Publishing and reading good books fosters an “ecology of words” that strengthens civic values and improves the prospects for a better future for young people
Does erasing words from books emphasise their importance and essentiality? Does it emphasise the centrality of the written word? The answer is, of course, yes — provided that the “erasure” is an artistic gesture, a creative choice, a paradox that leads to truth. Especially if that artist is Emilio Isgrò. In fact, he made an exemplary poetic gesture of erasure, which was aesthetic and also ethical.
A major anthological exhibition by Emilio Isgrò, one of the greatest contemporary artists, has just been inaugurated to open the new MACC (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Scicli, Sicily. The museum is located in a building with astonishing Baroque architecture and is surrounded by rugged hillsides of dry stone walls (as Stefano Salis writes in Domenica de Il Sole 24 Ore on 11 May). The works in the exhibition, sixty years after the first erasures by the profoundly Sicilian — and therefore Mediterranean and universal — artist, highlight phrases and letters that feed criticism, dreams, reality and fantasy.
In short, says Isgrò, creating culture means knowing how to write, read, criticise and imagine. Constructing word games seasoned with fundamental silences, as if underlining them (in the manner of Isgrò’s “erasure”, in fact).
We live in an age of meaningless speech, syntactical and conceptual grammatical errors, loud and vulgar gossip, unreliable factoids, fake news and propaganda-filled public speeches. This is the era of “presentism”, where the present moment is prioritised over the depth of history, culture and the sacredness of life, thwarting the weight of the word. This context also means that new generations are finding it increasingly difficult to understand written texts, even with high levels of formal schooling.
We are facing a crisis of discourse. And it is a growing crisis. Therefore, it is essential to build a true “ecology of words” and restore the essential values that underpin discursive public opinion — the lesson of Jurgen Habermas — to speech. This will not only benefit democracy, but also the proper functioning of the market economy and the construction of positive social capital. This topic was discussed at length at the recent Communication Forum organised by Assolombarda. Books are the cornerstone of this. “Più libri, più liberi” (More books, more freedom), is the slogan of the National Fair of Small and Medium-sized Publishers held every year in December in Rome on the initiative of the Aie, the Association of Publishers.
Thought turns to wise words from Umberto Eco‘s “This is Not the End of the Book” (co-written with Jean-Claude Carrière and published by La nave di Teseo in 2009), in which he discusses the beneficial habit of using books as everyday objects, “like spoons”, and how books do not resist fire (the Library of Alexandria and the Nazi book burnings are prime examples of this), but instead survive “the global blackout”.
“A sign of vitality and salvation”, comments Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi (IlSole24Ore, 11 May), also drawing on the theologian Romano Guardini‘s “Praise of the Book”. In this story, a military chaplain distributes the pages of his Gospel to soldiers as a source of comfort in the midst of battle. Pages of consolation and remembrance of the essence of life, right at the moment of death.
“Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book,” Stéphane Mallarmé was fond of saying. And even if it is true that “life is either lived or written”, as Luigi Pirandello said, books certainly help us to understand life better and convey its meaning and values to readers. This gives a narrated experience the characteristics of a challenge to time and oblivion.
Reading and falling in love with books, then. Keeping them in the fabric of our everyday life.
The just beginning season helps us to think better about words, the power of writing and the pleasure of reading. From 14 to 18 May, Turin will host the Book Fair, with over two thousand events, meetings and dialogues to inspire a love of reading. Then begins the Grand Tour of awards — the Strega, the Campiello, the Viareggio, the Bancarella, and so on — which involve hundreds of events. There are also festivals in Mantua, Pordenone, Taormina, Polignano a Mare, Salerno, Trani, and so on, including cities and towns all over Italy. Books are discussed, writers are interviewed, and ideas and emotions are exchanged. “Thanks to books, we can recognise ourselves as a community,” comments Giuseppe Laterza, a publisher who is particularly committed to organising initiatives that support reading (La Stampa, 10 May).
It is true that we read very little in Italy. Book sales have become lacklustre again after the post-Covid boom. However, it is encouraging that many surveys indicate that the younger generation still values books as a source of knowledge and mental stimulation. The thriving state of children’s and young adult publishing testifies to the possibility of a better future, thanks to the widespread habit in schools and among more discerning families of embracing paper books alongside digital reading tools.
Even the world of publishing, which is rarely explored by most Italians and is not popular in many political circles, has some interesting news. For example, there is the growing influence of capable and competent women at the top, who are adept at drawing on the experience and memory of notable figures such as Elvira Sellerio, Inge Feltrinelli and Laura Lepetit. This influence is emphasised by the recent appointment of Longanesi’s new president, Agnese Pini, director of Quotidiano Nazionale, Resto del Carlino, La Nazione and Il Giorno; the Turin Book Fair’s management by Annalena Benini; the renewal of Feltrinelli by Alessandra Carra; managing director; the activism of Elisabetta Sgarbi for the growth of La nave di Teseo; and the successes of Laura Donnini at HarperCollins and Elena Campominosi at Bollati Boringhieri. Once again, we must acknowledge the unwavering commitment of Rosellina Archinto and the skilful, innovative editorial choices of Chicca Dubini at NN Editore. They have a keen eye for the most promising American writers, building on the success of introducing a great author such as Kent Haruf to the Italian market. The consistent quality of Iperborea’s publications is a testament to the leadership of Emilia Lodigiani. Not to be overlooked are the initiatives of Annamaria Malato at Salerno Editrice and Patrizia Alma Pacini at the family publishing house.
The list of positive female stories could go on and on. It is an important sign of quality and modernity in the world of publishing. On the other hand, the majority of women are strong readers, more so than men. There is also a long list of successful female authors.
They publish books that are read (perhaps in smaller quantities than the 80,000-plus titles published each year, but of a higher quality). What is needed is the fostering of meetings and reading groups. And tax relief for those who want to open a bookshop. Investment in libraries, both public and private, is also necessary. This could be achieved by linking municipal libraries, school libraries, and company and workplace libraries. The Confindustria Culture Group and Museimpresa are studying initiatives to this end. Pirelli’s company libraries, both at the Milan headquarters in Bicocca and at the Settimo Torinese and Bollate factories, have a long positive history and could serve as a good reference.
In an era of the “knowledge economy” and responsible AI usage, making use of books is a choice that is cultural, social and civil.
An example? The works of Jorge Luis Borges, such as The Aleph, which has just been republished in Feltrinelli’s Universale Economica series, are among the many possibilities. This series contains many classic titles and is a must-have for anyone who loves culture and reading. “’When I opened my eyes, I saw the Aleph’. ‘The Aleph?’ I echoed. ‘Yes, the place where, without any possible confusion, all the places in the world are found’.”
The Aleph, the first letter of the alphabet of the scared Hebrew language. The symbolic beginning of the Book. And books. Until we find ourselves, again from a book by Borges, at the “Library of Babel”. It is the chaos of the infinity of sheets that chase each other and repeat themselves. But it also a chaos that can be reconstructed and understood. And here we are again. Back to the positive significance of books.
(Photo Getty Images)
Does erasing words from books emphasise their importance and essentiality? Does it emphasise the centrality of the written word? The answer is, of course, yes — provided that the “erasure” is an artistic gesture, a creative choice, a paradox that leads to truth. Especially if that artist is Emilio Isgrò. In fact, he made an exemplary poetic gesture of erasure, which was aesthetic and also ethical.
A major anthological exhibition by Emilio Isgrò, one of the greatest contemporary artists, has just been inaugurated to open the new MACC (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Scicli, Sicily. The museum is located in a building with astonishing Baroque architecture and is surrounded by rugged hillsides of dry stone walls (as Stefano Salis writes in Domenica de Il Sole 24 Ore on 11 May). The works in the exhibition, sixty years after the first erasures by the profoundly Sicilian — and therefore Mediterranean and universal — artist, highlight phrases and letters that feed criticism, dreams, reality and fantasy.
In short, says Isgrò, creating culture means knowing how to write, read, criticise and imagine. Constructing word games seasoned with fundamental silences, as if underlining them (in the manner of Isgrò’s “erasure”, in fact).
We live in an age of meaningless speech, syntactical and conceptual grammatical errors, loud and vulgar gossip, unreliable factoids, fake news and propaganda-filled public speeches. This is the era of “presentism”, where the present moment is prioritised over the depth of history, culture and the sacredness of life, thwarting the weight of the word. This context also means that new generations are finding it increasingly difficult to understand written texts, even with high levels of formal schooling.
We are facing a crisis of discourse. And it is a growing crisis. Therefore, it is essential to build a true “ecology of words” and restore the essential values that underpin discursive public opinion — the lesson of Jurgen Habermas — to speech. This will not only benefit democracy, but also the proper functioning of the market economy and the construction of positive social capital. This topic was discussed at length at the recent Communication Forum organised by Assolombarda. Books are the cornerstone of this. “Più libri, più liberi” (More books, more freedom), is the slogan of the National Fair of Small and Medium-sized Publishers held every year in December in Rome on the initiative of the Aie, the Association of Publishers.
Thought turns to wise words from Umberto Eco‘s “This is Not the End of the Book” (co-written with Jean-Claude Carrière and published by La nave di Teseo in 2009), in which he discusses the beneficial habit of using books as everyday objects, “like spoons”, and how books do not resist fire (the Library of Alexandria and the Nazi book burnings are prime examples of this), but instead survive “the global blackout”.
“A sign of vitality and salvation”, comments Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi (IlSole24Ore, 11 May), also drawing on the theologian Romano Guardini‘s “Praise of the Book”. In this story, a military chaplain distributes the pages of his Gospel to soldiers as a source of comfort in the midst of battle. Pages of consolation and remembrance of the essence of life, right at the moment of death.
“Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book,” Stéphane Mallarmé was fond of saying. And even if it is true that “life is either lived or written”, as Luigi Pirandello said, books certainly help us to understand life better and convey its meaning and values to readers. This gives a narrated experience the characteristics of a challenge to time and oblivion.
Reading and falling in love with books, then. Keeping them in the fabric of our everyday life.
The just beginning season helps us to think better about words, the power of writing and the pleasure of reading. From 14 to 18 May, Turin will host the Book Fair, with over two thousand events, meetings and dialogues to inspire a love of reading. Then begins the Grand Tour of awards — the Strega, the Campiello, the Viareggio, the Bancarella, and so on — which involve hundreds of events. There are also festivals in Mantua, Pordenone, Taormina, Polignano a Mare, Salerno, Trani, and so on, including cities and towns all over Italy. Books are discussed, writers are interviewed, and ideas and emotions are exchanged. “Thanks to books, we can recognise ourselves as a community,” comments Giuseppe Laterza, a publisher who is particularly committed to organising initiatives that support reading (La Stampa, 10 May).
It is true that we read very little in Italy. Book sales have become lacklustre again after the post-Covid boom. However, it is encouraging that many surveys indicate that the younger generation still values books as a source of knowledge and mental stimulation. The thriving state of children’s and young adult publishing testifies to the possibility of a better future, thanks to the widespread habit in schools and among more discerning families of embracing paper books alongside digital reading tools.
Even the world of publishing, which is rarely explored by most Italians and is not popular in many political circles, has some interesting news. For example, there is the growing influence of capable and competent women at the top, who are adept at drawing on the experience and memory of notable figures such as Elvira Sellerio, Inge Feltrinelli and Laura Lepetit. This influence is emphasised by the recent appointment of Longanesi’s new president, Agnese Pini, director of Quotidiano Nazionale, Resto del Carlino, La Nazione and Il Giorno; the Turin Book Fair’s management by Annalena Benini; the renewal of Feltrinelli by Alessandra Carra; managing director; the activism of Elisabetta Sgarbi for the growth of La nave di Teseo; and the successes of Laura Donnini at HarperCollins and Elena Campominosi at Bollati Boringhieri. Once again, we must acknowledge the unwavering commitment of Rosellina Archinto and the skilful, innovative editorial choices of Chicca Dubini at NN Editore. They have a keen eye for the most promising American writers, building on the success of introducing a great author such as Kent Haruf to the Italian market. The consistent quality of Iperborea’s publications is a testament to the leadership of Emilia Lodigiani. Not to be overlooked are the initiatives of Annamaria Malato at Salerno Editrice and Patrizia Alma Pacini at the family publishing house.
The list of positive female stories could go on and on. It is an important sign of quality and modernity in the world of publishing. On the other hand, the majority of women are strong readers, more so than men. There is also a long list of successful female authors.
They publish books that are read (perhaps in smaller quantities than the 80,000-plus titles published each year, but of a higher quality). What is needed is the fostering of meetings and reading groups. And tax relief for those who want to open a bookshop. Investment in libraries, both public and private, is also necessary. This could be achieved by linking municipal libraries, school libraries, and company and workplace libraries. The Confindustria Culture Group and Museimpresa are studying initiatives to this end. Pirelli’s company libraries, both at the Milan headquarters in Bicocca and at the Settimo Torinese and Bollate factories, have a long positive history and could serve as a good reference.
In an era of the “knowledge economy” and responsible AI usage, making use of books is a choice that is cultural, social and civil.
An example? The works of Jorge Luis Borges, such as The Aleph, which has just been republished in Feltrinelli’s Universale Economica series, are among the many possibilities. This series contains many classic titles and is a must-have for anyone who loves culture and reading. “’When I opened my eyes, I saw the Aleph’. ‘The Aleph?’ I echoed. ‘Yes, the place where, without any possible confusion, all the places in the world are found’.”
The Aleph, the first letter of the alphabet of the scared Hebrew language. The symbolic beginning of the Book. And books. Until we find ourselves, again from a book by Borges, at the “Library of Babel”. It is the chaos of the infinity of sheets that chase each other and repeat themselves. But it also a chaos that can be reconstructed and understood. And here we are again. Back to the positive significance of books.
(Photo Getty Images)