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when book covers speak...

sometimes an image or a design gets under your skin and you can't figure out why and you can't let go of it, and it simply has its way with you.

i've been staring at this cover of paul valery's mousier teste for ages, and specifically for the design of the cover by rudolph de harak. there is something unspeakable about the way it continually nags for my eye attention. de harak did hundreds of cover designs for mcgraw hill (he also did their logo), many of the covers stellar, but none that work their magic on me as deeply as this one.

in some strange way i believe the image captures valery's text perfectly in its near ordinariness and feeling slightly off or uncanny at the same time.

de harak was a very wonderful designer, who worked not only with flat surfaces but also exhibition design, signage and even some parts of expo 67. there's a great oral history of with him here, coincidentally recorded on my birthday in 2000.

judging a book by its back cover...

i picked up a nice hardback copy of robert pinget's book "the voice" about a week ago. the interesting thing is that it's the first time i've purchased a book solely because of the back cover. seeing the words "the voice" on a spine was enough to get me to pull it down, but the front cover led me to almost put it back. curious about the text, i flipped it over, expecting to see a description, and i was immediately drawn to the series of images of what i believe to be pinget himself, involved in various activities with a ladder in a french garden (he might be in the south of france, and seems to be looking for someone he lost...)

i have to say i've never read any of his books, so i am anxious to read his voice; but it is interesting that his work is often compared to beckett's (and indeed pinget and beckett shared letters for over 20 years...), because this series of images could easily be a strange solo outdoor performance of a beckett play.

i don't know how it happens that these things get inside of me so deeply; but as i carried the book around with me, surveying every shelf in the store, i kept flipping it over, nearly obsessing over these images. part of me wanted to put the book back, but part of me knew i had to take it home. i'm still not sure why the images spoke to me in such a strong way.

now, i begin to wonder if the text could ever work me the way these images do - if it might be less compelling in light of, unfortunately, having to compete with the power of these photos - to speak in a voice wholly its own, outside of the resonance the photos have left in me.

the ridiculousness of 'collecting' books like this, is that words are supposed to be a book's primary value, but this isn't the part i find myself gravitating towards. it's the object that has its own power, and rather than spending time reading, i find myself only looking. this thing needs to be held with eyes fixed upon it. maybe i'll simply never open it...