Perhaps because real writers wrote out of love of the work and didn’t care whether they were known—they could even use a pseudonym, like Nerval—whereas an SFA wanted to be recognized by the family next door, by the people in her neighborhood, and in the neighborhood where she used to live. For a man, one surname is enough, but not for a woman, because there are some who knew her before her marriage and some who only met her afterward. Hence the need for two.
“Anyway,” Belbo went on, “it is an evening rich in intellectual experiences. De Gubernatis will feel as if he’s drained an LSD cocktail. He’ll listen to the gossip of his fellow-guests, hear a tasty anecdote about a great poet who is notoriously impotent, and not worth that much as a poet either. He’ll look, eyes glistening with emotion, at the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of Illustrious Italians, which Garamond will just happen to have on hand, to show Inspector X the appropriate page (You see, my dear friend, you, too, have entered the pantheon; ah, it is mere justice).”
Belbo showed me the encyclopedia. “Just an hour ago I was preaching at you, but nobody is innocent. The encyclopedia is compiled exclusively by Diotallevi and me. But I swear we don’t do it just for the money. It’s one of the most amusing jobs there is. Every year we have to prepare a new, updated edition. It works more or less this way: you include an entry on a famous writer and an entry on an SFA, making sure they’re in alphabetical proximity. And you don’t waste space on the famous name. See, for example, under L.”
LAMPEDUSA, Giuseppe Tomasi di (1896–1957). Sicilian writer. Long ignored, achieved fame posthumously for his novel The Leopard.
LAMPUSTRI, Adeodato (1919–). Writer, educator, veteran (Bronze Star, East Africa), thinker, novelist, and poet. Looms large on the contemporary Italian literary scene. Lampustri’s talent was revealed in 1959 with the publication of The Carmassi Brothers, volume one of a trailblazing trilogy. Narrated with unrelenting realism and noble poetic inspiration, the novel tells of a fisherman’s family in Lucania.
The Carmassi Brothers won the Petruzzellis della Gattina Prize in 1960 and was followed a few years later by The Dismissed and Panther Without Eyelashes, both of which, perhaps even more than the author’s initial work, exhibit the epic sweep, the dazzling plastic invention, the lyrical flow that distinguish this incomparable artist. A diligent ministry official, Lampustri is esteemed by those who know him as a man of upright character, an exemplary father and husband, and a stunning public speaker.
“De Gubernatis,” Belbo explained, “will want to appear in the encyclopedia. He’s always said that the fame of the famous was a fraud, a conspiracy on the part of obliging critics. But, chiefly, he will want to join a family of writers who are also directors of state agencies, bank managers, aristocrats, magistrates. Appearing in the encyclopedia, he will expand his circle of acquaintances. If he needs to ask a favor, he’ll know where to turn. Signor Garamond has the power to lift De Gubernatis out of the provinces and hurl him to the summit. Toward the end of the dinner, Garamond will whisper to him to drop by the office the next morning.”
“And the next morning, he comes.”
“You can bet on it. He’ll spend a sleepless night, dreaming of the greatness of Adeodato Lampustri.”
“And then?”
“Garamond will say to him: ‘Yesterday, I didn’t dare speak—it would have humiliated the others—but your work, it’s sublime. Not only were the readers’ reports enthusiastic—no, more, favorable—but I personally spent an entire night poring over these pages of yours. A book worthy of a literary prize. Great, really great.’ Then Garamond will go back to his desk, slap the manuscript—now well worn by the loving attention of at least four readers (rumpling the manuscripts is Signora Grazia’s job)—and stare at the SFA with a puzzled expression. ‘What shall we do with it?’ And ‘What shall we do with it?’ De Gubernatis will ask. Garamond will say that the work’s value is beyond the slightest dispute.
But clearly it is ahead of its time, and as for sales, it won’t do more than two thousand copies, twenty-five hundred tops. Well, two thousand more than covers all the people De Gubernatis knows, and an SFA doesn’t think in planetary terms—or, rather, his planet consists of familiar faces: schoolmates, bank managers, fellow teachers in the high school, retired colonels.
The SFA wants to bring his poetry to all these people, even to those who couldn’t care less, like the butcher or the prefect of police. Faced by the risk that Garamond might back off (and remember: everybody at home, in town and office, knows that De Gubernatis has submitted his manuscript to a big Milan publisher), he will make some quick calculations.
He could empty his savings account, take out a loan against his pension, mortgage the house, cash in those few government bonds. Paris is well worth a mass. Shyly, he will offer to underwrite some of the costs. Garamond will look upset. ‘That is not the usual practice of Manutius, but, well, all right, it’s a deal, you’ve talked me into it, even Proust and Joyce had to bow to harsh necessity.
The costs are so high, for the present we’ll plan on two thousand copies, though the contract will provide for up to ten thousand. You’ll receive two hundred author’s copies, to send to anyone you like, another two hundred will be review copies, because we want to promote the book as if this were the new Stephen King. That leaves sixteen hundred for commercial distribution. On these, obviously, no royalties for you, but if the book catches on and we go into a second printing, you’ll get twelve percent.’”
Later I saw the standard contract that De Gubernatis, now on his poetic trip, would sign without even reading, while Signor Garamond’s bookkeeper loudly protested that the costs had been grossly underestimated. Ten pages of clauses in eight-point type: foreign rights, subsidiary rights, dramatizations, radio and television serialization, film rights, Braille editions, abridgments for Reader’s Digest, guarantees against libel suits, all disputes to be settled by Milan courts.
The SFA, lost in dreams of glory, would not notice the clause that specified a maximum print run of ten thousand but mentioned no minimum or the clause that said the amount to be paid by the author was independent of the print run (which was agreed upon only verbally), or the clause that said—most important of all—that the publisher had the right to pulp all unsold copies after one year unless the author wished to buy them at half the list price. Sign on the dotted line.
The launching would be lavish. Ten-page press releases, with biography and critical essays. No modesty; the newspaper editors would toss them out anyway. The actual printing: one thousand copies, of which only three hundred and fifty would be bound. Two hundred to the author, about fifty to minor or associated bookshops, fifty to provincial magazines, about thirty to the newspapers, just in case they needed to fill a couple of lines in the Books Received column. These copies would later be given as donations to hospitals or prisons—and you can see why the former don’t heal and the latter don’t redeem.
In summer the Petruzzellis della Gattina Prize, a Garamond creation, would be awarded. Total cost: two days’ meals and lodging for the jury, plus a Nike of Samothrace, in vermeil, for the winner. Congratulatory telegrams from other Manutius authors.
Finally, the moment of truth. A year and a half later, Garamond writes: Dear friend, as I feared, you are fifty years ahead of your time. Rave reviews in the dozens, awards, critical acclaim, ça va sans dire. But few copies sold. The public is not ready. We are forced to make space in the warehouse, as stipulated in the contract (copy enclosed). Unless you exercise your right to buy the unsold copies at half the list price, we must pulp them.
De Gubernatis goes mad with grief. His relatives console him: People just don’t understand you, of course if you belonged to the right clique, if you sent the requisite bribe, by now they’d have reviewed you in the Corriere della Sera, it’s all Mafia, you have to hold out. Only five author’s copies are left, and there are still so many important people to whom the work should go. You can’t allow your writing to be pulped, recycled into toilet paper. Let’s see how much we can scrape together, maybe we can buy back five hundred copies, and for the rest, sic transit gloria mundi.
Manutius still has six hundred and fifty copies in unbound sheets. Signor Garamond has five hundred of them bound and shipped, COD. The final balance: the author paid the production costs for two thousand copies, Manutius printed one thousand and bound eight hundred and fifty, of which five hundred were paid for a second time. About fifty authors a year, and Manutius always ends up well in the black.
And without remorse: Manutius is dispensing happiness.
Cowards die many times before their deaths.
—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, II, 2
I was always aware of a conflict between Belbo’s devotion in working with his respectable Garamond authors, his efforts to get from them books he could be proud of, and the piratical zeal with which he contributed to the
