutions were relatively easy after 1994. South African political biographies and current affairs tomes overwhelm us today.
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April 2nd, 2009 @10:01 #
Too many rushed books, rather than too many books per se....
April 2nd, 2009 @11:27 #
Yes! yes! yes! I am not alone! Of course Darryl, with his journalist's acumen, has managed to say in about 1500 words what it took me about 5000 to say in my Wordsetc piece (coming soon, folks).
And Margie is right, too. One of my wails is the lack of TIME given to the process of bringing out a book, the insistence on getting out more and more, faster and faster. But that's capitalist productivity for you. People like the late great David Philip, Marie Philip and Gus Ferguson, who bring out books for love, not money, are now curiosities belonging to a different era. (Well, maybe not. Colleen is in that grand tradition, although we have faith that Modadji will strike it rich...)
April 2nd, 2009 @11:42 #
En verder (I'd like to laminate these words and then send to every publisher I know):
"Editors should not be hybridised into some strange species of super copy-editor and proofreader, though the time and money made available to them by publishers sometimes dictates that this is what they become. Editing is not merely rehoming misplaced commas and supplying therapy for abused semicolons. This state of affairs is scarcely the fault of editors, who are not well placed to decline jobs or make principled stands about remuneration and time afforded them. Nor can they afford to subsidise the process, and be altruistic about every manuscript that lands on their desk or screen."
Bravo! I am well aware that I am one of the very few freelance editors who DOES "decline jobs" and "make principled [ahem] stands about renumeration and time". Plus I do occasionally "subsidise the process" and am even (koff koff) "altruistic" now and again.
BUT. I have the luxury of being a pain in the publishing industry's neck ONLY because: I do not have a bond. My 13-year-old car is fully paid for. I have no children, and although vet bills give me the willies, at least I don't have to worry about school fees for Meg and Lily. I have Arthur Attwell on my side, and the difference to my financial wellbeing since he began subcontracting me and INSISTING that I be paid promptly (even advancing me money his clients owe me) has been palpable. And above all, as an academic editor, I can always fall back on working for NGOs and research institutions, and because of my international standing and contacts, I regularly do work for overseas academic clients who pay in hard currency. (I would be absolutely stuffed, esp medically, if not for this. Hard currency has paid for every single surgery I've had in the last ten years.) I am acutely aware that your average editor does NOT have this wiggle room; and I worry about my declining years. Plus the fact that because I stand up for my rights, I have a rep in the industry for being "difficult" (true, but translate as "entitled") and "expensive" (not true at all; I'd be cheap at twice the price).