To Be Continued...

To Be Continued:

Jane Gardam and Edward St. Aubyn

Frustrating, but enticing to meet those words when you’re caught up in a book, a television series, or even a movie. Gone are the days when Dickens published his novels chapter by chapter, and crowds of desperate fans in New York waited on the pier for the boat from England that might bring news of whether Little Nell died. But we can feel their pain -- and delicious anticipation -- at the end of each season of Mad Men, Homeland, Game of Thrones. And as that last title tells you, fiction authors haven’t completely lost the knack either.

When Dorothy Dunnett’s two cliffhanging series were coming out, I was among the crowds waiting for the next installment. Airplanes had taken the place of ships, of course. In the 60’s, I ordered each of the Lymond books from Cassell’s in London several months before the American version appeared. (I ordered an extra copy for a friend, so I’d have someone to discuss them with). By the time the Niccolò books were reaching their finale, in the 90’s, an Edinburgh bookshop had undertaken to supply American and Canadian readers the moment the books appeared, and email provided me hundreds of fellow fans for company.

Matters run less smoothly for followers of George R.R. Martin’s Game of  Thrones series. After the first three volumes appeared, production slowed down. Five years, then six passed between books. As the novels grew longer (over 1000 pages each), their author could not resist adding new characters, new plotlines, new countries to his fantasy universe. Now the producers of the HBO series worry that they might catch up before Martin continues the story; many fans wonder if he will ever finish, since he is no longer young; and I myself, a good deal older than Martin, think I am not likely to see the end. Under these circumstances, best just to relax and enjoy the ride (and very enjoyable it is), without fretting too much about the destination.

Not every continuing series, however, involves cliffhangers. I’d like to recommend two multivolume fiction works by English authors, both reaping ecstatic reviews but not enough American readers. The first is Jane Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy. I must confess that, despite the good reviews, I resisted reading it for many years because of the title. But then I learned that it refers not to stomach-churning substances, but to an acronym: Failed in London, try Hong Kong. So that’s all right, then.

“Old Filth” is the nickname of Sir Edward Feathers, a barrister (or rather, Q.C., which is a step up) who has made a successful career in Hong Kong specializing in construction law. When we meet him, he has retired to a Dorset village, St. Ague (names are important in Gardam) where, coincidentally, he meets several of his former associates. Among them is Terry Veneering, his longtime rival, and sometime lover of his late wife. The second novel, The Man in the Wooden Hat, retells the same story from the point of view of that wife, Betty. That sounds pretty conventional -- Evan S. Connell in Mr. Bridge and Mrs. Bridge also told the story of a marriage from the viewpoints of the two partners. But the third novel, Last Friends, promotes the supporting characters, among them Veneering, to starring roles and uses a touch of magic realism to tie all their fates together, and break down the barriers between lives.

The trilogy has been called a tale of the decline of the British Empire, but I think that is the background rather than the main theme. Most of the characters are indeed what has been termed “orphans of empire” -- children whose parents sent them back to England to boarding school at an early age. “It is such a character-forming thing to be separated from one’s parents. I never saw mine for years. I didn’t miss them at all,” says one character to her daughter. But it is not only empire that separates parents from children. Old Filth’s mother died at his birth in Malaysia and he has been searching ever since for the warmth he felt in the impoverished village where his father left him for years. Veneering’s loving working-class mother sends him to Canada to escape the war. Meanwhile, the childless cling to the children of others.

Children in exile are only one aspect of the loneliness that pervades these novels. Barriers of class and the straitjacket of form separate adults from one another, and the lovers Betty and Veneering spend only one night together. One character, Fiscal-Smith, notes accurately that he has never been loved or wanted by anyone. In old age, those who survive see their friends gradually diminish. But the end of the series (and the ends of each book) are not about defeat, but about the courage to change that can be found in extremis. Perhaps the clearest example is the scene of Feathers, locked out of his house on a snowy Christmas morning, making his way at last to the house of his arch-enemy Veneering for help. Afterwards, the two develop a curious friendship that lasts until their death. Fiscal-Smith’s fate -- on the very last page -- is even more surprising. And the sadness these characters feel is leavened throughout by a light, often very funny, prose that sees through its subjects but never mocks them.

But if Gardam’s prose is witty and stylish, she has nothing on Edward St. Aubyn. And if her children suffer, they would have a long way to go to match the fate of Patrick Melrose, the main character of St. Aubyn’s five-book series (Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk, At Last). These books are apparently autobiographical and if you haven’t learned from reviews what happens to five-year-old Patrick in the first book, I’m not going to tell you. It might keep you from reading them, and that would be a shame. 

It would be a shame because every page is full of piercing insight and corruscating wit. In his New Yorker review, Michael Wood says that Jane Austen would be happy to have written this sentence: “As a guest, Emily Price had three main drawbacks: she was incapable of saying please, incapable of saying thank you, and incapable of saying sorry, all the while creating a surge in the demand for these expressions.” I’m just being lazy cribbing Wood’s quote, because there are examples on every page that are as good, or almost as good, or even better.

 “I think my mother’s death is the best thing to happen to me since...well, since my father’s death,” says Patrick in the last book, and no reader will quarrel with him. (“It can’t be that simple,” replies his psychiatrist friend Johnny, “or there would be merry bands of orphans skipping down the street.”) Neither Karl Marx, nor John Osborne, nor Ed Miliband could have anything more damning to say about the British aristocracy than St. Aubyn, one of its scions. But although the books are full of accurately and hilariously pinned down villains, there are a few characters one can admire (like Patrick’s wife, Mary), or feel for (like Patrick himself), or simply marvel at, like his two brilliant and eccentric small sons.

It’s tempting to go on quoting:

It was the presence of None the Wiser on Mary’s bedside table that alerted Patrick to his wife’s laborious romance.

“You couldn’t be reading that book unless you were having an affair with the author,” he guessed through half-closed eyes.

“Believe me, it’s virtually impossible even then.”

But I hope, if you love good writing and gimlet-eyed characterization, and maybe if you are a fan of Jane Austen, you will try these novels for yourself. Yes, there are five of them, but they’re short. The first four have been issued together in paperback (and also for Kindle and Nook). Enjoy!

Kindles, and Other Monsters

Tender memoirs about lifetimes of reading almost invariably end with pious statements of disdain for ebooks. It just isn’t reading if you don’t have the rustle of paper, the heft of the binding, the (imagined) smell of the ink. Publishers, meanwhile, broadcast panicky warnings about how digital books will destroy literature, reduce authors to penniless drudges and, of course, decimate their own profits.

It doesn’t have to be this way. I like my Kindle (and my Nook), even if I don’t exactly love them. But digitalization -- of books, music, and film -- is not going to go away. Both publishers and readers will eventually learn to live with it, as the music business has had to. Herewith, some thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages of ebooks, how publishers can use the new technology to their own profit and that of their public, and finally, what we can learn from past upheavals in the delivery of written text. We have been here before.

The attractions of the ebook begin with its size. Anyone who commutes or travels has to love the little machine that slips into your purse. No longer is half the suitcase taken up with books for the journey; you can pick up a new read wherever there’s a wi-fi connection. You don’t have to find space on your shelves for a book you might never read again, and you don’t have to find space in your home for yet another shelf. Ebooks are (or should be) much cheaper to buy than hard copy -- more on that later -- so you can buy more of them. Out of copyright books are usually available free, so you can instantly satisfy that urge to dip into Emma once more. And if you forgot who that character is who pops up again a hundred pages after first mention, no problem. You can do full-text searching and find out in an instant.

On the other hand, maybe you do want to consult that book again. Finding it on your Kindle is not as satisfying as taking it down from the shelf and riffling through it. And as everyone knows, you cannot sell or lend your Kindle book. Do you really own it? Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Although font choice and appearance have improved, in general the text on an ereader is not a thing of beauty. Far, far worse is the ebook’s inability to reproduce graphics well. Illustrations, tables, graphs all become fuzzy blurs. No point even trying to read a fantasy novel if you can’t consult the map. Reading end notes should, in theory, be much easier with an ereader: just click on the number. But sometimes the number isn’t linked to the end note text. And even if it is, returning to your place in the text is not always straightforward.

Many of these problems can, and probably will, be addressed through better software in the future. But there is a lot publishers can do right now to improve the experience for readers and, incidentally, to find ebook profits that they are now throwing away.

The first rule should be: Don’t treat your customers as enemies! The music business has learned that a surprising number of fans will pay for music, even if it can be pirated. But first they must feel that the price asked is a fair one for what they are getting. And they must believe that the seller is not withholding product arbitrarily, inviting a game of cat and mouse.

Publishers objected to the low prices charged by Amazon, explaining that paper, ink, storage, transport, retail costs, etc., were as nothing to the initial investment in finding and signing authors, editing, and marketing. But it doesn’t take a degree in economics to see that the first set of costs are still substantial, and that once the editing is completed the added cost of producing each e-copy is vanishingly small. (And many will have noticed that editing is an art seldom practiced these days anyway). Moreover, once you’ve bought the ebook, you still can’t sell it or lend it. So a fair price has to be far below the price of the hard-copy book.

So first: keep prices low. And maybe institute dynamic pricing -- a high price for new bestsellers, diminishing gradually with time. And a standard low price for backlists.

Second: figure out a way to allow people to sell or lend the ebooks, and how you can make money from it. For example, how about selling a book with a certain number of lending privileges -- say, four -- and charging for each one. The owner would pay perhaps $4 every time she lent the book out. Or maybe the borrower would pay it. After four loans, the book could not be lent again. But it could be sold. How about 2/3 of the original price, with the publisher pocketing 1/3 of that?

Third: why don’t publishers get into the lending business themselves? Most books people buy are read once. Why shouldn’t customers pay to borrow a book for, say, two weeks, after which it would disappear from their devices? The University of Chicago Press already does this -- $8 for a 30-day loan of an academic book, which is a bargain. But I haven’t found any other publisher following their example.

Fourth: I’m not the first to suggest that purchase of a hard-copy book should come with a free ebook of the title. That way, the disadvantages of hard-copy books for commuting and travel disappear, and there is a greater incentive to spend the higher price.

Finally: Drop the absurd restrictions on international ebook sales. Why do U.S. publishers want to turn away eager buyers from Canada? Why can I order hard-copy books from amazon.co.uk, but not download an ebook from their site? Why? Huh?

Perhaps publishers believe that if ebooks are artificially restricted, priced at absurd levels,  unobtainable on loan even from your own mother, you will be driven to pay $35 for the hard-copy. Not this customer. Public libraries still exist, and I’m willing to wait. And if you escalate the hostilities enough, I’ll have no compunctions about pirating.

We have, as I said, been there before. Until the 2nd or 3rd century, most books were written on scrolls. The codex (books like the ones we use today) supplanted the scroll around 300-400 A.D. No doubt there were readers in those days who lamented that reading the codex just did not have the same tactile pleasure as unrolling a scroll (and perhaps it did not). The sad part of the story is that as the use of scrolls diminished and old ones deteriorated, only texts copied onto codices survived. The fourth century was one in which theology was the main interest of most readers. That is how most of the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles, and all but one of Sappho’s poems were lost. I don’t think we can be complacent about our newest changes in technology. Books which are not digitized, and which survive in only one or two copies, may well be lost. Films that have not been digitized have sometimes been lost already, as the old filmstock deteriorates.

Nevertheless, the old media persist alongside the new, though usually for a niche public. Many ardent audiophiles still prefer vinyl, and it is being produced again in greater quantities. Torahs are still read from scrolls, and traditional Chinese painters may still chose handscrolls for panoramic landscapes. Printed books will be produced for the foreseeable future, and even if ebooks take over for most reading, art books and picture books will probably always be far better on paper.

But note that you will seldom hear someone say that you can’t really appreciate Homer if you don’t read his works as he (or they) intended, on scrolls. Or that Confucius can only be truly understood if you read the Analects on thin strips of bamboo tied together with rawhide, since that’s how they were first published. Books will be enjoyed just as much on ereaders as they ever were on paper and maybe, as technology improves, even more.