Just wondering, is this normal? ordered a new book from amazon but the pages are cut really badly
>>7756846
It's a premium feature, makes it feel older and more textured.
That's called deckle edge. No clue why they do it, it looks kinda neat but it makes it harder to turn the pages
>>7756848
tho it's kinda tryhard
That's some bullshit they do on certain versions as a " feature ". Triggers me like crazy
Deckle edges were a result of a crude cutting process. They were considered pleb editions compared to straight edge books in the past. Now they are back in fashion because it kinda looks cool, but it's done deliberately, rather than by a crude cutting process. Makes pages harder to flip through.
>>7756858
>It's pretty stupid if you ask me, but as long as it's readable I don't care
then why the fuck did you buy a premium deluxe iliad from penguin?
the centennial edition of East of Eden has that shit, why oh why
>>7756864
Because it's the fagels translation, I.e. entry level Homer. OP will order the lattimore translation in a year
>>7756864
Is the translation that bad? I saw it recommended many times.
>>7756869
you could have got it for free online or for $2 at any thrift store
>>7756846
book?
i remembera series of unfortunate events(can i mention that 'pleb-tier' book on a board as pretentious as lit?) used the 'deckle edge' and i found it so FRESH as a kid, i thought it was the NEATEST shit and it constantly blew my FUCKING mind
>>7756876
I never even noticed that
>>7756875
You didn't answer my question
>>7756881
Fagels is a basic translation. It's Homer for beginners. It's fine
>>7756878
yeah, buddy!
just went and dug them up actually. theyre nice, to a person who doesnt know what a nice book is (i.e. me).
(forewarning: sorry about the triggering lack-of-dust-jacket)
>>7756859
The paper is nice but it does make it harder to flip the pages easily.
>>7756846
Sometimes pages are cut terribly. I bought a copy of Tarkovsky's Sculpting In Time and, because a page was bound with a corner of it tied down by the seams so the page was bent over itself, I had to be so fucking careful when tearing the corner of the page free from the seams that now I have an edition of the book with a weird fucking corner sticking out from the rest of the book. I don't just mean a slight dog-earing of the page, I mean how the fuck do you cut a page in this shape and then bind it dreadfully so now I have a weird fucking paper graft sticking out of the book?
IIRC they're done like that to prevent paper cuts.
>>7757816
post pics
>>7756846
Just return it FFS man
I kinda like it sometimes
>>7756846
It's stupid as fuck. Anyone who disagrees buys books for the looks.
>>7756923
L O N D O N
I've never understood how people can have such a strong opinion on a deckle edge. Doesn't everyone turn their pages using the top edge like I do?
>buy cheap old paperback from the 50s
>all the pages are stuck together at the edges
>have to use a letter opener for every single page in the book if I want to read it
Why was this ever a thing?
>>7758395
haha I had to do this with a library book once, not all the pages were opened yet
>>7756923
ah that photo makes me wanna sneeze... seriously, that's going to attract quite a bit of dust, who thought it was a good idea to cut pages like that?
>>7756846
Its ti give the impression of age op almost like roughly bound scrolls rather than flawlessly machine cut pages
>>7756923
Pls be in london
Fuck deckle edge. Sometimes I want to thumb to a specific passage, and it takes way more effort than it should with that hacked up shit. I'll pass on an otherwise perfect edition if it's cut like that.
>>7756846
Was surprised to find that the tale of genji had this when i bought it. I really like it, though
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/07/printed-books?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/deckledetecting
>>7758332
>>7758671
oh? what about me reminds you of london? youre only a couple miles off (a few thousand, actually) -- as a matter of fact, how far is new zealand from london? (rhetorical question, i just googled it. sorry to disappoint you, but its pretty far)
>>7758431
ive always taken dust jackets off, but thats honestly just personal taste. most of the dust jackets that ive come across are gaudy, and i much prefer the one-tone covers over anything. the deckled pages are more inconvenient to turn, if anything!
>>7760261
glad you think so! i did think it was a tad too morbid as a child, and for that reason i only ever read the series on a surface level (sensitive youngster, coupled by the fact that i was very young at the time). i have a sneaky suspicion that the last book was allegorical, and for that reason i never quite grasped what it 'meant'. maybe i should give it another go? id feel so silly reading it now, though, but thats only because i think reading childrens lit (no matter how patrician) is (still) embarrassing if youre not a child. siri, overcoming ego, how?
>>7760393
Post more feminine arms.
>>7756846
It feels so nice and soft.
This reminds me of one day when I ordered some old used books and when one of them arrived all the pages were uncut. Really. It was an edition from the 60s, so I had to manually cut everything and the book feels like shit to read, I hate it.
I bet that if someone gifted you a miniature book you faggots would still complain about this. Fucking plebs.
>>7756846
This is the new normal. Everything gets shittier. It saves one step and .03 cents per book in the manufacturing process. Get used to it.
Yes, it is. I have two books - an edition's of Howard Zinn's unreadable victmization manual and a wonderful edition of Antônio Nobre's Só - which are cut like that.
>>7756846
When I was a kid, I encountered this in a bookstore for the first time. I showed it to my dad: "These pages are all fucked up!" (not my exact words, but my thought process).
Dad explained that this was a "fancy" way of binding pages, which is sometimes desirable for first editions, or finer editions. I might have asked Why, and he might have said "it's just fancy", or similar. Then I let it rest.
But internally, my bullshit-meter was through the roof. /These pages are stupid as fuck, and are hard to turn/. /They are bullshit bogus pages/. They do not make an edition finer, or better, or more artistic. They only ever make it more difficult to do what you're supposed to do with a book.
Every time I handle a book like this, I get depressed.
>>7758664
No. They aren't. And I am happy after-the-fact to be in their good company, that most respondents correctly hate hate hate this shit because they actually read/manipulate books.
You sound like you're either a hipster, or work for some small/"artistic" publisher who pushes this bullshit.
>>7756869
It's a fine translation, so don't worry. Fagles doesn't go to the lengths that Lattimore does to ape greek poetics, uses received spellings of the names, etc. It gives the most enjoyable reading experience, in part, because it's not reminding you every other line that it's a translation. Read it and enjoy. Then look at Lattimire, Pope, and Chapman and appreciate the differences.
>>7758126
Here you go. Picture's bad because it's late and I'm just using my macbook camera, but this is what the state of my copy of Sculpting In Time looks like because the publisher couldn't bind a single page properly. It genuinely sticks out of the book like that.
It's like you niggers have never seen an old book
>>7760962
this, I like rubbing my fingers on it while reading.
>>7762000
But I have, plenty of times. It was just weird seeing it on a new book.
>>7761957
Yes, there is so something wrong with it.
-it looks uglier,
-Yes, /it is in actual fact harder to turn pages/, as other anons >>7756851 who are not me have also >>7756863 correctly >>7756936 pointed >>7760251 out. Obviously you can still find your page after another second or two of effort (y'know, for non-hipsters who actually like to read books and not just have cheap objets d'art on their shelves), but this is an objective /downgrade in usability/ from your average book.
-and it is try-hard, "lazy-artisan" aesthetics.
Yes. Modern books are actually better than older books in this regard of uniform pages, and this thread's subject is an unfortunate retro-backslide. Of course, old books/manuscripts are themselves non-uniform "objets"
Also people who turn the tops of pages >>7758339 are mutants. But notice how even this comment assumes that a straight cut is better than this zig-zag shit.
You are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
>>7762443
>-it looks uglier,
OCD much?
>-Yes, /it is in actual fact harder to turn pages/, as other anons >>7756851 who are not me have also >>7756863 correctly >>7756936 pointed >>7760251 out. Obviously you can still find your page after another second or two of effort (y'know, for non-hipsters who actually like to read books and not just have cheap objets d'art on their shelves), but this is an objective /downgrade in usability/ from your average book.
It's not.
>-and it is try-hard, "lazy-artisan" aesthetics.
It's not.
>You are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Yep, it was autism all along.
>>7762484
>nuh-uhs and insults in the face of a strongly argued case with a consensus behind me
I win! I declare victory on general principles. Your book is shit.
>>7762528
>strongly argued case with a consensus behind me
Thanks for the laugh.
>>7761887
Why don't you cut off the parts that stick out?
>>7762569
Scissors and even a paper-cutter would not improve matters; they are far more liable to make things worse.
Still, the conceit of fixing a book is correct. Depending on the material, a carefully calibrated sanding-job may be the best solution.
If William "Gass the Jews" Gass was willing to sign a book with deckled edges, they can't be all that bad
>>7762670
Look at those disgusting fucking edges. Like crackers that have been in deep storage and the mice have been nibbling at them.
