Look What Happened to the Art Market

"Without Wall Street many forms of books, incunables, high spots of modern literature, are already unobtainable by the average collector or even fairly well-to-do collectors. Think Great Gatsby at over a $100k...Look what happened in the art market, where paintings that used to cost thousands are now hundreds of thousands, and paintings that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars are now millions of dollars.... 

If Wall Street gets hold of books and turns them into high priced investment widgets, then look out. No one will be able to afford them any more and some of the joy of collecting will be gone."

This quote from The Man who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession came from a book dealer upon hearing that book collections were being characterized in Worth magazine as good investments. It certainly hard to imagine people like to Vogels collecting in todays market, which bounced back from the financial crisis without losing much of the gains it has made over the past 20 years.

Does the rare book market share the same future? If so, I'd better scrounge up my first editions. It's interesting that this book dealer, who would profit for this more than the average collector potentially, doesn't like the idea of pricing people out of their collecting hobby. The dealers arguably benefit more than the collectors or artists, because many collectors are priced out and because fewer contemporary artists make the cut for the higher prices being paid at auction. But on the other hand, perhaps it is a sign of the health of the art market than it can command such record high prices.

By the way, the book itself is proving quite enjoyable. It's the true story of a book thief who stole rare books and hoarded them in the modest apartment he shared with his father, not unlike the art thief of my novel who steals to create his own personal collection that he keeps at his mother's house.

Gorilla Aesthetics

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.--Charles Darwin, On the Origin of the Species

I have a gripe against Darwinism. Why did my species evolve to create buildings on cold, snowy islands like Manhattan without developing super thick skin? Or better yet, why does my species not live only on tropical islands? Yet another snow storm in progress here at Art Ravel's shivering office. (It's so cold the office itself is shivering.)


Darwin is everywhere. More and more books keep coming up on him. My ears now prick up at the name, since I attended a book tour lecture that links current aesthetics with our evolutionary past. (That book, too, got a mention in the New York Times.) Yet Darwinism and evolution isn't the prickly subject it once was. Why the spout of interest?


Perhaps it's because his 200th birthday is coming up. It may be that radical thinker Charles Darwin himself was a fascinating man, no doubt party true. However, it is also the case that biographers feel that they need to argue either that racism is inherent to Darwin's theories or, on the contrary, that he was an abolitionist and his theories show a common origin for all mankind.

If people are still arguing about him and theories are still sprouting from his ideas, perhaps Darwin's worth the glut of pages. I have it on good authority that The Origin of the Species is fascinating reading. Im not actually going to read it, but I thought I might put up some lovely gorilla art in Darwin's honor. Unfortunately, there is no lovely gorilla art. (See above.)

Moomins!

Among my Christmas gifts, I received a copy of Tove Jansson's Finn Family Moomintroll. My Swedish mother had always made sure I was caught up on Pippi Longstockings and Linnea in Monet's Garden, but she was very excited about finding an English translation of these children's books. I have never heard of a Moomin before, but let me assure you that they grow on you. Yay for delightful childrens books! (All my pickled brain is capable of enjoying at the moment. New Years isn't likely to help either.)

This is Moominpappa, trying on the hobgoblin's tophat. Moominmamma, who always sleeps with her handbag under her head, has to explain to him that some people look more dignified without hats.





The Moomins have wonderful adventures with their friends in Moomin valley. For more on Moomins, see here.

How do you get your books?

Not 'how do you choose your books?' but, how do you physically get books into your hands? People love Amazon's prices and delivery to the door, and for many nothing beats the browsing through stacks at your favorite bookstore, whether it includes a Starbucks coffee while you browse brightly-lit Barnes & Nobles' bestsellers or squeezing between dusty stacks of a locally-owned used bookshop. Neither of these options can compare to the public library.

The most prominent advantage is that the public library has no price tags. Worries over whether a book is worth 25 dollars aren't a factor when the offensive item is free and returnable. You can check out and return many books at once, and browse them at your leisure. True, the library charges late fees, so eventually you have to give them back.

However, not owning books is an unappreciated advantage in itself. Most people only read a book once. A library of classics you return to is a great resource, but on the other hand, you can always check a book out again. Bookshelves are useless, inefficient storage spaces put on display in a way you would never show trunks of old clothing or holiday decorations. Once you buy a book, you are stuck with it; no amount of reasoning makes it seem ethical to simply throw it away, and books are often hard to give away.

As a space, a library offers distinct benefits, such as being undisturbed in public. They don't play music and talking is discouraged. You can read or study in quiet, comfortable environment. Often, the library offers that hot commodity: free wireless Internet. You won't find that in your typical bookstore where the cafe Internet is pay as you go.

Because of space, a public library is the best browsing. With typically more shelf space than a bookstore, you can pick up, flip through, and put down books for hours. Libraries carry older books than most bookstores, and have started carrying DVDs and magazines as well. Many libraries try to engage patrons in civic programs. They offer lectures as well as computer classes or book groups. Plus, a library is a great spot to drop off children, if only for story hour.

Manhattan's New York Public Library (NYPL) system has changed the way I get books. The large research branches are housed in gorgeous public structures, and offer exhibitions as well as the civic programs of smaller libraries. The small branch libraries don't always have that extensive browsing quality, but they offer another feature that makes life so easy: delivery. Not to your home, but to the library of your choosing. On the NYPL website, you can search their collection and order books and DVDs, and they will let you know when they are available for pick up via email. NYPL's online service enables you to renew online and view due dates and late fee as do many libraries, but you can also keep a list of books that you would like to read at some point. The collection includes DVDs of smaller or older films that the local video store simple doesn't have. With libraries in every neighborhood, books have never been easier to come by.

Sam Leith defend books, I applaud

An uplifting and moral article by Sam Leith, the Literary Editor of The Daily Telegraph, a UK newspaper. In "Grand Theft Auto, Twitter and Beowulf all demonstrate that stories will never die," he defends the strength of the narrative in human culture to the delight of all writers and readers, with emphasis on the unfair attack on books by proponents of modern technology who feel books are antiquary repositories of knowledge.

Knowledge and stories come in many shapes and forms. My personal favorite form is a book, and not at all because I'm trying to write one. In anything, I'd say the book form and I have developed a healthy antagonism for just that reason. But the power of the narrative in its classic form is something I consider obvious.

I blog, but I by no means use this platform as write a long story. I use it to connect to other short pieces and to combine word with images and videos. It communicates in a different way by its medium, which is the point, I fancy, of Leith's piece, which I encourage all with old-fashioned bookish tastes to read.

In a twist on this, check out Pepys' Diary in online blog format, where each entry in the diary of Samual Pepys from the 1600s is posted daily, so you can follow his story in much the fashion it was written.

Swashbuckling Swill and a Song

A swashbuckling adventure story with a limp and noodly protagonist whose unintentional irony and understatement form the greatest (and yet not so great) part of the tale.

All the Tea in China proceeds with action over character development, but even the action is envenerating. Little drives the plot forward except the feeling our dear protagonist has gotten himself into quite a muddle. And so he muddles forward. To lack suspense as it does, it needs to be more humorous (the 17^th century dialogue was forced rather than funny).

That said, you could give it to the 13-year-old boy of your Christmas list, assuming he's already had the pleasure of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped (which I remember being quite scary) and is permitted a few X-rated scenes.

This novel, besides being mildly historical, is hardly a typical choice of mine. The inside flap tricked me; it gave the the author Kyril Bonfiglioli kudos as a "groundbreaking satarist" in this "maritime romp." So for that reason, and because the title reminded me of a song by The Magnetic Fields, I picked it up.

Clearly if I know the expression "all the tea in China," I should also know "don't judge a book by its cover" by now. For your listening pleasure, here is the better of the two, still with an ironic twinge but with a bit more heart:

Greater women in Kate Christensen’s The Great Man

Terrible title, but I picked it up because there was a paint brush on the cover. I didn't know about Kate Christensen's other novels or that this one had won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Instead of the light trash I imagined, I'm in the midst of the lives of some intriguing women as they sort themselves out as the great (dead) man's biographers stir up their static lives. On knowing this, the title becomes amusing, especially because the book is about the not-so-great, great man's many women.

The dead artist, Oscar Feldman, binds his wife Abigail, his sister Maxine, and his mistress Teddy together, and not always in ways they enjoy. These very different and complex women are complex and passionate. Oh, they happen to be old. That's by no means a focus of the story, but I find it interesting to see old women as active characters. The fact the Oscar was a selfish womanizer who got everything he wanted makes their stories a bit more poignant.


The male biographers who come to interview these women think of Oscar as a great painter, a great man. As the women see it, Oscar was a good painter rather than a great man, and a closely guarded secret bears them out. The Great Man theory, according to Wikipedia, is a theory that aims to explain history by the impact of "Great men", or heroes; that is, highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence and wisdom or Machiavellianism, used power in a way that had a decisive historical impact. Examples would be Stalin or Napoleon, my image left, or Oscar Feldman. Except the novel snips away at the Great Man theory with curt comment after snide remark. A purely feminist approach to this novel would be limiting, but it is satisfying to see the women come into their own in the wake of Oscar's death. It certainly beats cats and knitting.

Christensen captures the competitiveness of the art world and its strikingly different personalities with tongue-in-cheek humor. The character Maxine provides a stringent perspective on all art (besides her own), like

the dinner party where she criticizes the artist across the table and her dealer in a sweep of faux pauxs. Oscar's paintings get ripped apart women by women to the starry-eyed biographers dismay. A question of authenticity arises about some important paintings, and the art world buzz is so strong the book hums a bit in the reader's hands.

Vibrant women and art transforms this book on the great man into a delightful dialogue that would be a home Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Chicago, who created the art installtion of a triangular table with 39 places for iconic women, stated that its purpose was to "end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women were written out of the historical record." Appropriately enough, The Great Man is the story of women writing themselves into history.

I'm 2/3rds of the way through, which is the perfect time to review a book: I can't give away the ending, but I know quite well what I think. The characters are delightful, and the plot well-constructed. I got more swept up in it than I expected, despite having reservations about the writing itself. Obviously it's well-written enough to convey characters that are sweeping me along, yet the language itself is predictable and non-distinct. Don't let my nit-picks or this sketchy plot outline dissuade you though; Christensen is onto something quite delightful.

Annoying Annotations of a Besotted Byronite

My recent homage to 'mad, bad, and dangerous to know' Lord Byron made clear that not only was Byron idolized as a celebrity in his time, but that I adore him myself, making him a patron saint of this blog for example. I was inspired to write that post partly by the old biography of him I found at the library. Well, this staid biography by Longford contains a discovery of a most upsetting nature! Of a nature so vile, I have been tempted to put the book down unfinished.

Some creature, of repellent handwriting and distinct ammorality, has annotated this book! Scrawled in No.2 pencil all over its margins!

"Lord Byron then went to Venice..." becomes annotated by some childish scribble such as "As he should! Pisa was far too provincial for him" (the excess of exclamation points is distinctly annoying.) This person, no doubt some susceptible very young or very old female, defends Byron against any negative charges brought against him by his peers, defends his incestuous love for his sister, defends his leaving his sick 4-year-old daughter in a nunnery to die of typhoid fever, and calls Shelley a 'tiresome bore'! She quite obviously shows her jealously of his many mistresses, and roots for Byron to leave them all and break their hearts. She keeps saying things like, "But Byron was never a class-traitor or atheist, thank god!" Yes, thank god he was a selfish, incestuous poet who was 'revolutionary' but title-proud...?

So look you, o noble notater, come forward. I challenge you to a duel. Something must be done to stop your forever marking up books to turn dialogues into trialogues, and if death is the answer, so be it. I demand the satisfaction.

And you readers, if you happen to come across a female of inexplicable and strong feelings towards the sundry elements of Lord Byron's life who is an amoral, elitist with strongly round handwriting, probably defensive of some petty title she inherited, and likely a dumpy figure and big red nose, please tell her my challenge.

Unfinished and Unread Books

Lately all these arts and culture posts have been artsy in a visual way. That's fine in itself, except it's a symptom of a greater malady. And no, not being sick of hearing about the presidential election. It's that I can't dig my teeth into any new book. True, I could be to blame. I did try to read up on medieval history and found my enthusiasm waned quickly. There were no pictures. But I also took out a collection of short stories by Russian author Isaac Babel, whose style is excellent and subjects are humorous and folksy. He has a great short story, Guy de Maupassant, and it inspired me to go for the whole oeuvre at once. Sigh...bad idea.

I went to the New York Public library online. It's hard to search their catalogs, and I ended up almost ordering a dozen old favorites. However, the point is that I want new contemporary fiction. After my Milan Kundera phase, I want a new pet author. And I do not want this to became a fall of Dostoevsky or a winter of Proust. Dear god, I want to get through the winter without committing suicide. Classics thought they may be, my mind doesn't seem to be up for a challenge.

So I went to Borders looking for a cure. Tragic. The books they put on those shelves did not inspire me to read, but to finish my novel in a hurry, while the general reading public has no taste. Maybe then my project would survive on the turbulent waters of publishing.

What else has fallen beside the wayside? Poetry. I love the 17th century British poets, Langston Hughes, Edna St. Vincent-Millay, and of course Lord Byron. Lately, nothing has moved me.

Any suggestions to stir me out of this apathy? Anything? I'm on the library website now...