Opening presents is tough: hiding greed, masking disappointment and feigning gratitude. You’re also probably being filmed for the family time capsule and you’ll be on YouTube within hours.
That’s what happened to a poor American woman called Emily this Christmas. She’s starting 2012 as the latest social media sensation. The video has been removed, but I can report that on receiving and flicking through Republican candidate Ron Paul’s Liberty Defined, she burst into tears, saying: ‘He just called Israel an apartheid state. I’m not reading this.’
It’s hard to know who comes out worse this time of year; each gift’s a mutual minefield. On coming home from the holidays this year, I was greeted by a neat little parcel from my flatmate.
Inside were three berry coloured bijoux of books. The first title glared out at me: Humiliation by Walter Koestembaum. Underneath: A Short History of Power by Simon Heffer. Finally: Wandering Jew by Dennis Marks. I’m neither humiliated, powerful nor Jewish. I’m still unsure how to take it.
They’re actually the newest essays from Nothing Hill Editions, a niche publishing house that has launched a concerted fight against the times. The essais, as practiced by Montaigne, was a free flowing and usually personal meditation on a particular topic. Also known as, in its modern incarnation, the blog.
Heffer’s take on the history of power — more essay than essais — is an amazingly condensed thesis with some fascinating threads:
‘Theodor Mommsen, whose work of Roman history left him with the reputation of the greatest classicist of the 19th century, argued that once overstretch was achieved and the Parthian kingdom formed it ended in Islamification because a new power centre had opened in Asia.’
The slight exposition leaves you hungry for more. We’ve got so used to having information at the click of a mouse that comments like these cry out for a hyperlink.
The essay on Humiliation by American academic and poet, Wayne Kostembaum, mixes pop culture references and lit crit slogans you could find on a post grad’s mug. His personal horror stories aren’t quite bowel-curdling or silly enough. Americans don’t do humiliation well: they have Holden Caulfield, we have Adrian Mole. Plus, it’s a fact, no embarrassment is as gut wrenching as one’s own. I was made aware last month, at a dinner party, that Shami Chakrabati isn’t the director of an upmarket department store known for its print.
The Notting Hill Editions format proves their raison d’être and their undoing. Brevity makes them tube reading material but also slightly unsatisfying. They’re a reminder not only of the joy a good looking book can give but also of its limitations. A clever present for anyone who colour codes their bookshelf.
I haven’t started on Wandering Jew yet but the cover blurb isn’t promising. A none too subtle message as 2012 yawns out in front of me:
I have
no friends
No relations
My solitude is immense
Unbearable
Fleur Macdonald is editor of the Omnivore.
Comments