Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

ahead ofits time, and as for sales, it won't do more than two thousandcopies, twenty-five hundred tops. Well, two thousand more thancovers all the people De Gubernatis knows, and an SFA doesn't thinkin planetary terms¡Xor, rather, his planet consists of familiarfaces: schoolmates, bank managers, fellow teachers in the highschool, retired colonels. The SFA wants to bring his poetry to allthese people, even to those who couldn't care less, like thebutcher or the prefect of police. Faced by the risk that Garamondmight back oif (and remember: everybody at home, in town andoffice, knows that De Gubernatis has submitted his manuscript to abig Milan publisher), he will make some quick calculations. Hecould empty his savings account, take out a loan against hispension, mortgage the house, cash in those few government bonds.Paris is well worth a mass. Shyly, he will oifer to underwrite someof the costs. Garamond will look upset. ¡¥That is not the usualpractice of Manutius, but, well, all right, it's a deal, you'vetalked me into it, even Proust and Joyce had to bow to harshnecessity. The costs are so high, for the present we'll plan on twothousand copies, though the contract will provide for up to tenthousand. You'll receive two hundred author's copies, to send toanyone you like, another two hundred will be review copies, becausewe want to promote the book as if this were the new Stephen King.That leaves sixteen hundred for commercial distribution. On these,obviously, no royalties for you, but if the book catches on and wego into a second printing, you'll get twelve percent.' "

Later I saw the standardcontract that De Gubernatis, now on his poetic trip, would signwithout even reading, while Signor Garamond's bookkeeper loudlyprotested that the costs had been grossly underestimated. Ten pagesof clauses in eight-point type: foreign rights, subsidiary rights,dramatizations, radio and television serialization, film rights,Braille editions, abridgments for Reader's Digest, guaranteesagainst libel suits, all disputes to be settled by Milan courts.The SFA, lost in dreams of glory, would not notice the clause thatspecified a maximum print run of ten thousand but mentioned nominimum or the clause that said the amount to be paid by the authorwas independent of the print run (which was agreed upon onlyverbally), or the clause that said¡Xmost important of all¡Xthat thepublisher had the right to pulp all unsold copies after one yearunless the author wished to buy them at half the list price. Signon the dotted line.

The launching would belavish. Ten-page press releases, with biography and criticalessays. No modesty; the newspaper editors would toss them outanyway. The actual printing: one thousand copies, of which onlythree hundred and fifty would be bound. Two hundred to the author,about fifty to minor or associated bookshops, fifty to provincialmagazines, about thirty to the newspapers, just in case they neededto fill a couple of lines in the Books Received column. Thesecopies would later be given as donations to hospitals orprisons¡Xand you can see why the former don't heal and the latterdon't redeem.

In summer thePetruzzellis della Gattina Prize, a Garamond creation, would beawarded. Total cost: two days' meals and lodging for the jury, plusa Nike of Samothrace, in vermeil, for the winner. Congratulatorytelegrams from other Manutius authors.

Finally, the moment oftruth. A year and a half later, Garamond writes: Dear friend, as Ifeared, you are fifty years ahead of your time. Rave reviews in thedozens, awards, critical acclaim, ca va sans dire. But few copiessold. The public is not ready. We are forced to make space in thewarehouse, as stipulated in the contract (copy enclosed). Unlessyou exercise your right to buy the unsold copies at half the listprice, we must pulp them.

De Gubernatis goes madwith grief. His relatives console him: People just don't understandyou, of course if you belonged to the right clique, if you sent therequisite bribe, by now they'd have reviewed you in the Corrieredella Sera, it's all Mafia, you have to hold out. Only fiveauthor's copies are left, and there are still so many importantpeople to whom the work should go. You can't allow your writing tobe pulped, recycled into toilet paper. Let's see how much we canscrape together, maybe we can buy back five hundred copies, and forthe rest, sic transit gloria mundi.

Manutius still has sixhundred and fifty copies in unbound sheets. Signor Garamond hasfive hundred of them bound and shipped, COD. The final balance: theauthor paid the production costs for two thousand copies, Manutiusprinted one thousand and bound eight hundred and fifty, of whichfive hundred were paid for a second time. About fifty authors ayear, and Manutius always ends up well in the black. And withoutremorse: Manutius is dispensing happiness.

40

Cowards die many timesbefore their deaths.

¡XShakespeare, JuliusCaesar, II, 2

I was always aware of aconflict between Belbo's devotion in working with his respectableGaramond authors, his efforts to get from them books he could beproud of, and the piratical zeal with which he contributed to theswindling of the hapless Manutius authors, even referring to ViaMarchese Gualdi those he considered unsuitable for Garamond, as Ihad seen him attempt to do with Colonel Ardenti.

Working with Belbo, Ioften wondered why he accepted this arrangement. I don't think itwas the money. He knew his trade well enough to find abetter-paying position.

For a long time Ithought he did it because it enabled him to pursue his study ofhuman folly from an ideal observation point. As he never tired ofpointing out, he was fascinated by what he called stupidity¡Xtheimpregnable paralogism, the insidious delirium hidden behind theimpeccable argument. But that, too, was a mask. It was Diotalleviwho did it for fun, or perhaps hoping that a Manutius book mightsomeday offer an unprecedented combination of the Torah. And I,too, participated, for the amusement, the irony, out of curiosity,especially after Garamond launched Project Hermes.

For Belbo it was adifferent story. This became clear to me after I went into hisfiles.

FILENAME:Vendetta

She simply arrives. Evenif there are people in the office, she grabs me by my lapels,thrusts her face forward, and kisses me. How does that song go?"Anna stands on tiptoe to kiss me." She kisses me as if she wereplaying pinball.

She knows it embarrassesme. Puts me