Orders for Wolf Hall, the Hilary Mantel book about history and stuff that just won the Booker, are about a month behind for delivery now. (Online orders placed on October 12 with arrive between November 3 and November 16, says Amazon, which: WTF.) And the few bookstores that remain in New York City say it is sold out. It's not crazy that the publisher, Henry Holt, was taken by surprise that they sold out what was undoubtedly a not huge print run. Though Mantel has a fan base, well, this is America and it's not like they expected a runaway bestseller from a novel about Oliver THOMAS Cromwell. Still, the failure of the publishing system here is pretty obvious. It's taking them a month to reprint the book and get it to the nation's largest purveyors of books! This is a perfect opportunity to mention the latest bit of craziness: this essay in the October Evergreen Review (which has been an online-only publication since the late 90s!) about how the death of bookstores is a capitalist Nazi plan!
I know nothing about the author except that whoever wrote his Wikipedia page is slightly crazy. ("Kaufman has been compared to such figures as Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Jean Genet and Henry Miller.") But:
The book is fast becoming the despised Jew of our culture. Der Jude is now Der Book. Hi-tech propogandists tell us that the book is a tree-murdering, space-devouring, inferior form of technology; that society would simply be better-off altogether if we euthanized it even as we begin to carry around, like good little Aryans, whole libraries in our pockets, downloaded on the Uber-Kindle.YIKES. And! The failure of the bookstore and the death of the paper book (which is not really dead) is nothing more than a BOOKOCAUST:
Heinrich Heine, the early 19th century German Jewish poet, wrote: ""Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people." The advent of electronic media to first position in the modern chain of Being-a place once occupied by God-and later, after the Enlightenment, by humans-is no mere 9/11 upon our cultural assumptions. It is a catastrophe of holocaustal proportions. And its endgame is the disappearance of not just books but of all things human.Well, you know I enjoy a sweeping essay! And I would totally write this dude off. Except you know: why can't I get my hands on a copy of Wolf Hall, you Nazi capitalists book-destroyers?
It's about Thomas Cromwell, not Oliver.
I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO THOMAS CROMWELL IS.
But...but...he's a man for all seasons!
Or was it seasonings?
He was the Rahm Emanuel of Henry V.
Henry VIII
Who's counting?
I saw Tron - the digital age is not all it's cracked up to be, either.
But those jump-suits looked so soft and breathable.
The advent of electronic media to first position in the modern chain of Beingâ€"a place once occupied by Godâ€"and later, after the Enlightenment, by humansâ€"is no mere 9/11 upon our cultural assumptions. It is a catastrophe of holocaustal proportions."
Chalk this up to yet another underemployed Political Science ABD who can't afford an iPhone.
Wow, I bet she is totally displaying that Booker Prize on top of her fireplace.
"It is a catastrophe of holocaustal proportions" needs to be a meme.
Oh, I'm using "holocaustal" every five minutes. I'm making t-shirts. Believe me: I AM LIVING THIS DREAM.
The Awl: a catastrophe of holocaustal proportions!
Electronic refresh of in-process comments: holocaustal.
On the teeshirt I suppose you mean to keep "holocaustal" and not correct it to "holocaustic". Just to annoy me. That is mean.
ABDoh! Tweeted scanner updates of police movements at the G20 protests ain't gonna come through intramural mail!
@Pax
"propogandists"?
"Holocaustical"?
@Tulletilsynet. I even clicked on that comment's very own little "reply" button, too.
It's "das Buch," Crazy Internet Guy! Gah! If you're comparing books to Jews, at least get the German right.
Language Nazi