tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6959297.post2296241803828650971..comments2024-03-21T07:37:30.475-04:00Comments on Light reading: The canonizationJenny Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295436498255927522noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6959297.post-7062053196149099722008-06-12T14:59:00.000-04:002008-06-12T14:59:00.000-04:00I have heard this view expressed by others, and it...I have heard this view expressed by others, and it always weirds me out. Though I do appreciate his making the same complaint about the Pleiades, since I've gotten used to hearing them described as superior to anything us grotty Americans can ever produce but do not happen to own any, since my ignorant ass cannot read French. But the fact is that the volumes in the LOA series are compact, fit easily in the hand, are eye-pleasing, and, in my experience, make for dandy reading. I would suspect that some kind of reverse snobbery is at work if I had not this view expressed by some smart people.<BR/><BR/>One thing about the argument that strikes me as not just wrong-headed but out-of-date refers to the supposed greater readability, based on their being cheaper and more democratic, of paperbacks. This is the view of someone who is on enough mailing lists that he hasn't had to buy a paperback in a good long while. For many years now, they have been "affordable" only in comparison to the outrageous prices now routinely stamped on hardcover books. And if you were faced with the choice of buying, say, current paperback editions of four separate novels by Faulkner or Nabokov and one LOA hardcover that collects all four plus supplementary materials, I'd bet that in many cases the LOA would be the better buy.Phil Dyess-Nugenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16979900896034692570noreply@blogger.com