Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [116]
—Grades of the Antient and Primitive Memphis-Misraim Rite Manutius was a publishing house for SFAs.
An SEA, in Manutiuan jargon, was...But why do I use the past tense? SFAs still exist, after all. Back in Milan, all continues as if nothing has happened, and yet I cast everything into a tremendously remote past. What occurred two nights ago in the nave of Saint-Martin-des-Champs has made a rent in time, reversing the order of the centuries. Or perhaps it is simply that I have aged decades overnight, or that the fear that They will find me makes me speak as if I were now chronicling a collapsing empire as I lie in the balneum with my veins severed, waiting to drown in my own blood...
An SFA is a self-financing author, and Manutius is a vanity press. Earnings high, overhead minuscule. A staff of four: Garamond, Signora Grazia, the bookkeeper in the cubbyhole in the back, and Luciano, the disabled shipping clerk in the vast storeroom in the half-basement.
“I’ve never figured out how Luciano manages to pack books with one arm,” Belbo once said to me. “I believe he uses his teeth. However, he doesn’t have all that much packing to do. Normal publishers ship to booksellers, but Luciano ships only to authors. Manutius isn’t interested in readers...The main thing, Signer Garamond says, is to make sure the authors remain loyal to us. We can get along fine without readers.”
Belbo admired Signor Garamond. He felt the man possessed a strength that he himself lacked.
The Manutius system is very simple. A few ads are placed in local papers, professional magazines, provincial literary reviews, especially those that tend to survive for only a few issues. Medium-size announcements, with a photograph of the author and a few incisive lines: “A lofty voice in our nation’s poetry,” or “The latest narrative achievement by the author of Floriana and Her Sisters.”
“At this point the net is cast,” Belbo explained, “and the SFAs fall into it in clumps, if you can fall into a net in clumps.”
“And then?”
“Well, take De Gubernatis for example. A month from now, as our retired customs official writhes with anxiety, a call from Signer Garamond will invite him to dinner with a few writers. They’ll meet in the latest Arab restaurant: very exclusive, no sign outside, you ring the bell and give your name through a peephole. Deluxe interior, soft lights, exotic music. Garamond will shake the maitre d’s hand, call the waiters by name, and send back the first bottle of wine because the vintage isn’t right. Or else he’ll say, ‘Excuse me, old friend, but this isn’t couscous the way we eat it in Marrakesh.’ De Gubernatis will be introduced to Inspector X; all the airport services are under his command, but his real claim to fame is that he is the inventor and apostle of Cosmoranto, the language of universal peace now being considered by UNESCO. There’s also Professor Y, a remarkable storyteller, winner of the Petruzzellis della Gattina Prize in 1980, but also a leading figure in medical science. How many years did you teach, Professor? Ah, those were other times; education then was taken seriously. And finally, our charming poetess, the exquisite Odolinda Mezzofanti Sassabetti, author of Chaste Throbs, which you’ve surely read.”
Belbo told me that he had long wondered why all female SFAs used a double surname: Lauretta Solimeni Calcanti, Dora Ar-denzi Fiamma, Carolina Pastorelli Cefalu. Why was it that important women writers had just one surname (except for Ivy Compton-Burnett) and some (like Colette) had none at all, while an SFA felt the need to call herself Odolinda Mezzofanti Sassabetti? 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,