The Clothing of Books Read online

  Also by Jhumpa Lahiri

  In Other Words

  The Lowland

  Unaccustomed Earth

  The Namesake

  Interpreter of Maladies

  A VINTAGE BOOKS ORIGINAL, NOVEMBER 2016

  Copyright © 2015, 2016 by Jhumpa Lahiri

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  The Clothing of Books was first presented as a speech given in Italy at Festival degli Scrittori in 2015 and subsequently published, in slightly different form, in both English and Italian, by the Santa Maddalena Foundation, Rosano-Firenze, in 2015.

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN 9780525432753

  Ebook ISBN 9780525432760

  Cover design by Joan Wong

  www.vintagebooks.com

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Jhumpa Lahiri

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1: The Charm of the Uniform

  Chapter 2: Why a Cover?

  Chapter 3: Correspondence and Collaboration

  Chapter 4: The Naked Book

  Chapter 5: Uniformity and Anarchy

  Chapter 6: My Jackets

  Chapter 7: The Living Jacket, the Dead Jacket, the Perfect Jacket

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Camerado! This is no book;

  Who touches this, touches a man.

  Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

  1.

  The Charm of the Uniform

  In the house of my father’s family in Calcutta, which I visited as a child, I would watch my cousins getting dressed in the mornings. They got themselves ready for school; I, on the other hand, was on vacation. They donned every morning, after bathing and before having breakfast, the same thing: a uniform.

  My cousins attended different schools and therefore their respective uniforms were also different. My male cousin wore navy blue cotton pants. My female cousin, a few years older, wore a sky-blue skirt. Apart from these two colors, and the yellow tie my male cousin had to knot around his collar, the rest of the uniform was identical: a white short-sleeved shirt, white socks, black shoes.

  In the closet there were surely two pairs of navy pants, two sky-blue skirts. It was enough to put on what was cleaned and pressed. In America, before leaving for India, my mother would buy several pairs of white socks, knowing that my aunt would be grateful for them.

  However simple and functional, I found my cousins’ uniforms splendid, fascinating. On the street, on buses and trams, I was struck by this visual language, thanks to which one could identify and classify thousands of students in such a large and populous city. Every uniform represented belonging to one school or another. Each of my peers in Calcutta enjoyed, to my eyes, a strong identity and, at the same time, a sort of anonymity. This is the effect of the uniform.

  I would have liked a uniform myself. Whenever I would go to the seamstress to be fitted for new clothes—a particular adventure I could experience only in India, where, in the 1970s, it was still common to wear handmade garments instead of buying one’s clothing in stores—I was tempted to ask for one. It was a foolish desire on my part. Apparel of this kind would have been of no use for me. In America I attended public school, where everyone wore what they wanted. And I was tormented by this choice, by this freedom.

  When I was a child, expressing myself through clothing was a source of anguish. I already felt different, conspicuous because of my name, my family, my appearance. In all other respects, I wanted to be just like everybody else. I dreamt of sameness, even invisibility. Instead, forced to find my own style, I felt badly dressed, the exception rather than the rule.

  It didn’t help that some of my classmates, finding my clothes somewhat strange, used to tease me. They would say: What an ugly outfit. Those two things clash, didn’t you know? No one wears bell-bottoms anymore, they’re out of style. They laughed. That is why, for many years, while I waited for the school bus, my day began in a state of humiliation.

  My classmates derided me and, implicitly, also my parents. Being foreigners, they bought my clothes with an eye toward savings and not toward fashion or norms. They bought my clothes at end-of-season sales or at used clothing stores, knowing that I would outgrow the items in less than a year. My mother, moreover, did not share the taste of American moms. She did not shop in the same stores or dress me like the other girls. This is why I thought that a uniform would have been the solution.

  Clothing has always carried additional layers of meaning for me. My mother, even today, fifty years after leaving India, wears only the traditional clothing of her country. She barely tolerated my American clothes. She did not find my jeans or T-shirts cute. When I became an adolescent, she disapproved of short skirts, high heels. The older I grew, the more it mattered to her that I, too, wear Indian or, at the very least, concealing clothing. She held out for my becoming a Bengali woman like her.

  Every time we went to a party held by another Bengali family, to an important event or celebration, she would ask, implore, in the end force me to wear Indian clothing. If I protested, she would get angry. To placate her I gave in, but I would get irritated and sulk. As soon as I put on those clothes I felt like a different person, a foreigner like her. I felt the weight of an imposed identity. Those clothes, which had their own separate space in my closet, had a discordant, showy quality: colors that seemed too bright, material rooted in another land. They were, actually, more elegant than my everyday clothes, but they discomfited me. They tasted of a faraway place. They weighed almost nothing, and yet they weighed on me.

  Throughout this bitter struggle between my mother and myself, of long standing and with no clear resolution, I learned the hard way that how we dress, like the language we speak and the food we eat, expresses our identity, our culture, our sense of belonging. From childhood I understood that the clothes I wore, wherever I was, rendered me an “other.” Even in Calcutta, whenever I went out with my cousins, whom I physically resemble, I was perceived as a foreigner, often addressed in English. When I would ask them why, the answer was, with a shrug of the shoulders, It must be your clothes.

  As an adult, I dress the way I want; I decide how I present myself. But the shadow of that old anxiety remains: the fear of being badly dressed, of choosing wrongly and being judged. Every so often, overwhelmed by my wardrobe, by the pressure of having to choose the right outfit, I still wonder if it would be simpler to adopt a sort of uniform.

  When my books were first published, when I was thirty-two years old, I discovered that another part of me had to be dressed and presented to the world. But what is wrapped around my words—my book covers—is not of my choosing.

  I am forced, at times, to accept book jackets that I dislike, that I find problematic, disappointing. I tend to give in. I say to myself, Let it go, it’s not worth the battle. But I end up feeling afflicted, resentful.

  What in Italian is called a sovraccoperta (literally, “overcover”) is also called, in English, a jacket. A jacket made to measure, conceived and created specifically to cover and package a hardcover book. It should fit like a glove. And yet, in my opinion, most of my book jackets don’t fit me, which is why I sometimes think, as a writer too, that a uniform would be the answer.

  2.

  Why a Cover?

  The definition
of the word copertina (cover) in my Italian dictionary is quite succinct: “The paper or cardboard wrapper that covers a book, notebook, or magazine.” My own definition, on the other hand, is much more extensive, with other nuances, declensions.

  A cover appears only when the book is finished, when it is about to come into the world. It marks the birth of the book and, therefore, the end of my creative endeavor. It confers on the book a mark of independence, a life of its own. It tells me that my work is done. So, while for the publishing house it signals the arrival of the book, for me it is a farewell.

  The cover signifies that the text inside is clean, definitive. It is no longer wild, coarse, malleable. From now on the text is fixed, and yet the cover has a metamorphic function as well. It transforms the text into an object, something concrete to publish, distribute, and, in the end, sell.

  If the process of writing is a dream, the book cover represents the awakening.

  The news that a new cover is about to arrive elicits ambivalent emotions in me. On the one hand, I am moved because I have successfully brought a book to conclusion. On the other hand, I fret. I know that when the cover makes its appearance the book will be read. It will be criticized, analyzed, forgotten. Even though it exists to protect my words, the arrival of the cover, linking me to the public, makes me feel vulnerable.

  The cover makes me aware that the book has already been read. Because in reality, the book jacket is not only the text’s first clothing but also its first interpretation—both visual and for sales promotion. It represents a collective reading by the book designer and various people at the publishing house; it matters how they see the book, what they think of it, what they want from it. I know that before a book is launched, the cover has to be discussed, considered, approved, by many.

  The first time I see one of my covers, while thrilling, is always upsetting. No matter how effective or intriguing it may be, there always exists, between us, a disconnect, a disequilibrium. The cover already knows my book, while I have yet to make its acquaintance. I try to get used to it, to get close to it.

  My reactions are various, visceral. Covers can make me laugh or want to cry. They depress me, they confuse me, they infuriate me. Some I can’t quite figure out, they leave me perplexed. How is it possible, I ask myself, that my book has been framed in such an ugly or banal way?

  The right cover is like a beautiful coat, elegant and warm, wrapping my words as they travel through the world, on their way to keep an appointment with my readers.

  The wrong cover is cumbersome, suffocating. Or it is like a too-light sweater: inadequate.

  A good cover is flattering. I feel myself listened to, understood.

  A bad cover is like an enemy; I find it hateful.

  There is a certain awful cover for one of my books that elicits in me an almost violent response. Every time I am asked to autograph that edition, I feel the impulse to rip the cover off the book.

  The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that a cover is a sort of translation, that is, an interpretation of my words in another language—a visual one. It represents the text, but it isn’t part of it. It can’t be too literal. It has to have its own take on the book.

  Like a translation, a cover can be faithful to the book, or it can be misleading. In theory, like a translation, it should be in the service of the book, but this dynamic isn’t always the case. A cover can be overbearing, dominating.

  Whatever the outcome, a cover imposes an intimate relationship between author and image. This is why it can lead to a sense of complete alienation. If I don’t like a cover, I want to back away from it at once. But I can’t. The jacket touches my words, it’s wearing me.

  This moment teaches me to let go of the book. It signifies a loss of control.

  —

  The cover is superficial, negligible, irrelevant with respect to the book. The cover is an essential, vital component of the book. One must accept the fact that both these sentences are true.

  It always strikes me that in the “Reading” page of Corriere della Sera, the cover is given a grade, alongside “writing style” and “plot,” in every book review. Initially I thought, It’s not right. Why this level of attention? Why should the visual garb matter in judging the book? Later, I changed my mind. It makes sense. Once the cover exists it’s part of the book, and has an effect, either positive or negative. It either attracts or repels the reader.

  We take for granted that every book has a cover. Without one it’s considered naked, incomplete, in some ways inaccessible. It lacks a door through which to enter the text. It lacks a face.

  As a girl, I wrote my first “novels” in a series of notebooks. I drew a cover, therefore, for every story. I made sure that the essential elements were all there: the title of the work, the name of the author. I aimed for compelling graphics. Sometimes there was also an illustration or a portrait of the protagonist. Other times no.

  Why do covers exist? First and foremost, to enclose the pages. In centuries past, when books were rare and precious objects, luxurious materials were used: leather, gold, silver, ivory.

  Today the role of the cover is more complicated. It now serves to identify the book, to insert it into a style or genre. To embellish it, to make it more effective in the window display of a bookstore. To intrigue passersby so that, once attracted, they come in and pick it up, so that they buy it.

  As soon as the book puts on a jacket, the book acquires a new personality. It says something even before being read, just as clothes say something about us before we speak.

  A cover elicits certain expectations. It introduces a tone, an attitude, even when these don’t fit the book. I have just compared it to a face, but it is also a mask, something that hides what is behind. It can seduce the reader. It can betray him or her. Like gold tinsel, its glitter can deceive.

  One might say that it calls into play the opposition between true and false, appearance and reality.

  —

  The cover confers on a book not one identity but two. It introduces an expressive element distinct from that of the text. There is what the text says, and what the cover says. That is why one can love the cover and hate the book, or vice versa.

  I confess to having bought a book for its cover more than once, simply because I could not resist it, because I fell under its spell. I trusted the image, even if the content was less convincing. I have a collection of Anchor pocket books with jackets designed by Edward Gorey, an illustrator whose macabre images I have always loved. If I see one in a used bookstore, no matter what the book is, I buy it right away. In this case, I realize, the cover is more valuable to me than the text.

  The cover, therefore, has an independent identity. It has a presence, a power of its own.

  In Rome, I do not own many books. When we came to Italy, we brought very few with us. Our apartment has a large bookcase, with space for many volumes. It would have been absurd, also sad, to shelve twenty or so books on it. Instead, to fill up the space, I decided to display the books face out. As a consequence, during the past few years, I spend a lot of time enjoying certain covers, aware of the effect they have on me.

  Over time the bookcase has become a sort of installation in progress that reflects my reading, my Roman life. A portrait painted by Titian, a snapshot of the poet Patrizia Cavalli, and the photographs of Marco Delogu keep me company. I exhibit the jackets of novels and books of essays by my new Italian friends, as if they were the framed pictures of my new family. In Rome, my books compensate for walls bereft of paintings and other beautiful things. In an apartment rented already furnished, a little devoid of personal effects, the books represent my taste, my presence.

  It makes quite an impression to display books with the jacket fronts facing out rather than the spines. Usually, all in a row on a shelf, books are discrete, rather reserved. They form part of the background, reassuring but neutral. Faced-out jackets are, conversely, extroverted, uninhibited, unique. They demand attention. They say: Look
at us.

  3.

  Correspondence and Collaboration

  Dressing a book is an art, there’s no doubt. A published volume sits at the intersection of two forms of creative expression. Every book jacket implies the touch of an artist. And this pairing, this understanding between writer and artist, interests me greatly.

  An example that has always struck me is the collaboration between Virginia Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell, who designed a series of book covers, now iconic, for almost all of Woolf’s first editions with Hogarth Press, in England. This independent publishing house was founded in 1917 specifically to publish books by Woolf; her husband, Leonard; and friends and acquaintances, free from commercial considerations and protected from censorship. At first the books were hand-printed. The printing press sat on the Woolfs’ dining table at home.

  Bell’s covers are powerful, unconventional, modernist. They perfectly express the experimental essence of Woolf’s work. And yet, typically, Bell didn’t read the whole book. Woolf would recount the plot for her so that she could create a corresponding image. A dialogue between the author and the artist was enough. The critic S. P. Rosenbaum calls the covers “optical echoes” of the texts, citing an expression by Henry James.

  As a writer I often search in vain for this “optical echo.” I too want my covers to reflect the sense and spirit of my books. I would like it if, even once, a cover for one of my books were designed by someone who knew me well, who deeply knew my work, for whom it really mattered.

  I have never spoken with the designers of my covers. I don’t know them, I’m not involved. I see the final product, these days as an attachment to an email. I can sign off on it or not, perhaps ask for small changes. I ask myself if the artist has read the book, or one chapter, or even a few pages before designing something. I ask myself if she or he liked the book. It’s not clear to me.