Self-Sabotage in the Name of K. Marx (Who He?)

by Richard Kostelanetz (November 2016)

 

 

Kenneth Goldsmith, Capital: New York, Capital of the 20th Century
Verso, 911 pp., $44.95

 

 

Simply, the typeface is too small for lines nearly five inches wide, thus requiring more than the customary limit of three glances to be read. A further disadvantage is that insufficient leading, or vertical space between the lines, becomes an additional obstacle for anyone trying to read the longer paragraphs.

Should you actually look into the book itself, compare the 864-page main text with the 47-page bibliography, which is more readable (and includes a book authored by me), because the listing format requires additional vertical white space between each short entry. You’ll also notice that the bibliography’s typeface looks larger, though it probably isn’t, because the surrounding white space makes it more legible.

Some further problems reflect a lack of editorial moxie. When three dots (…) appear, the reader can’t tell if they duplicate the original text or were made anew especially for this book. Second, on p. 46 is this, cited from an author named James Glanz: “Rockefeller, whose lifelong habit was collecting beetles.” However, without any editor’s preceding brackets, the reader can’t identify which of many possible Rockefellers this beetle-lover might be.

My hunch, knowing nothing for sure, is that the book’s publisher necessarily decided to limit its size to less than 999 pages (shorter than the Arcade’s 1088) and thus its retail price, even in paperback, to less than fifty bucks (and weight to less than 4.5 pounds), while Goldsmith refused to cut his text, each thus undermining the other. Too bad, as Capital has the makings of a great book, a monument to Goldsmith’s love for Gotham, that this native Gothamite for one would like to read. (For the record, whereas Amazon measures Capital is as 7.4 x 2.1 x 10.7, Arcades as 6.3 x 1.9 x 10.3 inches is slightly smaller and cheaper at $37.00. Count them figures, if you wish?)

Indeed, may I suggest that from looking solely at this book’s spine, more than 10” high and more than 2” thick, with its single-word title in large black letters and the Verso logo at the bottom, some possible bookstore buyers will suspect this Capital to be a massive appreciation of St. Karl?

How disappointed, by such mis(represent)interpretation, both prospective purchasers and the publisher might thus become. Further to confuse the former, the book’s back cover classifies it as “Art/Poetry” without any blurbs or other explanatory text. Oddly again, while someone identified on the copyright page gets (dis)credit for the book’s page design, the superior cover with embossed lettering remains unattributed. Chuckle. Chuckle? Chuckle!

https://www.amazon.com/Capital-New-York-20th-Century-ebook/dp/B00TCI4RKK?ie=UTF8&keywords=goldsmith%20capital&qid=1463437038&ref_=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2&s=books&sr=1-1), my screen offered me more than sixteen hundred two-page spreads in large, legible type. Thanks to an indexing capability unavailable in the printed book, I discovered, for instance, that I was quoted on pages 441, 1,505, and 2,016. Though my name probably also appears in the printed book, I could not so easily find it. Similarly, once I discovered the notorious episode of the Nazi submarines near Rockaway Beach late in 1941 on epage 2,593 I could locate it on page 720 of the unindexed printed book. Since this complete Capital is available on line at half-price, it’s unfortunate that Verso didn’t make an abridged printed book that would be more inviting than intimidating. However, a physically more modest volume wouldn’t resemble Walter Benjamin’s monumental Arcades.

 

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Richard Kostelanetz recently completed a book of previously uncollected critiques, Deeper, Further, and Beyond. Individual entries on his work in several fields appear in various editions of Readers Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers, Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, Contemporary Poets, Contemporary Novelists, Postmodern Fiction, Webster’s Dictionary of American Writers, The HarperCollins Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature, Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Directory of American Scholars, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in American Art, NNDB.com, Wikipedia.com, and Britannica.com, among other distinguished directories. Otherwise, he survives in New York, where he was born, unemployed and thus overworked.

 

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