The Clothing of Books

Each book represents the choice, the taste of the editor, but the series confers on the book an identity, a sort of citizenship. A series says to its authors: You are one of us.

Their insignia is tantamount to a literary badge of honor. In high school and in college, reading an orange-spined Penguin Classic felt reassuring, virtuous. I assumed they were works of quality, of substance.

The husband of an Italian friend of mine orders his bookcases by series, in chromatic order. The effect is marvelous. According to his wife, however, aesthetic virtues aside, it’s not a good system. Beautiful to look at, she says, but one can’t find anything.

La Pelle (The Skin) by Curzio Malaparte, and L’Inconveniente di essere nati (The Trouble with Being Born) by Emil Cioran. They are two very different writers but, dressed in Adelphi jackets, the two books resemble each other, as if they were members of the same family, of the same bloodline. The books share the same size and, most important, are products of the same aesthetic sensibility. Both covers bear a framed image, then the title of the book and the name of the author. They are printed on fine paper, which is glued to the book only at the back. I like the fact that the rest of the jacket can be removed from the bound pages, like a tent, and that beneath this light sheet of paper

The covers that form part of a series are sober, at once generic and immediately recognizable. By now, in an Italian bookshop or at a friend’s house, I recognize straightaway the white books belonging to Struzzi Einaudi, the mellow colors of the Adelphi series, the dark blue of Sellerio.

There is no escape. For me, there are no more naked books.

Unfortunately it can’t be sold that way. Almost no one wants to buy something unknown, not even a book, without prior information. In some ways today’s reader resembles a tourist who, thanks to the guidebooks—this is, thanks to the impact of the book jacket—begins to inform and orient himself before disembarking in an unknown place. Before discovering it, before being there. Before reading.

Today the relationship between reader and book is far more mediated, with a dozen people buzzing around. We are never alone together, the text and I. I miss the silence, the mystery of the naked book: solitary, without support.

The authors I loved at the time were embodied only by their words. The naked cover doesn’t interfere. My first reading happened outside of time, ignorant of the market, of current events. The part of me that regards book jackets with suspicion seeks to rediscover that experience.

I considered writing about the significance of titles: a title, after all, is the first element of a book one encounters, something that both represents and stands apart from the text.