The canon will roar in classic clash of the publishing titans
Stuart Kelly
Scotland on Sunday, December 17th
AS 2006 draws to a close, and the Pick of the Year log-rolling and back-slapping fade to a distant memory, the Browser's eyes turn to the New Year, and the advance hype about what will be the titles to watch in 2007.
I can confidently predict a rush of wunderkinden, some weighty tomes by established names, which will receive "height of powers" and "over the hill" reviews in equal measure, a surprise non-fiction bestseller and a spat over the Man Booker Prize. It's August, however, that looks most interesting.
Random House has announced 20 titles, including a book about an orphan lured into crime and abused by the establishment by "Charles", a maths-and-meanings drugs fantasy with a prepubescent heroine by "Lewis", a tragic rural love triangle with incestuous overtones by "George", and a lad-lit extravaganza of bonking and boozing by "Henry". Or, in other words, Dickens' Oliver Twist, Carroll's Alice In Wonderland, Eliot's The Mill On The Floss and Fielding's Tom Jones.
Random has set its sights on the lucrative classics market, which at present is dominated by Penguin, which has 65% of the market share. By Christmas next year, Random House intends to have 50 titles, and promises half a dozen or so each month for the next five years.
It's a smart move - no pesky royalty payments for most of the authors, for one thing - and the recent success of Headline Review's "chick-lit" style rebranding of Jane Austen shows that there are ways to build new audiences for literary greats.
There's another, more self-interested reason: Random House wants to 'protect' its contemporary authors from drifting into the Penguin Classics range as they leave copyright.
Already, the Vintage division has been releasing as "future classics" successful titles such as Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife. It will be interesting to see how this clash of the titans shapes up.
And while it's easy to see why Random House would be keen for a slice of the "costume drama" classics - all the ones yet to be adapted by Andrew Davies or star Keira Knightley - I hope they'll also look at the more esoteric titles. Penguin is pushing hard to release African, Arabic, Indian and Eastern titles. Will Random House expand its already considerable commitment to Chinese and Japanese authors?
Hunting of the snark
I am, apparently, a snark. I should explain: I recently participated in a debate for Product magazine, about Scottish literature and criticism, with Professor Willy Maley of Glasgow University. And a merry old ding-dong we had, as befits a fair and frank exchange of views between professionals.
I was therefore a little surprised to see a rather partial account of it on the blog of a young writer called Alan Bissett. Most of his blogs revolve around the perfidy of critics - the old "any opinion as long as its good" conundrum. I am not only a snark, but a jeer-leader, and the bad cop, and presumably when I'm not reviewing books I'm pulling the wings off flies and telling children the truth about Father Christmas. A stark contrast to the "sheer delight in writers" which Bissett attributes to Maley.
For the record, Bissett teaches on the Glasgow Creative Writing course, the co-founder of which is Professor Maley; and even dedicated his latest anthology, Outside Of A Dog, to his boss ("a scholar and a gentleman"). Apparently critics are supposed to provide "Legal Aid" for writers. So I suppose I should clarify what the Book Pages are not: an extension of the marketing departments of publishers or, for that matter, creative writing courses.
-------------------------------------------------
Alan Bissett, Glasgow / 5:39pm 17 Dec 2006
I should point out that I did not dedicate Outside of a Dog to Willy Maley, nor call him 'a gentleman and a scholar', but the students - who put the anthology together and merely asked me to write the introduction - did. Nor is Willy Maley my boss. The convener of the Creative Writing MLitt is Professor Michael Schmidt.
Shall we call this a 'partial account' of my 'partial account'?
No comments:
Post a Comment