Альфред А. Кнопф: 20 ғасыр баспагерінің ой-пікірлері

American publisher

Alfred Abraham Knopf Sr. (September 12, 1892August 11, 1984) was an American publisher of the 20th century, and co founder of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. His contemporaries included the likes of Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, and (of the previous generation) Frank Nelson Doubleday, J. Henry Harper and Henry Holt. Knopf paid special attention to the quality of printing, binding, and design in his books, and earned a reputation as a purist in both content and presentation.

Knopf had little enthusiasm for most of the changes that took place in the publishing industry during his lifetime. "Too many books are published, and they are overpriced", he told The Saturday Review. These are things "about which all publishers agree, and about which no publisher does anything." The most fundamental change he noted was the increased importance of the editor. "In the early days, things were quite simple. The books came in; we published them as written A publisher was regarded and so, in turn, was the writer as a pro. A writer's job was to write a book and give it to you." And he remarked to Shenker: "I guess business became more complicated and publishers less literate. It ceased to be the fact that publishers publish and authors write. Today authors submit manuscripts and editors write books." The editor is now hired largely to acquire books, "and if he can't get good books, he usually takes what he can get books that are not so good. And then he sometimes wrecks himself trying to make a silk purse out of what can never become anything but a sow's ear." Knopf was generally unimpressed with current literature, though he admired John Hersey, John Updike, Jorge Amado, and a few other contemporary authors. In Publishing Then and Now he wrote: "Frequently our American author, whatever his age, experience in life, and technical knowledge, simply can't write. I don't mean that he is not the master of a prose style of elegance and distinction; I mean that he can't write simple straightforward and correct English. And here, only an exceptional editor will really help him." American authors are not very durable, he said in 1964, and "there are no giants in Europe now." Though twelve Knopf authors had won Nobel Prizes, Knopf acknowledged that "some Nobel Prize books aren't very good," calling Doctor Zhivago, for example, "incredibly tedious  If Krushchev had banned it for dullness instead of its political implications, he might have been in the clear." Among other authors he rejected were Sylvia Plath, Jack Kerouac, Anne Frank, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Anaïs Nin. He turned down an early novel by Ursula K. Le Guin but encouraged her to keep writing. Knopf also lamented the "shockingly bad taste" that he felt characterizes much modern fiction, and warned of the danger of a "legal backlash" against pornography, and a possible revival of censorship. This outspoken aspect of his character sometimes found voice in letters of complaint to hotels, restaurants, and stores that failed to meet his high standards. These letters grew increasingly frequent and more severe as he aged. One striking example is the six year long war of words he waged against the Eastman Kodak Company over a roll of lost film.