John Butleralways judges the book - and the bottle - by its cover
The best cliches use a specific situation to provide us with a general truth of the world, and they always work on a general and specific level. In his weekly therapy session with Dr Melfi, Tony Soprano attempts to blame his parents for the flawed adult he has become, and to excuse his son, AJ. He tells his therapist, "you can't put s**t back in the donkey," and at this point you know that not only does he blame his mother and excuse his own son, but that it is virtually impossible to perform the specific task he has referenced. In this way, your understanding of the world is increased two-fold. Good cliche.
The worst cliches are those that leave some kind of room for doubt in your mind, those that fail to work on one or both levels. For example, I don't think it's fair to dismiss somebody as an unworthy human being because they have an unfortunate physical flaw. But you should always judge a book by its cover. Always. Each and every time.
Take chick-lit, or urban contemporary female-oriented literature, to give it the correct nomenclature. Take the covers of the majority of each of these titles. They are pink and yellow and cream, and upon seeing them I am always reminded of ice-cream. Is it wrong to deduce that they are the literary equivalent of a Brunch? Both are fiendishly easy to consume without placing undue stress on the digestive process. Both are made in Ireland and devoured on "the holiers". And just as HB doesn't use bleak Vermeer-style portraiture to sell Brunches, each book cover is absolutely representative of the story bound within, and of the genre as a whole.
Invisible hands guide you through every shopping trip and it's wrong to ignore the power of corporate design, whether it is trying to sell you books or ice-cream. More so than with ice-cream, in the crowded book market readers and writers need all the help they can get. Besides, if you weren't to judge them in this way, then why do books have covers?
Last week I bought a book of short stories called There Are Little Kingdoms, by Kevin Barry. Fifteen copies of his collection were neatly stacked on the corner of the newly released Irish fiction table in the bookshop, sharing table space with 28 other titles. I noticed the cover to There Are Little Kingdomsfirst, depicting a cluster of houses against a rusty orange and red background. Certain subconscious boxes were being ticked. I picked it up and flipped it over. I read a summary and then remembered a positive review in the paper a little while back.
Another seven tables on the ground floor of the bookshop were hawking new hardback, new non-fiction, recently-but-not-newly-published books and three-for-the-price-of-two offers. I didn't climb the stairs but I know there were more tables on the next three floors, stacked with books awaiting judgment, like puppies in a pet shop. And yet I took There Are Little Kingdomsto the counter and paid for it. Bullseye.
There are 6,000 novels published each year in Britain alone. The competition is particularly brutal given the personal, sensitive nature of what is being sold. Clive James wrote a poem entitled The Book of My Enemy has Been Remainderedand the second line runs " . . . and I am pleased." It's enjoyable to speculate about the identity of the un-named foe whose "brainchild now consorts with the bad buys . . . the unbudgeable turkeys". It's even more illuminating to consider how fierce this vying for attention must be when the failure of another writer provokes such bile (albeit hilarious) in a writer as successful as James. I mean, at what point exactly are we meant to ascend to grace?
Kevin Barry's book of short stories is fantastic, and this has nothing to do with the fact that I could hang the cover on my wall. I loved the cover and I love the book, but the two are not distinct, as the cliche would suggest. The same goes for wine. I love wine. In fact, it's a watery understatement to merely say that I love it, but family members are anxiously scanning these lines for any evidence of disintegration. I love wine and yet, when I prowl the off-licence for a bottle, I judge each one solely on the basis of its label. I have no idea what my favourite wine is, but I can tell you right now what my favourite label is.
My favourite label is printed on embossed, ridged white paper, with a picture of a two-storey chateau, surrounded by elegant trees, rendered in grey ink. Above this scene, the brand name of the wine is printed in deep red, all capital letters. Beneath the title, the grapes, the vineyard and the manner of bottling are described in a more ornate gothic font. The top of the bottle is covered in a deep red plastic hood which, from a distance, resembles wax. The cork is made of cork. And the name of the wine? The grape? An approximation of the tannins? The taste? No idea.
The highest form of praise I can offer to Kevin Barry's short stories is that upon re-reading them, they resemble a good wine. And if you publish books or crush grapes, and are experiencing lean times, I hereby suggest that any lack of success is the fault of your graphic designer and nothing at all to do with you, your prose or your booze.
I'm just like my grandfather in that I do my level best to support both industries, and I'm proud to be like him. I never met him, but his hand guides me every day, his grip more sure than that of any corporate shill.
• John Butler blogs at lozenge.wordpress.com