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The Logged-In Public: Are you going to collect these features from Unlikely Stories and turn them into a book?
The idea intrigues the Sardine: "turning something into a book," as if it were magic. As if books happen after so many words are set in type, put in so many columns, collected as so many articles and stories. Turning something into a book that wasn't initially meant to be, by all rights should never be, a book.
L-I P: Can't we get a straight answer?
Why do you ask?
L-I P: Other feature writers do it. We figured it was only natural, what with this column being such a success internationally.
As a matter of fact, the thought--I repeat, THE THOUGHT--of doing something like that had occurred to me, but only in the sense that some enterprising person would broach the subject.
L-I P: You mean, Frank Weathers.
Yes. He already asked to be my agent. I told him I wasn't interested.
L-I P: You're nuts.
There are too many damn books. Worse, there are too many books that aren't really books. And a collection of feature articles, even my features, would not be true book.
L-I P: We would read a Sardine book.
Why? You've already read the columns.
L-I P: What's the big deal? It's just one more book. Someone has to make a stand somewhere on this. A Sardine book just isn't necessary. How can I publish a Non-Book when the idea of Non-Book nauseates me?
L-I P: What's so bad about it?
The point would be too subtle for the Logged-In Public.
L-I P: We're insulted. A book's a book. What are you bothering us with all this crap about Non-Books? Finally, we like something of yours and now we're getting our ass bitten anyway. Why should you care if what you get published is a book or non-book. It's still got a binding, in hardback it'll have the exorbitant price. You can autograph five hundred copies and sell them for seventy-five dollars. You might even get it selected by a book club. You've wanted to get a book published for the last twenty years and now, when the opportunity comes, you bat it away. You're nuts.
A majority of books, if you really want to know, are Non-Books.
L-I P: What's a book, according to your exalted definition? For one thing, it's not a compilation. Most short story collections (I'm not accepting those with supposed underlying unity except if authored by Hemingway--and Carver is the exception to the rule). No “How-To” books (Machiavelli's The Prince would be an exception here). No Anthologies. No collections of features from Baker, Berry, Buchwald, Will, and the other fish trying to get out of the syndicated waters. No autobiographies of celebrities (ghost- or team-written). No Letter or Essay collections. No reference works, cookbooks, horoscopes, or motivational junk. Forget interviews or “conversations with” compilations. And definitely no works of authors who thought the stuff was too awful to be printed when they were alive (this time not excluding Hemingway).
L-I P: So you're protesting by depriving the non-logged-in public the collected wisdom of the Sardine. Isn't that being selfish?
Sardine selfishness.
L-I P: Who's going to mark the non-occasion of the non-publication of your Non- Book?
The Sardine.
L-I P: You'd be the first one to criticize someone's misplaced ideals.
The Sardine wouldn't expect the world to change or to be saved from too many non-books. His non-mission is not to save the world but to put it in touch with the non-world.
L-I P: Hunh?
You heard me. Misplaced idealism just means that a person has the idea that his/her actions will change the course of the world.
L-I P: How about saving us from hearing about your non-missions?
No such luck.
L-I P: This is so typical. You don't believe most books are books. And our democracy isn’t really a democracy. Nor should we watch television. You're so negative. What do you actually believe in?
I think you are still holding a grudge because I haven’t told you what exactly were the inexplicable things I had in mind.
L-I P: Just another aspect of your negativity.
Besides, belief is a subject . . .
L-I P: We know: “for a future article."
No, not really. [Actually, yes, but sometimes one must lie to the L-I P to move things along] Just that what you think you "believe in" may not necessarily be your basic belief. Saying "I believe" is just verbal abracadabra to fortify yourself, to make your belief real by saying what you believe. If I'm not saying what I believe in (or you can't perceive what I believe in what I say), it doesn't mean I don't believe in anything.
L-I P: Hunh?
The Sardine's essays, articles, and stories have appeared around the Internet in the last few years at 3 A.M., Facets, Eclectica magazine, Fiction Funhouse, The Fiction Warehouse, 5_trope, and several film journals. Who and what he is probably will be revealed at various points through the articles appearing at this site. The first fifteen installments of his saga can be viewed at the old Unlikely Stories.