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Sempé Fi: By the Book
Filed under: Sempé Fi Tagged: art, books, covers, Daniel Zalewski, Eric Drooker, Hilary Mantel, Italo Calvino, J.R.R. Tolkien, James Wood, Joan Acocella, Lydia Davis, Pollux, Rebecca Mead
Pollux writes:
You call Eric Drooker when you need surreal cityscapes depicted at interesting angles. His past work has revealed multiple, parallel New York Cities ranging from neo-Egyptian versions of it to arctic visions of the city.
Now we have his cover for the October 19, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, called “In the World of Books.” Drooker has shown us visions of stacked books before, for the November 6, 2006 cover of The New Yorker.
However, while his 2006 cover depicted a man happily reading a book, on this 2009 cover we see a very small figure that is completely dwarfed by a series of book-skyscrapers. No reading is being done. The books look threatening here, not inviting. The books intimidate rather than nourish.
Drooker’s figure walks into a soft pastel glow, perhaps representing the light of knowledge. Are these books that he’s never read but really should? The volume of reading he needs to do is daunting.
I’m reminded by a passage from Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler, a book about books: “Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out: the Books You’ve Been Planning To Read For Ages, the Books You’ve Been Hunting For Years Without Success, the Books Dealing with Something You’re Working On At The Moment, the Books You Want to Own So They’ll Be Handy Just in case…”
Books are still with us, real books that have yet to be supplanted by upstart e-books and perhaps never will. They remain a dominant part of the culture, and the New York City publishing industry remains a vital part of the cultural landscape.
The October 19, 2009 issue of The New Yorker has within its page articles on books and the publishing world: Rebecca Mead’s piece on Alloy Entertainment (which, according to the company’s website, is “a fully integrated entertainment company that develops and produces original books, television series, and feature films”) and Joan Acocella’s review of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall.
The issue also contains Daniel Zalewski’s story on books for obstreperous children and James Wood on Lydia Davis’s short fiction.
Books are still with us. They’re our friends, our allies. But they seem less like friends on Drooker’s cover than sad giants increasingly neglected in a world filled with other distractions and entertainments. They are like Tolkien’s Ents: still very formidable and powerful, but increasingly enshrouded by sadness and oblivion.
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Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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