While in the bookshop yesterday I happened across a book, the name of which eludes me, which nevertheless stuck in my mind because the front cover loudly hailed it as THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK ABOUT EVOLUTION SINCE DAWKINS’ SELFISH GENE.1 You’ll note there’s no attribution or quotation marks there. It’s just something they slapped on. I didn’t know you were allowed do that.
Naturally, I got in touch with my publisher tout de suite.
Axel, baby,
Has The Tau-Upsilon Procedure gone to print yet? Don’t answer that, there’s no time. Pulp them if necessary. We have a new cover. Print the following, 18pt:
A MOST EXCELLENT NOVEL. SO EXCITING MY EYES HAVE MELTED. FIVE STARS. NO: ELEVEN STARS!
Is that cocky? Print FIVE STARS in Comic Sans so as to create ambiguity. Title and my name can go on the spine. Omit title if necessary.
Won’t keep you any longer. Get to it.
yrs in sport,
E.
PS: I think the boy has been drinking my sherry. Have him fired.
PPS: Working on a new series, The Continuing Escapades of Selfish Gene. Send advance pls. Will forward manuscript on my return from Ecuador.
PPPS: Will be in Ecuador for the foreseeable. Have the boy take care of my post.
- As an aside, wouldn’t Selfish Gene be a great name for a character in a children’s story? If you even think about considering stealing that, I’ll Berne Convention you so hard your teeth will spin. [↩]
I’m starting to wonder whether the sheer ecstasy contained within the cover quotes of pretty much every single book released now is indicative of declining standards in discernment, book critics being in the publishers’ pockets, or simply a desire to make a name for themselves by being more fulsome in their praise than anyone ever has before.
I’m fully expecting to pick up a book someday with the following quote on the back:
“Jesus Christ! By the end of the first chapter of this book I had creamed my pants seventeen and a half times. My canker sores and gnawing sense of self-loathing are feeling much better too. This definitely belongs in the pantheon of great novels about chlorophyl written in this decade.”
I have a copy of Andrei Makine’s ‘A Life’s Music’ beside me. The first quote inside the cover says “When I describe Andrei Makine as a great writer, this is no journalistic exaggeration but my wholly sincere estimate of a man with prodigious linguistic gifts.”
It’s interesting that the critic has effectively had to say “Yeah, I know we all talk in the most outrageous hyperbole all the time, but I REALLY DO like this guy.”
Loved this post Eli. Keep it up m’dear. More posting = Me Happy
Do you mean The Berne Convention of 1906, the international treaty negotiated in Berne in Switzerland which prohibits the use of white phosphorus in the manufacture of matches?