In honor of Rev. Terry and his used furniture business

I cannot brook neo-Nazis.  So when news came of the for-profit used-furniture e-Bay church called “the Dove World Outreach Center” (someone with a sense of irony chose that name) burning Talmuds and Qur’ans, I felt I had to do something.

I’m not a big fan of Koranic studies.  Worse, the most popular English translations of the Qur’an are financed by the Saudi government (often with wildly anti-Semitic commentary) – so it is not easy to find decent translations.  But Rev. Terry pushed me over the edge – I decided to order the recent shiny nice new bilingual translation published by Oxford (with a revised translation).  I trust it will be a nice supplement to my other translations (my current favorite) the bilingual Princeton Qur’an translation, the Arberry Koran, and the liberal American translation by Laleh Bakhtiar. 

Plus, as a bonus, I decided to get Oliver Leaman’s encyclopedia (because who can’t love a Qur’an commentary edited by a Jew?)  to supplement my copy of the “Westerner contributors only” of the Cambridge Companion.

So thank you, Reverend Terry. Without your ravings and ability to attract an incredible amount of publicity for acting like a fool, I’d have more space on my bookshelf.

The Arden Shakespeare empire expands

When Cenage (which was spun off from Thomson which had acquired Routledge) bought Houghton-Mifflin, there was great fear in the Shakespeare book-lover community that it would spell doom for the Arden Shakespeare – volumes that contained deep commentary and annotations on Shakespeare editions.  Houghton-Mifflin already had its own set of preferred Shakespeare textbooks – works that were far more pedestrian than the Arden editions.

And, that prognostication turned out to be partly correct – Cenage dumped Arden as quickly as it could – selling it back to Metheun (its publisher through from 1899 through 1980).  And back in its rightful home, the Arden Shakespeare is doing exciting things.

One of the most exciting is the release of a new Early Modern Drama series, with Arden-style commentary and annotations of Everyman and Mankind, Philaster, and The Duchess of Malfi on the way in less than two weeks and (reportedly) The Renegado coming out next year.

So hooray.  Unable to handle a unit of true quality, the mega-publishers actually spun off the Arden Shakespeare to a small publisher – its original home – that seems to take some pride in its publications.

(By the way, while I strongly recommend the Arden for their critical commentary, I cannot recommend them as a reading edition of Shakespeare.  You should take Kevin Edgecomb’s advice and buy a nicely printed multi-volume edition.)

Bible revision madness

I’m only maintaining a few subscriptions to Bible blogs – a large number have become irrelevant to my current interest.  But I still read a few, and the big news this week is:  the NIV is being revised again.

In a very real sense this is completely irrelevant to me:  I did not like, read, or trust the NIV or the TNIV.  I found the translations biased, simplified, and (in the case of the TNIV) ungrammatical.  My opinion is that popular modern Bible translation theory is in a rut (as is, sadly, much discussion about it) – the only translations in the last decade or so I can get excited about are those of Craig Smith, Robert Alter, and Everett Fox. 

And, after all, translations wars are small beer anyway.  (Ignoring source text criticism issues) the original text says what it says.  Any serious discussion needs to refer back to the original text.  (However, I admit to finding English translations of the Targums and Septuagint useful.) 

Furthermore, there are already a wealth of translations into English representing reading levels ranging from grammar school to moderately sophisticated and a variety of different belief systems.  It is hard to believe that a new translation could have a real impact with readers – at best it could merely hope to jostle some other “flavor of the month” recent translation in sales rating.

Perhaps the death of the TNIV is a blow for those Evangelicals who hoped to for their translation to have an impact on secular educational materials (currently, the NRSV and RSV [and in literature, the KJV] are dominant here).  The TNIV looked to be one of the few translations that had some impact outside the Evangelical world – for example, the TNIV was used in an(outstanding) secular textbook: the Norton Critical Edition of Writings of St. Paul. 

One reaction among biblio-bloggers surprises me.  Many people are saying:  “what shall we do until the new edition is out” as if the TNIV were somehow rendered unacceptable by the decision to revise it.  It reminds me of the pitches given by publishers when a new edition of a dictionary or cookbook comes out – one is hardly required to buy the new edition. 

Indeed, the old editions remain on the market for a long time (and, in the used market, continue to be available even longer.)  Thus a reader who desires a copy of the “out-of-date” editions such as the RSV, Living Bible, Confraternity Bible, JPS 1917 Holy Scriptures, RV, Geneva translation, etc. has a wide variety of choices both on the new and used market).

As a reader, you can read, cite, use, and study any translation you want.  And if you are worried about there being a dearth of supplementary materials, you are welcome to use any translation you want with any commentary you want.

If you visit a university bookstore, you will find that instructors – even in the hard sciences and mathematics – regularly use textbooks from the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s (and sometimes even back to the ‘30s) – indeed, one popular publisher, Dover, specializes in reprinting these volumes.

As far as the merits of the NIV 2011 are concerned, we’ll have to wait and see – it is absurd to begin to judge it before work has even begun on it.  Since the NIV took 13 years (1965-1978) for the first edition and the TNIV took at least 9 years (1996 [publication date of the NIVi] – 2005) , I’m a bit surprised that the translators feel they can do an adequate job with only a two year timeline.  But let’s wait and see.

In the meanwhile, there is little need to gnash teeth.  The ideas that inspired the changes from the NIV to the TNIV cannot be erased with the announcement of a new translation.

Cheap Matthew’s Bible facsimile coming

Hendrickson is continuing its program of publishing excellent editions of facsimile Bibles:  in addition to its outstanding Geneva 1560 Bible facsimile (an excellent value) and its 1526 Tyndale New Testament facsimile, it is publishing a facsimile 1537 facsimile Matthew’s Bible.

The new Matthew’s Bible is available in both leather and hardcover; although I have not seen the editions yet, I usually recommend the hardcover (if only because limp leather bindings were not used in the 16th century).  In my experience, the paper without gilding is of slightly higher quality in Hendrickson publications.

One person even had his Hendrickson rebound to give it a more antiquarian look.  But I don’t think there was anything wrong with the original Hendrickson binding.

The Matthew’s Bible was printed in Gothic script (sample text), so it takes a few minutes to orient oneself to read it, but it should be a wonderful resource.  In many ways, facsimile editions are better than original editions – you can never find an original edition in the find condition of a good facsimile.

Here are some of my other favorite facsimiles:

Facsimile Leningrad Codex

Facsimile Shakespeare First Folio

Facsimile Luther Bible (out of print, but a fantastic value when it was in print given the quality of illustrations)

Taschen publishes a wide variety of relatively inexpensive illustrated facsimile editions (e.g., check out this forthcoming version of Matisse’s Jazz or the high quality reproduction of Theuerdank.)

On preferring grape soda to grape juice

Today I had a first experience – for the first time I found myself preferring an art catalogue to an actual exhibition.

The exhibition has already displayed at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, is currently at the Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), and thence to Musée Guimet (Paris), Museum of East Asian Art (Cologne), and finally the Museum Rietberg Zürich.  I saw in San Francisco.  Some highlights of the exhibition can be found here; see also the entry point here.

An example of the problem can be found with this piece, one of a series of 12 18-19th century thangkas showing scenes from the Jātaka Tales, stories of the Buddha’s previous life.  Take a quick look at the link, and ask yourself what you are looking at.  It is almost incomprehensible to a Westerner.  In fact, there is a central of the Śākyamuni surrounded by 10 different stories.  The charm of the painting is improved by a knowledge of the stories, but the museum signage for the thangka is not annotated with an explanation.  Even worse, the exhibit had poor lighting (perhaps to protect the thangkas, but more likely out of a casual disregard for how art was displayed, since other thangkas were well illuminated).  (I have read portions of the Jātaka Tales in the Pali text society edition; but the explanation in the exhibition’s catalogue was concise, well illustrated, tasteful, and clear.)

Another example – an important part of the exhibition is the recording, apparently for the first time, of a type of tantric yoga dance:  “cham.”  This is represented in the catalogue by a 40 minute DVD containing highlights of more than 300 hours of recorded dances.  The DVD itself is particularly well annotated and is one of the most gripping examples of religious dance that I can remember seeing.  In the museum, these dance sequences were represented by LCDs hanging all over the museum, blasting out music – creating an effect midway between going to a children’s science museum and one of those tourist trap Times Square stores (e.g., M&M World).

In fact, the catalogue, which was printed and bound, allows for many of the pieces a better view than possible in the museum – for sculpture, the illustrations are usually enlarged in the catalogue, and with a magnifying glass, it is possible to discern far more detail than one could see in the poorly-lit exhibit.

This experience has made me think more about the advantages of simulacra.  My next post is about more levels of simulara.

Best Jane Austen Yet?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

From the publisher’s description

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you’d actually want to read.

JANE AUSTEN is the author of Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and other masterpieces of English literature.

SETH GRAHAME-SMITH once took a class in English literature. He lives in Los Angeles.

Books on my Amazon pre-order list

Here are the latest four books on my Amazon pre-order list.  I can’t claim they are reviews – after all, the books have not even been published yet, but they look sufficiently promising for me to commit my credit card number:

The Book of Dead Philosophers – this purports to be a set of brief accounts of about 200 philosophers’ lives and deaths.  It is compiled by a well-known philosopher, Simon Critchley, Philosophy Chair at the New School and the Chief Philosopher of the whimsical International Necronautical Society.  There are page previews available at Amazon of the British edition and they had me laughing out loud.  (Note:  after I pre-ordered this, I came across this favorable article.)

The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989 – this is the catalogue of the just opened art show at the New York Guggenheim (a show that I will be seeing soon.)  Here are some sections from a New York Times review (that is written in an atrociously informal style – since when did the Times allow writers to use “for sure” in the first sentence of one of their pieces?):  “The first thing you see is a 1970 piece by the West Coast conceptualist Paul Kos: a circle of microphones clustered around a block of melting ice, picking up the sound of every crack and drip. Up the ramp is the famous ink and brush painting of a circle, triangle and square by Sengai Gibon (1750-1837). It’s a Zen Mona Lisa, on a rare loan from Japan.  And just beyond that is The Death of James Lee Byars: an open-front box, a kind of teahouse as wide as a two-car garage, lined with blazing gold leaf, with a bierlike platform inside. Mr. Byars, an American Buddhist dandy, long resident in Japan, made the piece when he was very much alive and sometimes lay on the bier ‘practicing death.’  Now that he’s gone – he died in 1997 – five small crystals take his place. The show finds the museum unusually full of sounds, however faint. Bells held in a kind of cage periodically sail down the spiral and ring. Synthesizers drone and vibrate away somewhere, and an amplified buzzing of bees has, when you get close, the roar of fighter planes.  Periodically parcels of books descend by pulley from on high, as part of an elaborate – overly elaborate – installation by Ann Hamilton. Lights flash in the dark; paintings all but disappear into walls.”  The catalogue should arrive from Amazon just before I leave on my trip, so I can study up in advance.

Blank Spots on a Map:  the Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World – so this is a bit of a ringer – I know the author Trevor Paglen.  Trevor is a graduate student in geography and an artist specializing in trying to understand US intelligence efforts.  He conducts tours of secret military sites and is interested in mapping out the “black world.”  He took photographs and co-authored one of the most amazing travel books of all time, Torture Taxi, on the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, and collected the mysterious shoulder patches (think merit badges for the military) of a number of US intelligence missions in I Could Tell You But Then I Would Have To Be Destroyed By Me.  Steven Aftergood has some strong opinions about this new book by Trevor, and Steven reports that it focuses a great deal on “[the] Groom Lake facility in Nevada, secret prisons in Afghanistan, secret satellite constellations in orbit, secret contractor locations around Washington, DC, and elsewhere.”  This should be out in two weeks from Amazon.

The NRSV Notetaker’s Bible – J. Mark Bertrand calls wide-margin Bibles “the thinking man’s study Bible.” Rick Mansfield says “I feel like I haven't really used a Bible if I haven't written in it.”  There is no doubt about it – wide-margin Bibles are a delight, whether for taking notes or making doodles.  Thanks in part to energetic support from those two writers, a number of publishers are releasing wide-margin Bibles.  If you read Hebrew, one of the best is this beauty, which I heartily recommend.  If you read the Bible in English you have a number of choices, but it is exciting news that the closest thing we have to a “universal English translation”, the celebrated New Revised Standard Version, is coming out in two editions (regular and deluxe).  The deluxe cloth edition looks especially thick and useful.  Sample pages posted on the Internet look great.

Writing about books

I love many things:  I love cinema and concerts and theater and recorded music and museums and photography and architecture and dance and worship and ideas and lectures and sports and even more.

But most of all, I love books.  I am happy that I know how to read.  I am happy to have contact with people and ideas that I would otherwise never encounter because of great gaps in time or space.  I enjoy “arguing” with Aristotle and having him be my teacher.

But books are suffering from a long slump.  The signs are all around us: publishers are laying off employees, sales are down, bookstores are closing . . . you can add to the list yourself.  (On the bright side, providers such as the Internet Archive, Google Books, Amazon Kindle, etc are making a wide variety of older books available, although in many cases, they are doing so with some indifference to quality, as my friend Paul Duguid has amply demonstrated in a spectacular essay.)

Here is one marker:  newspapers are writing less about books.  Motoko Rich reports that the Washington Post has just announced it is ending the publishing of its standalone “Book World” section, following in the footsteps of other major newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times.  It appears that the only major American newspapers that are still publishing separate book sections are the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.  The granddaddies of book review tabloids, the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books, are not really comparable to what they were even a decade ago – certainly even more so from the time when they featured essays from the likes of T. S. Eliot and Virigina Woolf.  And TLS and NYRB are really aimed at a very narrow audience – quite different from the hypothetical “late-thirties-something woman, a lawyer or educator or businesswoman” who was “busy with work, and also with family matters” “but that doesn't mean that she isn't interested in . . . the Book Review. She has a lively mind, she's curious. She wants to know about the public debates that are taking place. It's simply that these public debates are not her primary concern and so you have to pull her in.”

It is a sad day that the great populist medium, newspapers, are passing on their responsibility to critically discuss instances of such a fundamental atom of cultural transmission as individual books. 

This only motivates me more to write about books.  Perhaps this blog, like most, will ultimately only have a few dozen readers (which is, to be sure, most likely several times what it has at the moment).  But if someone is one day encouraged to read one book on the basis of accidentally coming across this blog through a Web search or a random link – then it will have been worth the effort.

In the meanwhile, I have even less reason to read the Washington Post now – because in the end, what really matters is not the daily blur of news from government and industry, but the long lasting ideas of significance that fill our inner core.  And that is far more likely to appear in a book.

Do elaborate Web sites stimulate book sales?

“But do book sites really help sell books? As in so much of publishing, no one quite knows.”  That is the conclusion reached by an article in the New York Times.  I am inclined to suspect that in most cases (with a major exception, perhaps being reference works, where one may consult with a web site to “look up” a fact) Web sites do not sell books.  I suspect that book buyers are a more careful lot, not so easily impressed by a site that uses Flash and Javascript.  Moreover, most book web sites that I see are painfully non-interactive – they often do not have a method for reader interaction.  So perhaps I am setting my sights low when I say that I hope that mention of a book by me here can inspire more sales than an elaborate web site.

The blurb as an art form

Voxstefani has a semi-serious post about blurbs.  I am afraid that I have never taken blurbs very seriously; seeing my own words quoted on book blurbs has made me realize how distorted these are, and how much the person being quoted on the blurb benefits from the added publicity.

But having recently posted about wonderful book Eunoia, let me praise its blurbs – I am particularly fond of science fiction author and Temple University professor Samuel R. Delany’s blurb:

Eunoia is a novel that will drive everybody sane.

No safe haven

Sad book news:  Even the famous Oxford University Press, the grandest of all university publishers in the English language, is laying off 60 of its American employees.