The start of a journey

After receiving Eslite’s invitation to participate in the Reading Classics Together project and listening to individual briefings about it, publishing industry figures floated different ideas and opinions on the topic of what is a classic. Each participating publisher makes lists of classic works from their own titles. As a frame of reference, Italo Calvino’s Why Read the Classics provides 14 different definitions of classics, including “a classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers,” “a classic is a book that you are ‘rereading,’” “a classic is a work which relegates the noise of the present to a background hum,” and “the classics are those books which come to us bearing the aura of previous interpretations, and trailing behind them the traces they have left in the culture or cultures through which they have passed.” These are probably the most detailed definitions of a classic to have come from the brain of a great literary master.

Hu Jinlun, editor-in-chief of Linking Publishing.

A series of classics selected by senior editors

These editors each have their own internal yardsticks for defining a classic.

In the view of ­Zhong Hui­min, editor-in-chief at Next Century Publishing, classics “are aesthetically moving, and they inspire you with their wisdom.” At the same time, they are “rich with human experience.” Next Century has published many books that rise to this standard: “For instance, we have published quite a few such books by Edward W. Said. Which one do we pick?” But she also considers the issue of accessibility to the general public. “Selecting classics that are easy to read and accessible to the public at large” is one of the main criteria Next Century has applied in compiling its list. Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-­Gernsheim’s The Normal Chaos of Love is one such book.

“Books that invite successive readings, that never go out of date, and that are irreplaceable.” These are the simple criteria that Hu Jin­lun, editor-in-chief at Linking Publishing, uses to select classic works. In particular, Hu focuses on books that didn’t leave a huge impression when they were published, being overlooked amid the hubbub of their eras. He hopes that the classics project will give them an opportunity to once again see the light of day.

He ignores the market and concerns about “what the people want.” He doesn’t bother about the covers. He purely concerns himself with determining whether the book deserves the status of a classic. “Picking books based on their place within the framework of all of civilization’s knowledge” is the model used by the Taiwan Commercial Press. Probably only well-­established houses such as Taiwan Commercial, Linking and Yuan-Liou can afford to take such an approach.

But sales data create complications for the Reading Classics Together project that wouldn’t be faced by, say, a library.

At colleges classics may well be required reading, but in the mass market they are few and far between. “Giving new life to classics that have lost sales momentum” has thus been a common concern for many editors in making their selections.

Without that momentum, when a book’s initial license expires at seven years, the publishers face the issue of whether to renew. Even when these are works by winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, publishers may reluctantly throw in the towel in the face of lackluster sales.

All you need to do to experience a classic is to open up a book and read.

Multiple considerations

“Classics always present more things to consider than may be apparent at first glance,” says Anna Lee, editor-in-chief at Azoth Books. Classics always transcend their genres. Consequently, classic romantic novels are more than love stories, business classics more than management books, travel classics more than travelogues. In selecting books for the classics project, Lee applies her own standards. Her strategy: to put a focus on books in the public domain as well as new translations of classics. This necessitates working hard to find the “right” translator while “avoiding choosing titles that have long been super popular or conversely those that will never attract more than a few readers.” 

On the other hand, Ecus Publishing’s editor-in-chief Chen Yu­xin peruses sales reports, assiduously studying how Ecus’ books are selling at Eslite. The bestseller list serves as an initial screening. Then she turns to considering such factors as genre, period and original language.

Her approach has been quite successful. Ecus’ Chinese-language edition of ­Osamu Da­zai’s No Longer Human was one of the rare books from the project’s classics series to stay on Eslite’s bestsellers list for several months. “It was priced low, it had a film version out, and the new cover added value,” says Chen of the choice. But Leo Tolstoy’s Resurrection, a highbrow literary classic, did not meet with the same success.

Yu Yi­fang of China Times Publishing also believes that the Reading Classics Together program “isn’t aimed at selling books to people who have already bought them,” and that it needs to highlight the diverse and multi­faceted nature of literature and strike a balance between social science, natural science and literature. ­Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses and Jared ­Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel are certainly classics: “We need some books that are easy to read; we can’t aim too high for every book.” The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is one such easy-to-read book.

Why don’t the lists of classics from China Times Publishing have any Ha­ruki Mu­ra­kami titles on them? The answer is simple: Murakami doesn’t need the boost. Treasured spots on these lists are given to good books that are still somewhat obscure or have lost momentum.

Classics need not be difficult. Quite often they were once highly popular titles that many people were buying. As they find their ultimate place with the passage of time, they become classics. That’s the view of Business Weekly Publications editor-in-chief Peng Zhi­wan, who delegated the power to suggest picks to the head editors of the publishing house’s various departments, and then created a condensed list of books that “demonstrate both continuity and creativity.” By that she means that some books are undeniable classics, such as A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, by Roland Barthes. On the other hand, there are some highly influential books that might not at first glance fit one’s notion of a classic. Yet the subject matter of the book might have been based on a religion with 2000 years of history, and the author might have employed innovative writing techniques. These qualities might earn it the title of ‘classic.’” James C. Hunter’s The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership is just such a book.

Peng discovered that whereas Business Weekly typically publishes a ratio of six Chinese books to four works in translation, when it came to the ten that her editors had selected for their list of classics, not a single one was originally written in Chinese.

It took publishers such as Hong Fan Books, Er Ya Press, Chiu Ko and Crown Publishing to remedy this deficit. Eileen ­Chang, Kenneth Pai, Yu ­Qiuyu, Wang Ding­jun, Yang Mu, ­Cheng Chou-yu, Chou Meng-tieh, Yu ­Kwang-­chung… no major master over two generations was missing. Rye Field Publishing, a two-time participant in the classics program, selected mostly translated books and titles related to the humanities and history for the first go-round. Then, for the second iteration of the project, it selected major Chinese masterpieces such as Yu Hua’s To Live and Mo Yan’s Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. “We wanted to show everyone that classics come in many different guises,” explains Wu Wei­jen, Rye Field’s editor-in-chief.

Chiu Ko’s editor-in-chief Chen Su-fang selected titles based on two considerations: their ability to inspire, and their place in the history of literature. In Taiwan or China there are a few books such as Chen Jo-hsi’s The Execution of Mayor Yin and Wang Lan’s The Blue and the Black that epitomize their eras. They elicit powerful memories for the older generation, yet hold up well in the present day, inspiring deep feelings among younger readers. These are one kind of classic. Then there are those books that the world recognizes as classics that have stood up over the long march of time. Dante’s The Divine Comedy and James Joyce’s Ulysses enjoy that kind of status.

“Classics always present more things to consider than is apparent at first glance,” says Anna Lee, editor-in-chief at Azoth Books. Classics always transcend their genres.

Varied genres

You may say you could pretty well imagine the book lists of publishers such as Taiwan Commercial Press, Linking, China Times, Hong Fan, Chiu Ko and Left Bank. Yet Marco Polo Press’s editor­-in-chief Guo Baoxiu and Crown’s lead editor Hsu Ting Ting understood that Eslite approached them to take part in the second round of the classics program with the expectation that they would pick a list that broke the mold of what would be considered classics: “If Eslite had wanted a traditional list of classics, they wouldn’t have come to us,” Guo says bluntly. Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town and ­Akiko Ju­gaku’s A Thousand Years of Prosperity, as well as San Mao’s The Story of the Sahara and The Scarecrow Smile were some of the titles they chose. All of these expand the definition of a classic.

After Eslite invited publishers to present their lists of classics, publishers were able to leverage the classics project to reposition themselves. Faces Publishing made its name with mystery novels, but there’s not a single whodunit on its classics list, which even includes offbeat new titles like One Square Inch of Silence by Gordon Hempton and John Grossman. And Commonwealth Publishing, long a powerhouse for management titles, only selected four business titles on its list of ten books. Three science titles and three literary works round out its list.

By choosing widely from literature, history, science and management, publishing houses are making the case for balanced reading and balanced lives.

Short but deeply meaningful books that combine literature with science, as well as longer, multi-­volume works, such as Edward Gibbon’s six-­volume The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and the four-volume The Complete Works of Jorge Luis Borges, appeared in the second stage of the project. Observing the lists for the first two stages, Anna Lee, who formerly worked as a purchaser for Eslite, believes that the project will adjust to any setbacks and only grow stronger.

Shaped by Eslite, publishers and readers, the Reading Classics Together program is unprecedented in the history of publishing in Taiwan. Over the three years that the project will be up and running, publishing industry figures are confident that it will foster a complete classics ecosystem, which will serve as a gift to the next generation of readers. 

In a room full books, choose one. If it truly captures your attention, it’s a classic.

From the great mass of books, Marco Polo Press’s editor-in-chief Guo Baoxiu picked books for her list that broke the mold of what would be considered classics.

Crown Publishing’s lead editor Hsu Ting Ting hopes that young readers will be tempted to enter a bookstore and will use these lists to select the first classic of their lives.

Opening a book offers a leisurely portal to a whole new world.