Books and Gresham's Law

[Ya Sam]

I don't have my copy of AtD yet, but what you're writing here is pretty 
disturbing, and I do find this sad. This reminds me of the bookbinders' 
statement from Perez-Reverte's 'El Club Dumas' about the flimsiness and 
non-longevity of contemporary books as opposed to the antique volumes.

"Excellent paper. Nothing like the cellulose nowadays. Do you know the 
average lifespan of a book printed today? Tell him Pablo."

"Sixty years," said the brother bitterly, as if it were Corso's fault. 
"Sixty miserable years."

But if you want to read a book at least five times? Order 2 copies, one for 
the shelf, another for reading.


>From: "Tore Rye Andersen" <torerye at hotmail.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Books and Gresham's Law
>Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 10:43:26 +0100
>
>I just received my copy of Weisenburger's updated and revised companion to 
>GR, and with 65 pages of new material - including illustrations, diagrams 
>and useful maps - this really seems to be worth buying. I've always felt 
>that Weisenburger's original companion was probably the best book on GR. 
>More than most interpretations it really succeeds in showing the true 
>accomplishment of Pynchon's novel.
>My only complaint about the book has to do with the binding: I shelled out 
>60 dollars for a nice, sturdy library binding, but whadaya know: Even 
>though the cloth binding seems solid enough, the University of Georgia 
>Press hasn't followed the standard U.P. practice of providing the book with 
>a sewn binding - the pages are just glued into the book (unlike the 
>previous Pynchon companions from the same publisher).
>It seems as though books are subject to a version of Gresham's Law: Bad 
>bindings drive out good bindings. The same tendency can be observed in the 
>first editions of Pynchon's novels. V. and GR had sewn bindings in full 
>cloth (and the small Lot 49 had a sewn binding with half-cloth); Slow 
>Learner and Vineland had glued bindings in full cloth; Mason & Dixon had a 
>glued binding in half-cloth; and Against the Day merely has a glued binding 
>in papercovered cardboard. Nice dustjackets notwithstanding (and both M&D 
>and AtD have beautiful jackets), the new books are simply not built to last 
>as long as e.g. GR. Am I the only one who finds this a bit sad?
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Vælg selv hvordan du vil kommunikere - skrift, tale, video eller billeder 
>med MSN Messenger:  http://messenger.msn.dk/  - her kan du det hele
>

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! 
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/