PRADEEP SEBASTIAN
The HinduOn the fortunes of the book: Jean-Claude Carriere (left) and Umberto Eco. Photos: S.S. Kumar and T. Singaravelou
Dips into a long, rambling conversation on the nature of the book by two artists: Umberto Eco and Jean Claude Carriere .
Umberto Eco and Jean Claude Carriere carried on a long, rambling conversation on the nature of the book over several sessions at their two homes. The conversation was ‘curated’ by editor Jean Philippe Tonnac and became a book. They called it This Is Not The End Of The Book; (and the semi colon is very much part of the title).
Disappointingly, there’s very little here, bibliographically speaking, about the printed book. And even less about the digital book, though the jacket blurb opens with how difficult it is these days to get away from discussions on whether the printed book will survive the digital revolution.
Unfamiliar with e-readers
The scriptwriter and the author surprisingly seem unfamiliar with newer e-readers; references to e-readers feel antiquated for a fairly recent conversation on the nature of the book: Eco speaks of how impractical it is to take the computer to read in bed. No one brings up the Kindle or the iPad.
We are living for the first time in an era, Eco says, where there are “so many beautiful, light-filled bookshops to wander in...” Their conversation turns interesting when they speak of book hunting in forgotten antiquarian bookshops, the times spent in old libraries, and the architectural beauty of the printed book. When they speak of the book in various cultures, the book as an idea, it is less interesting — and that’s most of the book. Though Carriere rambles more and Eco is more precise, Carriere is the more interesting for his wide ranging, multicultural references. Eco dully stays Euro-centric, referencing Greek-Latin and Spanish book history, while Carriere talks of Persian manuscripts, Sufi poets, the Mahabharata, the dance of Shiva and ancient African libraries (like the great ancient library in Timbuktu).
The argument of both these wonderful book artists is that “the book represents a sort of unsurpassable perfection in the realm of the imagination.” In a leisurely style, using personal stories, the two men meditate on the “good and bad fortunes of the book”. A perspective of the book that emerges is that it isn’t valuable in itself as an object because not all books are good or great or masterpieces. So why save what is mediocre or trashy? So, the book as an object isn’t meant to be sacred, and is not to be made a fetish. For Eco the book becomes a way of storing cultural information that one does not need to be burdened with; the book is ‘a fridge’.
Eco scores when he predicts that whatever forms the future book will take, it will have to look and feel like the traditional printed book. “The book is like the spoon. Once invented, it cannot be improved.” Electronic media formats are notoriously ephemeral, observe both writers. Eco recalls once hunting for an early version of Foucault’s Pendulum, which he had on floppy discs, but he couldn’t find them probably because they were thrown out. If it had been a typed manuscript, he points out, he would have found it somewhere in the house. After years of resisting having a film library of his own, Carriere gave in when the DVD came and began making his film collection and now the DVD is on its way out. But the tenacious incunabula, early printed books from the 15th century that both men collect, remain the same.
Passion for books
Eco admits that, though he speaks passionately of the printed book, if there was a fire in his house the first thing he would take with him is his 250 gigabyte hard drive. Both men are collectors of rare and expensive books; they reminisce about tracking down certain editions they were obsessed with and divulge their collecting criteria: Carriere’s is eclectic; one special focus is a collection of Persian books. Eco’s primary focus is collecting ancient, rare and antiquarian books on fakes.
Eco has 50,000 books, out of which 1,200 are very rare. Carriere has around 40,000 not counting his large collection of legends and fairly tales. The book he values most in his collection — the one he would grab if his library was on fire — is a 1490 volume with wonderful illustrations, plates and folded pages. Carriere would grab an “Alfred Jarry manuscript, as well as one by Andre Breton, and a book by Lewis Carroll that contains a letter he wrote.” Carriere shares an anecdote about a book scout he knew who rode in a moped carrying antiquarian treasures in a plastic bag on its handlebars!
The Gutenberg galaxy isn’t the only thing discussed; Eco and Carriere go further back and invoke parchments, scrolls, manuscripts. In ancient Rome, Eco tells us for instance, little shops sold scrolls. You dropped into one of them before heading into the library (or soon after) and asked for the latest bestseller. A week later something, say, by Virgil was copied just for you and kept ready to be picked up.
Eco also tells us that only now we know that old libraries — like those fabled monastic medieval libraries — did not hold thousands of volumes; perhaps around 400 to each library. The printed book, masterfully typeset, illustrated, bound and printed in its infancy, was expensive; 400 was a lot of copies to have in one collection.
Umberto is at his best when he speaks of books and his childhood. When he was five or six, his grandfather who had been a typographer and a bookbinder died and Eco discovered his bookshelves which held stacks of books waiting to be bound. They were all kinds of books from splendidly illustrated adventure books to science books to erotic books. They were in boxes in the cellar and Umberto would be sent down to collect coal to heat the house, and he would linger with these boxes.
Once, more recently, Eco was looking for a book in his library and his secretary suggested ordering the shelves but Eco protested; he wanted to roam and look and find it somewhere rather than go straight to it. Carriere speaks of sometimes just looking at his books. Not touching them or taking them out. Just standing and looking. And remembers coming upon Jean Luc Goddard more than once just staring at cans and cans of his film reels arranged on shelves!
Eco says keeping an old clock in your library wards off worms; the minute vibrations of the tick-tock of the clock through the night keeps the worms tucked into the woodwork. What would happen, asks Tonnac, to their books after their death? Eco hopes to leave it to libraries and not break it up; Carriere will let his wife and children and friends decide.
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