From time to time, I think of winnowing down and revising my published work into a collection of essays. And then kicks in the memory of having a player in literary publishing in New York (fully “made,” as they say in the Mafia) tell me, in the tone one would use in explaining things to a child, “You can’t publish a book of essays until you are somebody.”
Well, now I’ll keep in mind the example of John Emerson, whose writings appear at Idiocentrism and who regularly intervenes in the CT comments section. He has launched the Éditions le Real imprint with a book of his poems and a volume of essays.
The latter, called Substantific Marrow, contains the following items, among others:
Ressentiment and Schooling / Could Nietzsche have Married Jane Austen? / Van Gogh as Chump / Gautier’s Hippo / Oafs and Wimps / Aristotle and Mollusc Sex / Kenneth Burke Faked it Too / What Was Cratylus Trying to Say? / Parmenides in Szechuan / On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the Philosophers / Hemoglobin and Alchemy / Fish Milk / The Authenticity and Feng Shui of Bob Dylan / Satie and the Sewing Machine / W. C. Fields and the American Family Comedy / Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss / Agamben and Schmitt / Werewolves and the State / Orwell and Pacifism / Philosophers and Nuclear War / Transience and Water
They have been extracted and redacted from his website. Another book, this one of polemics, will appear in due course.
I post this in part because CT readers are the ideal audience; in part because Éditions le Real (part of Lulu) seems like a good example of the dispersal of authority for cultural production, per Yochai Benkler; and in part, finally, as a shameless effort to get for myself free copies of the books.
{ 29 comments }
John Emerson 07.18.07 at 12:45 pm
Thanks!
Editions Le Real is actually me. Its entire activity to date consists of publishing my two books. Lulu.com is more than just a printer and does some promotional work, but their role is limited.
chris y 07.18.07 at 1:59 pm
Can we have a “book event”, with guest posts from various blogs where Emerson pops up?
MQ 07.18.07 at 2:04 pm
Another book, this one of polemics, will appear in due course.
These will be extracted and redacted from his various web site comments.
thag 07.18.07 at 2:15 pm
John Emerson has been someone for some time.
P.D. 07.18.07 at 2:42 pm
Of course, Lulu puts the lie to any sentence of the form “You can’t publish X until Y.” Take a word processor document of X, navigate through Lulu, and in twenty minutes you’ll have a book in your on-line storefront.
(This is not to make any judgment of Emerson’s work. Publishing good content, well laid out still waits for several values of Y.)
John Emerson 07.18.07 at 3:24 pm
One feature of my book is that the documentation is on the web and can be quite extensive. For example, a short piece on Janus Vitalis’ Latin poem beginning “Qui Roman in media quaeris novus advena Roma” (translated as “Rome Entombed in its ruins”) is supplemented with eleven classic translations of that poem into five languages, Castiglione’s rather similiar Italian poem, some things about another late neo-Latin poet, something rather similiar by Brodsky, and an anecdote about Dr. Johnson.
Jonathan 07.18.07 at 3:48 pm
You should build an Inform 7 game around the title.
vanya 07.18.07 at 4:08 pm
I don’t know. After Emerson’s idiotic trolling yesterday in Yglesias’ monster Potter thread, my opinion of him may have to be revised significantly downward. Maybe he was just drunk.
John Emerson 07.18.07 at 4:21 pm
It was fun, Vanya! What a stupid issue. People who like Harry Potter have the right to like Harry Potter, and people who think that Harry Potter fans are idiots have the right to say that Harry Potter fans are idiots. That’s what they were fighting for at Valley Forge. That’s the American Way of Life.
I have absolutely no opinion of Harry Potter, never having read the book, but you can’t troll if you don’t have an opinion, so I adopted the anti-Potter position. As I said, though, I don’t understand the breadth and depth of the enthusiasm for Potter.
I suppose that on my deathbed I will regret having kicked off my book promotion campaign by insulting a hundred million people.
abb1 07.18.07 at 4:32 pm
I have absolutely no opinion of Harry Potter, never having read the book, but you can’t troll if you don’t have an opinion, so I adopted the anti-Potter position.
Excellent, John, you da man. Just don’t forget to always defend the minority position and the internets will never die.
rea 07.18.07 at 4:47 pm
I have absolutely no opinion of Harry Potter, never having read the book, but you can’t troll if you don’t have an opinion, so I adopted the anti-Potter position.
I say this as someone who has admired your work over the years, John, but the problem with what you did in the Yglesias thread was that you weren’t funny, and you didn’t seem to have a point you were trying to make, either.
John Emerson 07.18.07 at 4:50 pm
I thought that it was quite a stupid argument on both sides and was amazed at its intensity. I guess that my nihilist side took over.
vanya 07.18.07 at 4:59 pm
It was funny the first 5 or so posts, but then it got kind of old. Also, the point of the thread, such as it was, was mostly not really Potter, but a) whether or not “Petey” was making a factually true statement (i.e. Potter fans do not read other novels) b) to display one’s intellectual merits by listing how many great books you’ve read or Stravinsky pieces you know, so the trolling seemed kind of pointless in relation to those two topics. Anyway, enough of that.
rea 07.18.07 at 4:59 pm
I thought that it was quite a stupid argument on both sides and was amazed at its intensity. I guess that my nihilist side took over.
Goodness, John–if you’re not interested in the topic under discussion, you might try moving on to another thread, rather than interfering with a group of people who are happily discussing the topic you find uninteresting.
John Emerson 07.18.07 at 5:05 pm
People didn’t seem happy. They seemed to be trying to prove that they were not idiots, which someone apparently had said they were. It just seemed bizarre to me.
Damn, my moment of triumph ruined by a few throwaway posts. All I need is for Megan McArdle to wigh in and I’m doomed.
John Emerson 07.18.07 at 5:07 pm
Vanya, what’s your thing about Stravinsky? The whole thing with Russian music starting with Musorgsky was breaking the common-practice rules, which made the music seem crude with the Germanist establishment which had written the rules.
rea 07.18.07 at 5:23 pm
People didn’t seem happy. They seemed to be trying to prove that they were not idiots, which someone apparently had said they were.
Well, but you were particularly prominent on that list of “someones” who were calling people idiots.
You’re on the brink of high Broderism here, John–people shouldn’t be having arguments seems to be what you’re saying, and you’ll disrupt any attempt to have one.
John Emerson 07.18.07 at 5:30 pm
Well, I came in at about comment #250. I thought it was a pretty degenerate thread.
I thought that when I asked whether there’s been a study done to see if Potter readers were crack babies, my parodic intent would be understood. Perhaps I chose the wrong thread to make kind of joke.
blah 07.18.07 at 6:21 pm
Ah man. Can’t we just focus on John’s book rollout? Can’t we put Pottergate behind us and end our long national nightmare?
Doctor Slack 07.18.07 at 6:34 pm
I thought Emerson was pretty funny in that thread, actually.
vanya 07.18.07 at 7:25 pm
John,
I actually love Stravinsky. But, and maybe now I’m being a snob, I thought it was kind of funny on that thread for someone to be hauling out “Rite of Spring” to show how highbrow he is. To me early Stravinsky is like Van Gogh – radical for his time sure, but also very accessible today even to people who aren’t connaisseurs of the art form. I see no reason why early Stravinsky should be high-brow and Radiohead (to use that poster’s example) low-brow. I actually find Radiohead takes more work to appreciate (so I usually don’t bother).
John Emerson 07.18.07 at 7:31 pm
Damn. I was hoping that Great-Grandpa Vanya back in the old country had a beef with Stravinsky.
novakant 07.18.07 at 9:13 pm
so I usually don’t bother
oh no, that’s too bad, but understandable, which is why I would strongly suggest purchasing Pablo Honey and The Bends to appreciate the quite underrated and a lot less complex but more fun early oeuvre
Tyrone Slothrop 07.19.07 at 1:23 am
Vanya,
I’ve read By Night In Chile. Which Bolano should I read next?
grackle 07.19.07 at 2:20 am
Well, John, I’ve dutifully gone to young Yglesias to read your entire trolling effort- I still like your sense of humor. Can I have a free book?
John Emerson 07.19.07 at 2:24 am
My free book budget is exhausted, and I still owe two people, alas.
Grackles very striking birds, but they’re bullies and thoroughly evil-looking. I’ve watched them having sex, and there’s no foreplay and it only takes about five seconds.
Nothing personal about that, of course.
grackle 07.19.07 at 2:39 am
You obviously don’t know the long tailed grackle, which is a bird of another feather entirely. Kieran Healy could probably set you straight, if anyone could.
John Emerson 07.19.07 at 2:48 am
He’s had sex with a grackle? Eeeeeuuw.
dipnut 07.21.07 at 5:01 am
I guess that my nihilist side took over.
That happens to me on just about every CT comments thread. Or used to, back when I actually bothered to comment.
The list of essay titles from Substantific Marrow is, by itself, worth money. I don’t know whether this counts as “getting published”, but congratulations anyway!
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