The Tale of Genji by Royall Tyler (translator) arrived today. 1120 pages excluding appendix. One notable misfeature of this Penguin Classic “Deluxe” Edition is the absolutely crappy binding. And I mean the real binding – the pages don’t have the same width. Seen from above or below, the book has a distinct saw-like profile:
The Tale of Genji by Royall Tyler
+——————————_ | \ | | \ | | \ | | \ | +——————————_\
Don’t they have quality control anymore?
Another drawback of shopping for books online. 🙁
I also got half a dozen Elfquest comics. 😄
I found a lecture by the translator online on his translation! → Translating The Tale of Genji.
#Books #Genji
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I think this is actually a (pretentious?) technique that some printers use to make the book feel ’old’. Until the ?20th century books were printed with the signatures (sets of four pages) uncut so the edges were folded together. The first reader would have to cut these open with a paper knife, giving the rough-edge effect. We don’t have to cut pages open any more but now some publishers want to manufacture this effect.
Some discussion on Metafilter: http://ask.metafilter.com/43001/How-do-publishers-make-roughcut-pages.
http://ask.metafilter.com/43001/How-do-publishers-make-roughcut-pages
– Claudine 2007-04-11 00:03 UTC
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Thanks for the information. How strange to try and reproduce this effect when everything else about the book screams “modern!” – the cover, the art, the typography. They call it “progress” for a reason, haha. Oh well. I guess that’s what they mean when they say: “Each luxury volume features French flaps, *rough front*, [...]” ¹ (emphasis mine)
– Alex Schroeder 2007-04-11 07:18 UTC
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Another story about the old/new true/false etc..paradoxes:
William Gibson in “Pattern Recognition” often refer to a Buzz Rickson MA-1 black jacket that the anti-fashion heroin wears. Buzz Rickson is a japanese company specialized in high-quality reproduction of us-army old gear. But the us-army never had a black version of this jacket, so Buzz Rickson never made such a jacket, as a lot of people were asking for it, they made one.
So now, as a fan rejecting fashion, you can buy a trendy new original reproduction of something old that never existed :
http://historypreservation.com/hpassociates/detailpop.php?uniqnum=59