Book Commentary
January 24, 2003
By Michael
Well, the other Cecelia Holland we had, Rakossy, went out just a few weeks after that posting (above); we haven't any other Hollands in since. I did get around to reading her latest, The Soul Thief, set in Tenth? Eleventh? century England mostly, it was very good, very moody and weird, even. And beautifully written.
The holidays came and went; I didn't make time to bring things up to date here. I don't know if anyone actually reads these notes; if somebody who does wishes to comment, or rant, whatever, they can always send me an email. Its terrible being a borderline illiterate and helping to run a bookstore, but I do the best I can. I may even answer your emails.
Amongst other travails, I have been helping out Scott in setting up our inventory database. Not everything! Just what we think will go out on the internet. And, as usual, when you run over what you have in detail like that ( I'm sure there are many of you out there who have experienced this) you are startled over what is actually there. This book on Prehistoric Avesbury, for instance. I thought we sold this over the holidays. It is such a nice book, even if you see it here and there, not that uncommon, you know, but such fine black and white photos, a few in colour; the dedication to William Stukeley, the fine line drawings, I had forgotten how attractve this book was.
Now, Koenigsberger's The Practice of Empire is not in the least an attractive book, and not for every taste, but I find this fascinating: losing yourself in another world, the minutiae of administrative life in sixteenth century Hapsburg Sicily. Peasant distrust, corruption in the (by modern standards) tiny spanish bureaucracy, the intolerable local aristos and their feuds: I just love that stuff. Maybe I'm mad. Shelve it next to your copy of Braudel's Mediterranean World and watch them duke it out.
This sort of thing can be very handsomely produced. Take, for example, The Gallery of Memory by Lina Bolzoni. First published in Italian in 1995, the University of Toronto released this translation six years later, It is a beautiful book: acid-free paper, cloth boards, a colour illustration section with black and white illustrations in the text, an attractive colour dustjacket. And the text! A classic work on memory culture in sixteenth century Italy, studying a "striking paradox": the diffusion of oral culture reaching its apogee at the same time as the birth of the printed book.
Another attractive book I forgot we even had was Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art, by Sarah Morris. This book won a number of awards back in 1994, when it first came out. Wasn't there quite a bit of controversy starting, back then (or earlier) over the degree of Egyptian or Levantine influence in Greek society? I imagine this was one of the contributors. Covering Art History, Archaeology and Mythology, Morris suggests the origins of Greek art will be better understood if myth is used as a paradigm (perhaps an overused word). Again, a fine roomy attractive text, but, of course, too big to read in bed (26 by 19cm).
We do have a couple of, um, special Tolkien editions. The Lost Road and other writings (from the History of Middle-Earth) is the first U.K. edition, and scarce. The Unwin hardcovers are pleasantly understated compared to some American editions. This one is no exception. We also have in a Harper Collins slipcase Hobbit, with the Master's illustrations. It's handsome, nicely bound and of a good heft, but not as nice as the older Houghton Miffllin editions from the Seventies, I think, also slipcased and with Tolkien's illustrations (including a number of colour watercolours). Since viewing the Jackson films I've become an unapologetic Tolkien fanatic (my second youth, already) and I will only mention how surprised I was, on reading them again, at the beauty of his writing, fully poetic at times, and its mythic strength. Take that, Sarah Morris, what you will.
Prehistoric Avesbury by Aubrey Burl. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1979. $26.
The Practice of Empire by H.G. Koenigsberger. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1969. $25.
Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art by Sarah P. Morris. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1992. $25.
The Gallery of Memory: Literacy and Iconographic Models in the Age of the Printing Press by Lina Bolzoni. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2001. $40.
The Lost Road and other writings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Unwin and Hyman, London and Sydney, 1987. First U.K. edition. $75.
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Harper Collins, London, 2001. $60.