White Magic (eBook)

Lothar Müller is editor of the features section of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. He taught general and comparative literature at Berlin Free University and, since 2010, he has been an Honorary Professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In 2013 he was awarded the Berlin Prize for Literary Criticism.

Thanks viii

PROLOGUE The Microbe Experiment ix

PART ONE The Diffusion of Paper in Europe 1

CHAPTER 1 Leaves from Samarkand 3

1.1 The Arab Intermediate Realm 3

1.2 Calligraphy and the Cairo Wastepaper Basket 10

1.3 In Scheherazade's World 13

1.4 Timur and Suleika 17

CHAPTER 2 The Rustling Grows Louder 22

2.1 The European Paper Mill Boom 22

2.2 Paper, Scholars, and Playing Cards 26

2.3 The Rise of the File: Paper Kings, Chanceries, and Secretaries 31

2.4 The Merchant of Genoa and His Silent Partner 37

2.5 Ragpickers, Writers, and the Pulpit 46

CHAPTER 3 The Universal Substance 52

3.1 Marshall McLuhan and the Pantagruelion of Rabelais 52

3.2 Harold Innis, the Postal System, and Mephisto's Scrap 61

3.3 The World in a Page: Watermarks, Formats, Colors 70

PART TWO Behind the Type Area 79

CHAPTER 1 The Printed and the Unprinted 81

1.1 The Pitfalls of a Formula: "From Script to Print" 81

1.2 The White Page 85

1.3 "Found among the Papers ..." 89

CHAPTER 2 Adventurers and Paper 94

2.1 Don Quixote, the Print Shop, and the Pen 94

2.2 Picaresque Paper: Simplicius Simplicissimus and the Schermesser 99

2.3 Robinson's Journal, Ink, and Time 104

CHAPTER 3 Transparent Typography 108

3.1 The Epistolary Novel's Mimicry of Letter Paper 108

3.2 Laurence Sterne, the Straight Line, and the Marbled Page 115

3.3 The Fragmentation of the Printed Page: Jean Paul, Lichtenberg, and Excerpts 119

PART THREE The Great Expansion 127

CHAPTER 1 The Demons of the Paper Machine 129

1.1 The Mechanization of Sheet-Making 129

1.2 The Loom of Time, the French Revolution, and Credit 140

1.3 Balzac, Journalism, and the Paper Scheme in Lost Illusions 152

1.4 The Secrets of the Scriveners: Charles Dickens and Mr. Nemo 163

1.5 Foolscap and Factory Workers: Herman Melville and the Paper Machine 168

CHAPTER 2 Newsprint and the Emergence of the Popular Press 180

2.1 The Boundless Resource Base 180

2.2 The Newspaper, the Price of Paper, and the Patrioteer 189

2.3 Émile Zola, the Petit Journal, and the Dreyfus Affair 196

CHAPTER 3 Illuminated Inner Worlds 201

3.1 Wilhelm Dilthey, Historism, and Literary Estates 201

3.2 Henry James, Edith Wharton, and the Autograph Hunt 207

3.3 Laterna Magica: Paper and Interiors 215

CHAPTER 4 The Inventory of Modernity 226

4.1 Typewriter Paper, Deckle Edges, and White Space 226

4.2 James Joyce, Newsprint, and Shears 236

4.3 William Gaddis, the Paperwork Crisis, and Punch Cards 242

4.4 Rainald Goetz, the Mystic Writing Pad, and the Smell of Paper 249

EPILOGUE

The Analog and the Digital 253

Notes 265

Bibliography 274

Image Credits 292

Index of Names 293

""Lothar Müller... tells an alternative historyof paper. He argues, convincingly, that paper has been, andcontinues to be, integral to our civilisation and the modern world.Through a carefully structured sequence of illuminating vignettes,he brings together fascinating facts from across the globe and thecenturies to reveal the long-running and fundamental impact ofpaper on human life, work and culture."
TimesHigher Education

"Müller's work leaves the reader admiring something thatfeels magical."
PublishersWeekly

"As paper increasingly fades into history, the story of itsrole and evolution is at risk of being lost, erasing the roadmapthat brought us to the digital era. Lothar Müller's WhiteMagic: The Age of Paper goes a long way to averting that fate,going back in time to record and describe in intricate detail howpaper came to be, and what it came to be."
SouthChina Morning Post

"Consistently readable and highly entertaining, this witty andlearned book deftly decouples paper's history from the story ofprinting to tell new and surprising tales about a medium thatcontinues to pervade our daily life. You'll never look at ablank page in quite the same way again."
Catherine Robson, New York University

"This is an absorbing history of paper, fascinating in itsdetail and magisterial in its scope. Muller writes with theauthority of a scholar and the imagination of a poet, filling hisbook with curious but essential facts and astute perceptions. It isa delight to read."
Jeremy Adler, King's College London

"Müller's history of paper is original, engaging andbreathtakingly erudite. It explores paper in its materiality, butalso as a source of inspiration which has shaped the history ofknowledge and creativity. In tracing paper's vital role inthe development of human civilisation, the author also argues forits continued importance in the digital age."
Carolin Duttlinger, Wadham College, Oxford

"Lothar Müller set out dazzling new insights into thecreation of our world, building on Harold Innis' work on thelong and complex emergence of paper. Unique in his White Magic ishis subtle blending of cultural and media history with sociologicalunderstanding and literary reflexion."
Philippe Despoix, Center of Intermedial Research in Arts,Literatures and Technologies, Université deMontréal