Ep. 318: I Wove a Book and Russian Reincarnation

Bookbinding

You might be happy to know that you have two books to check out this week. Two books of varying quality and ingenuity (or semi-inventiveness), but both useful (hopefully to you).

First, the complete Woven Kanazawa with Useful (?) Japanese Phrases. About 100 pages with the phrases you can use throughout the Japanese-speaking world. Last week I showed you the incomplete cover. This week: The complete book! An exposed spine, link stitching, muted endpapers, but a cover made of cut-up Manila files and woven back together. With useful phrases such as “Where’s a pharmacy?” (薬局はどこですか) and “See you next year!” (また来年!) with transliterations so those of us who can’t read Japanese can pronounce them. (Yak-kyoku wa doko des ka and mata rai-nen, respectively, if you’re wondering.)

Second, the complete third segment of Marcel Proust’s Guermantes Way. The second segment has about 120 pages. The third segment has over 200! The first segment, hastily slapped together with no regard to history or continuity, has 80. If I planned this out properly (or with a healthy dose of OCD), each segment would have had 160 pages - keep in mind the first segment starts 80 pages into the novel, which I read on my iPhone (not recommended). 

The third and final segment is A5 in size, using the French link stitch, which came out too loose, in my opinion. But the real innovation here is the cover. It’s made of a clear plastic file, so, naturally, the cover is clear, too. The first thing you see is the first page, which has two photos. The top photo is a manuscript page marked up (with a doodle) by Proust. The lower photo is Proust himself looking sardonic and wise. There are no endpapers as the cover is sewn into the textblock via the French link stitch system. The next clear-file cover I use will probably be a Coptic binding, which tends to be tighter and opens the book wider.

Or, which makes more sense, re-sew it using the French link stitch until I get it right; practice, I have been told, makes perfect. In my case, however, practice takes time. And might lead to improvement. I hope so.

 

Fiction

Having finished editing Molly Bright, I have jumped into too many other fictional writing activities. First on the Too Many list is finishing Growing Slurry. Second, and pushing Growing Slurry onto the back burner, is editing The Nuns of Nanao, your typical transmigration of the souls of WWII-era Soviet tank crews from their deaths in Stalingrad in 1943 to Brighton Beach in New York and the subsequent second migration of the commander into a younger man novel. The younger man (ironically nicknamed The Russian because he isn’t) seeks out the commander’s possibly dead Stalingrad-era girlfriend. In Yokohama, of course. In the present day.

I guess the sub-title should be A Transmigration Love Story. But it’s the love story that reincarnates, if the possibly dead girlfriend is found, not the people. 

Third on the Too Many list is printing Molly Bright. Everything has to be checked: chapter title placement, page alignment, captions, and, as I’m checking, I’m also reading the text, so changes are made; this is a sort of final edit which takes time, as you can imagine. I could send my beta reader a PDF, but I know he’d prefer a Real Book™ as he’s a real book kind of guy.

Video

Part One of Woven Kanazawa is here. Part Two is here. A total of six minutes for your viewing pleasure if you’re a YouTube user. And want to watch me weave a book cover.