ARC of the Literati

Sales Dip at Barnes and Noble

2009-10-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

Barnes & Noble released an earnings report yesterday, noting declines. Business Week reports: "For the period ending Oct. 31, the company expects retail sales to fall 1 percent to 3 percent. The company expects sales in stores open at least one year to fall 2 percent to 4 percent."

Nevertheless, experts predict the company will unveil a new digital reader this holiday season. GalleyCat has been tracking the stock performance of the major companies that influence the bookselling business. We created this chart with eight publicly-traded publishing stocks hand-picked by our readers--including company name, symbol, current stock price, and price increase or decrease at week's close:

-Name- -Symbol- -Last Price- -Change-
The McGraw-Hill Co. MHP 27.28 -0.03
Books-A-Million, Inc. BAMM 11.29 0.28
Borders Group, Inc. BGP 3.26 0.09
Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN 95.71 0.49
Barnes & Noble, Inc. BKS 20.85 -0.28
Wiley John & Sons Inc. JW.A 34.53 -0.25
Scholastic Corporation SCHL 24.61 -0.76
News Corporation NWS 14.17 0.14
Google Inc. GOOG 516.25 2.07
Apple Inc. AAPL 190.47 1.2
Sony Corporation SNE 28.44 0.24

-- Jason Boog / GALLEYCAT

Book Review: 'The Man Who Made Vermeers' by Jonathan Lopez and 'The Forger's Spell by Edward Dolnick'

2009-08-13T18:22:00.000-07:00

The Forger as Huckster: Two Books on Han van Meegeren

By ERIC ORMSBY / NEW YORK SUN

The forger isn’t just a swindler. He turns values upside down. He doesn’t merely change good coin for bad; he’s an alchemist in reverse, offering base metal for gold. This is why, in Dante’s “Inferno,” the poet puts forgers and counterfeiters together with alchemists near the lowest circle of hell. There, Dante and Virgil meet the forger Master Adam, a bloated and legless torso wracked with thirst; this false Adam is himself a counterfeit, a mocking copy of the father of mankind. In the Middle Ages, the penalties for forgery were harsh. In medieval Holland, such crooks might be consigned to the ketel, a great cauldron, to be boiled to death. Nowadays, we’re not only more merciful; sometimes we even have a sneaky admiration for con men, especially when they bamboozle the high and mighty and get away with it.

In the case of art fraud, however, whatever admiration we feel for the skill of a forger who passes off a modern fake as a venerable Old Master and makes fools of the experts is mixed with a sharp sense of betrayal. A painting that was once proclaimed a masterpiece suddenly loses its beauty when shown up as a forgery. How were we so thoroughly hoodwinked? What we thought was a Vermeer or a Frans Hals and flocked to see turns out overnight to be nothing but kitsch. And yet, isn’t it the same painting, fake or not? We can all be deceived by counterfeit bills. But a forged artwork makes us question our very eyes.

Han van Meegeren was among the most skilled and successful forgers of the past century; his fakes made him a millionaire. His shady story has been well known for decades but until recently the full depth of his dishonesty remained unplumbed. Arrested at war’s end by the dogged police officer Joseph Piller, a Dutch Jew who somehow survived the Nazi occupation, van Meegeren saved his skin by claiming that he hadn’t actually trafficked in stolen art — he was accused of selling Vermeer’s painting “Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery” to Hermann Goering — but, in fact, had painted them, and other rediscovered “Vermeers,” himself. In postwar Holland it was better to be tried for forgery than for collaboration, which carried the death penalty, and van Meegeren became something of a Dutch folk hero, as the artist who took the Nazis for a million-dollar ride.

The van Meegeren legend was as phony as his Vermeers, and two new books, appearing almost simultaneously, attempt to set the record straight. In “The Forger’s Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century” (Harper, 361 pages, $26.95), science journalist Edward Dolnick gives a brisk and vivid account of van Meegeren’s fraudulent exploits. His book reads like a thriller; crooks high and low, from “fat, swaggering, casually cruel Hermann Goering” to the charmingly candid English forger John Myatt, rub shoulders with deluded art dealers, preening connoisseurs, and duped collectors. But Mr. Dolnick also provides fascinating detail on the “art” of forgery, brought to new levels of ingenuity by van Meegeren. Thus, by adding Bakelite to his paints and warming his canvases in a makeshift oven, he could replicate the hardened surfaces genuine centuries-old paintings display; he even grew skilled at faking the wormholes in antique frames. And Mr. Dolnick is very good, too, on the historical circumstances, especially the daily horrors of life in Nazi-occupied Holland, where the forger grew rich while his countrymen starved. As it turns out, those circumstances had everything to do with van Meegeren’s phenomenal success.

In “The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren” (Harcourt, 340 pages, $26), the artist and historian Jonathan Lopez tells the same story but gives it, by contrast, unexpected depth. In his thoughtful and elegantly written account — which he calls “a liar’s biography” — van Meegeren is exposed not merely as an unprincipled peddler of phony masterpieces but as an opportunist with Nazi convictions. He worked with the odious Jan Ubink, editor of “De Kemphaan,” or “The Fighting Cock,” for which he prepared lurid covers in the color schemes of the Reich. And he was pals with Ed Gerdes, a true believer who became the detested “art tsar” of the Nazi occupation. Even van Meegeren’s own paintings not so subtly appropriated mawkish Nazi propaganda motifs. Though both authors have drawn on sources in Dutch, Mr. Lopez is steeped in the literature of the period and it shows to fine effect.

At his trial, which began in 1947, van Meegeren posed as an unjustly neglected artist who had taken his revenge on the art establishment through his forgeries; and they had deceived such eminent authorities as Abraham Bredius, who praised the saccharine “The Supper at Emmaus” as “the greatest Vermeer,” and Dirk Hannema, director of the Rotterdam Museum, who made it a star exhibit. (It now hangs in a side corridor among the museum’s curiosities.)

Though both books are beautifully illustrated, Mr. Dolnick’s includes color plates that make it possible to see genuine Vermeers side by side with van Meegeren’s forgeries. It’s hard to believe anyone could be fooled. Mr. Dolnick notes that the most successful forgeries incorporate contemporary elements to which we unwittingly respond, and Mr. Lopez agrees. But Mr. Lopez clinches his case by including the so-called Greta Garbo Vermeer (usually known as “The Girl with a Blue Hat”), a forgery Mr. Dolnick fails to mention. This is a cloying portrait in which van Meegeren slyly adopted features taken from posters for Garbo’s “Anna Christie.” But Mr. Lopez goes further. He suggests that van Meegeren prospered because the Nazis had “distorted the very realm of perception itself.” In the age of the Big Lie, the world Vermeer depicted with such loving precision itself seemed a forgery.

_______

Another Review of these titles at the Chicago Tribune.

Judge Rules for J.D. Salinger in ‘Catcher’ Copyright Suit

2009-07-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

By SEWELL CHAN /NEW YORK TIMES

In a victory for the reclusive writer J. D. Salinger, a federal judge on Wednesday indefinitely banned publication in the United States of a new book by a Swedish author that contains a 76-year-old version of Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of “The Catcher in the Rye.”

The judge, Deborah A. Batts, of United States District Court in Manhattan, had granted a 10-day temporary restraining order last month against the author, Fredrik Colting, who wrote the new novel under the pen name John David California.

In a 37-page ruling, Judge Batts issued a preliminary injunction — indefinitely barring the publication, advertising or distribution of the book in this country — after considering the merits of the case. The book has been published in Britain.

In a suit filed on June 1, lawyers for Mr. Salinger in the copyright infringement lawsuit contended that the new work was derivative of “Catcher” and Holden Caulfield, and infringed on Mr. Salinger’s copyright.

The work by Mr. Colting, 33, centers on a 76-year-old “Mr. C,” the creation of a writer named Mr. Salinger. Although the name Holden Caulfield does not appear in the book, Mr. C is clearly Holden, one of the best-known adolescent figures in American fiction, aged 60 years.

Mr. Colting’s lawyers argued, among other things, that the new work, titled “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye,” did not violate copyright because it amounted to a critical parody that had the effect of transforming the original work.

Judge Batts rejected that argument, writing, “The Court finds such contentions to be post-hoc rationalizations employed through vague generalizations about the alleged naivety of the original, rather than reasonably perceivable parody.”

The judge’s ruling weighed literary arguments made by both sides in the dispute. “To the extent Colting claims to augment the purported portrait of Caulfield as a ‘free-thinking, authentic and untainted youth,’ and ‘impeccable judge of the people around him’ displayed in ‘Catcher’ by ‘show[ing] the effects of Holden’s uncompromising world view,’ ” Judge Batts wrote, citing a memo submitted by Mr. Colting, “those effects were already thoroughly depicted and apparent in Salinger’s own narrative about Caulfield.”

Judge Batts added: “In fact, it can be argued that the contrast between Holden’s authentic but critical and rebellious nature and his tendency toward depressive alienation is one of the key themes of ‘Catcher.’

“It is hardly parodic to repeat that same exercise in contrast, just because society and the characters have aged.”

While the case could still go to trial, Judge Batts’s ruling means that Mr. Colting’s book cannot be published in the United States pending the resolution of the litigation, which could drag on for months or years.

“I am pretty blown away by the judge’s decision,” Mr. Colting said in an e-mail message after the ruling. “Call me an ignorant Swede, but the last thing I thought possible in the U.S. was that you banned books.”

Mr. Colting and his lawyer, Edward H. Rosenthal, said they would appeal. The decision means that “members of the public are deprived of the chance to read the book and decide for themselves whether it adds to their understanding of Salinger and his work,” Mr. Rosenthal said.

Marcia B. Paul, a lawyer for Mr. Salinger, declined to comment on the decision. Mr. Salinger, who has not published any new work since 1965, has sued several times to protect his writing, including successful efforts to stop publication of some of his personal letters in a biography and to halt a staging of “Catcher” by a college theater company in San Francisco. He has also turned down requests, from Steven Spielberg, among others, for movie adaptations of “Catcher.”

Washington Post Review: 'Surrender' by Bruce Bawer

2009-07-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

Paul Barrett / Washington Post

Bruce Bawer’s latest book comes wrapped in the American flag or, more precisely, wrapped in a jacket depicting the Statue of Liberty gagged with an American flag. It’s an arresting image meant to convey an alarming message: Muslims on a “cultural jihad” intend to stifle free speech in the United States and destroy our liberty. They may succeed, Bawer warns, because they receive aid and comfort from liberal dupes flying the banner of “multiculturalism.”

Bawer, an accomplished literary critic, has addressed this subject before, in a book published in 2006 called “While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within.” There he wrote about the increasing tension between majority populations in cities such as London, Paris and Amsterdam and their often alienated Muslim immigrant neighbors. Bawer stirred controversy by painting Muslims with crude brushstrokes suggesting ubiquitous and intrinsic Islamic extremism.

Much of “Surrender” merely updates that earlier volume. In his new book, Bawer indulges in such unsubstantiated declarations as: “While there are such things as moderate and liberal Christianity, there is no such thing as a moderate or liberal Islam.” And: “To put it briefly and nakedly, the West is on the road to sharia,” or the rule of Islamic religious law.

Forgoing the temptation to dismiss Bawer’s latest work as a polemical retread (because most of it actually deals, again, with events in Europe), one might focus on his depiction of Muslims in America. “Surrender” ’s cover, after all, advertises a book about the United States, and the author expends considerable energy extolling the First Amendment in contrast to less tolerant-sounding words from the Koran. Training his gaze on the United States, Bawer produces a muddled picture. He neglects to take note of the fact that, on average, the American Muslim population is better educated, better off economically and better integrated socially than its Western European counterparts. Not surprisingly, American Muslims have been implicated in far fewer terrorist plots since 9/11 — and no successful ones.

This is not to say that the toxic mixture of religious zealotry and anti-Western ideology that poisons some European Muslim enclaves is altogether absent from the United States. Bawer could have looked at the tiny minority of American Muslims who harbor real hostility to the mainstream: men like the three Muslim brothers from Albania who were sentenced to life in prison in April for conspiring to kill American soldiers at the Fort Dix, N.J., military base or the four men arrested in New York last month in an alleged plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx.

Instead, he implies that innocuous Muslim social and spiritual organizations favor religiously inspired violence. One he singles out for condemnation as an extremist “front group” is the Islamic Society of North America. I happen to have interviewed numerous members of ISNA and attended their gatherings. Bawer provides no evidence that he has first-hand experience with the group, but, in any event, his attack seems wildly misleading. ISNA has tens of thousands of members who are led by middle-class immigrant engineers, physicians, academics and entrepreneurs. Its current president is Ingrid Mattson, a moderate-minded scholar born in Canada who years ago converted to Islam. Most ISNA members, it’s fair to say, disagree with most American Jews on relations with Israel. But by and large, these are Muslims seeking a constructive role in American society. They adhere to various strains of Islam: some orthodox, some less so. They are increasingly engaged politically. Many supported George W. Bush in 2000; in 2008, they rallied to Barack Obama.

Bawer veers into self-parody when he asserts that Muslims have cowed skeptics into self-censorship and inaction: “Artists and writers avoid Islamic themes and settings; police officers avoid Muslim neighborhoods.” His own work shows that critics of Islam have no trouble publishing. I counted references in “Surrender” to more than 15 of his allies: prominent columnists, bloggers and authors. As for the notion that the police, FBI and immigration authorities steer clear of Muslim neighborhoods, one need only consider the thousands of Muslims who have been arrested and deported from the United States since 9/11 — some justly, some unjustly — to verify that Bawer has lost his bearings on this topic.

Paul M. Barrett is a journalist in New York and the author, most recently, of “American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion.”

Help NPR Pick the Best Beach Books

2009-06-23T14:50:00.000-07:00

Jason Boog / Galleycat

Starting this week, NPR Books has called for readers to nominate "uber beach picks" for an upcoming feature about the Best Beach Books of All Time.

On July 15, NPR will let listeners vote on their favorite nominated books--the final list will be unveiled on July 30. The program is part of an ongoing Summer Books series. If you need inspiration, the Philadelphia Examiner interviewed authors about their summer reading.

Here's more from the NPR release: "Discussion is underway as reader suggestions pour in, nominating everything from Yann Martel's 'The Life of Pi' to 'Songs of the Humpback Whale' by Jodi Picoult to James Ellroy's 'L.A. Confidential.'"

LiToon: The Spitoon of the Publishing Industry

2009-06-21T14:06:00.000-07:00

You knew publishing was a tough nut to crack. So what do the nuts do when the cracking gets rough?

They read LiToon.

Full of juicy, undigested ejectamenta from too many publishers' lunches, LiToon throws up the inside poop and outside phlegm fresh from the remnants of the book business. Expectorate the unexpected.

Written by LITOPIA AFTER DARK's Richard Howse and illustrated by David Howse, LiToon is both hygienic and truthful (certain restrictions apply). "For innocent souls wishing to conquer the publishing world in one fell swoop", says JK Rowling, "LiToon is the best possible place to start.*"

So spurn the spissitudes of fate, and remember:

Truth hurts. LiToon hurts more.

(*she didn't actually say this)

from Litopia

'McSweeney's Internet Tendency' and Why Women Are Funny

2009-06-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

For your weekend reading pleasure, here’s a gender-specific, curated Rumpus essay by Elissa Bassist about the long list of women who have written for the funny pages of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

The list includes the hilarious essay “Commentary by David Simon, Creator of The Wire, for the He’s Just Not That Into You DVD” by Maureen Miller and the instructive how-to, “Borges Teaches Self-Defense” by Susan Schorn.

Here’s more from the essay, a somewhat bitter response to an infamous essay: “‘Why are men, taken on average and as a whole, funnier than women?’ inquired Christopher Hitchens in ‘Why Women Aren’t Funny,’ Vanity Fair, January 2007. That’s a good question. And by that I mean, f*** you.”

From Jason Boog at Galleycat

Publishing Trends in Art Books

2009-06-21T13:29:00.001-07:00

Sign of the times: The three headlining art books of the season are as much about commerce as they are about art.

Cynthia Saltzman’s Old Masters, New World examines the acquisition of art by western oligarchs;

Jonathan Lopez’s The Man Who Made Vermeers looks at a master-forger seduced by the Nazis and by the opportunity to fake-for-a-buck;

Edward Dolnick takes on the same topic in The Forger’s Spell, which Peter Schjeldahl says in the New Yorker is just a lesser version of the Lopez book. (Incidentally: Gawker noticed that the NYTimes seems to be, er, incestuously boosting Dolnick.)

The Saltzman book is pretty directly about the market and the other two less so. But I think there’s a pretty common theme running through a lot of art-related journalism and publishing: The zeitgeist is about the market first, and art last. If the art world decides that’s an unfortunate focus, it’s going to have to do something to change it.

University press to the rescue: The University of California press is releasing an updated version of Lawrence Weschler’s classic book on Robert Irwin, complete with a new cover picture that seems to be from Irwin’s recent MCASD exhibition. [via] The hardcover will retail for $50 (!), but you can pre-order the paperback for under $17. (Also from UC Press: A quarter-century of Weschler’s conversations with David Hockney.)

From Tyler Green’s Modern Art Notes

Book Stocks: Wiley Waits

2009-06-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

Even as quarterly profits recently dipped 16 percent, Reuters reports that John Wiley & Sons Inc (JW.A) expects a brighter 2010: "The company, which recently inked a deal to become the official publication partner for the 2010 winter Olympics, expects 2010 revenue to rise on a currency neutral basis."

GalleyCat has been tracking the stock performance of the major companies that influence the bookselling business. We created this chart with eight publicly-traded publishing stocks hand-picked by GalleyCat readers--including company name, symbol, current stock price, and price increase or decrease at week's close.

The McGraw-Hill Co. MHP 29.69 -0.41
Books-A-Million, Inc. BAMM 6.2 -0.11
Borders Group, Inc. BGP 3.2 0.1
Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN 82.96 1.36
Barnes & Noble, Inc. BKS 21.47 -0.57
Wiley John & Sons Inc. JW.A 33.57 -0.25
Scholastic Corporation SCHL 21.11 -0.22
News Corporation NWS 10.66 0.05
Google Inc. GOOG 420.09 6.03

by Jason Boog of Galley Cat