People Who Read Books Are Getting Phonier All the Time by Gianni Celati

 


Why read books? And if you do read books, what sort of psychic shifts and personal transformations might you undergo? Italian author Gianni Celati touches on these questions in his People Who Read Books Are Getting Phonier All the Time, a highly engaging novella that's always charming and occasionally downright beguiling.

The story starts off innocently enough: a young man, unnamed, an avid reader of books, leaves his studies at university and looks for a job where he can read many books to better determine their content and meaning. He hits on what he thinks might be an ideal profession: bookseller.

However, our somewhat naive protagonist is in for a series of shocks. He and his new girlfriend follow a manager from a publishing house as this middle-aged man with a mustache knocks on people's doors. The goal: to be invited in to deliver his sales pitch and leave with a signed contract wherein the sucker falls for the hoax of buying expensive books (usually encyclopedias) that they'll never read.

Two aspects of this sales technique: 1) when someone opens the door, don't tell them you're trying to sell them something; tell them you're doing “market research” on peoples' favorite reading material. (This highly unethical form of deception was standard practice back in the days of door-to-door encyclopedia sales), and 2) as a seller of books, never be a reader of books since the customer will “smell you out” and never want to buy books from you. (Sad but true: the general public both dislikes and mistrusts people they perceive as intellectuals, bookworms or eggheads).

I wouldn't be surprised if, as a young man, Gianni Celati had his own firsthand experience with sales people like the man with the mustache. This section of the novella, much of it laughable, leaves no doubt a good chunk of the publishing world is all about marketing and selling books rather than the actual reading of books.

At one point the young man attends a lecture given by two famous literary critics. During the question and answer session, he musters up the courage to ask the older critic about his literary tastes. The older critic answers: “My literary tastes? I want a book not to be whining. If a writer is desperate let him hang himself. I read two or three pages and if I find them whining or desperate I give it a bad review. There is nothing better than a really bad review to warn the author that he is taking the wrong road.”

Not put off, the young man asks a second question about what books mean. The older critic found this second question even more annoying. “These are things one asks only if one understands nothing about literature. If I find this question in a book I finish the writer off for life.”

Oh, my! Again, I wouldn't be shocked if Gianni Celati was on the receiving end of a reviewer who found his voice “too whining” and his fiction “too philosophical” and attempted to finish Celati off for life.

Surely one of the more intriguing sections has the young woman reflecting on the use of words – word in books, words on the street, words used in conversation. “It seemed to her that written words and words in general were constantly emitting signals to attract attention with the strangest kind of winks.” For me, her reflections hearken back to the ideas of Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe when he states we humans attempt to shield ourselves against the reality of death and meaninglessness of life by distracting ourselves with chatter, a constant buzzing of language that might anchor us by such things as identifying ourselves as wealthy or part of some club or organization.

Additionally and perhaps most provocatively, our young lady sees words and language in books (mostly novels) as yet another way to shield us from the ghastliness of life. For with books, we can sit back and read about people in conflict while we ourselves observe from a safe distance. This creative process for both writers of novels and readers of novels is what Zapffe terms artistic sublimation.

Lastly, the young man eventually starts to write a novel himself. To discover his subject and how he's getting on as an aspiring novelist, I highly recommend you read this fine work by Gianni Celati (for readers of English, one of four novellas published in Appearances by Serpent's Tale).


Italian author Gianni Celati, 1937-2022