First, I must thank David for calling me out on my incorrect identification of a comma splice. Oops. I stand humbled. I guess I should have been more careful, knowing his involvement in the AWD program here at Northeastern.
Returning to Book Business:As I mentioned in my last post, I had not finished the book before I voiced my concerns with its style and content. Well, I have finished it now, and my opinion of it has changed slightly. The second half of the book provides more of what I was expecting before I began reading: a unique and informative look into the publishing industry from one of its most important figures. The namedropping is still there, but it is in much lower proportion to Epstein's insight into how the industry changed in the '70s and '80s, and how it is changing again. Whether or not this information could have been sifted from the autobiographical aspects of the book is debatable, and moot in any case. I certainly understand this book's importance to our class now, and I feel as if I have gleaned important information about the publishing industry and its history. While Epstein could get tedious with his anecdotes, his history of the trade gave me a new perspective on the world of which I hope to become a part.
We've covered how much Epstein misses the mark with the book ATM idea, but in other places I found he has at least an inkling of what was to come in the better part of a decade separating 2009 from the publication of Book Business. He mentions a few times how reference books are outdated the moment they are put in print, due to their constantly changing subject material; he then postulates that such materials are perfect for digitization because their information can be updated instantaneously. I thought of dictionary.com, the OED, and, of course, Wikipedia. Similarly, Epstein writes of the fantasy of a "vast, multilingual virtual library" (177) - well, Mr. Epstein, your prayers have been half-answered in Project Gutenberg and Wikisource.
Conclusion on Book Business: I have determined that my problems with it lie in the misleading presentation. The title and subtitle give no indication of the autobiographical passages that constitute a large portion of the book, and neither does the description on the back cover. I think if I had anticipated this aspect, I would have had a gentler opinion of the work.
It’s a Beeping Problem
2 months ago
Peter: this is a good entry, though I hope you haven't pulled punches for my sake.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about the issue of punctuation in Epstein's style. If I were his editor, I'd add more commas, especially between major phrases. (Epstein would write "If I were his editor I'd take out commas especially between major phrases.") I think that what constitutes a readable prose style has changed over the past twenty years; in a nutshell, Epstein's style seems to be that of an earlier generation -- even earlier than his actual generation, because his style was formed in response to reading. This may be an interesting subject for class discussion: editorial decisions at the level of sentence style are rarely absolute and change over time.