The "Best Seller Syndrome"
Posted on Friday, 22 July 2016
The “Best Seller
Syndrome”
By Apolinario Villalobos
A very popular book store in the
Philippines patronizes “best sellers”…books of foreign authors. They are
prominently displayed right at the entrance of their stores. To cap their
promotion effort founded on the colonial mentality of Filipinos, the
establishment invites the foreign authors to come over all the way from their
so-called “first world” homelands…to sign purchased books which the suckers
devour with all their best literary duplicity.
Judging a book is subjective, a fact that
cannot be questioned. What can be the best material for one may be trash for
another. But an impression can be a very significant influencing factor. How
can that fact be questioned when all it needs for a book to be grabbed at bookstores
is a review made by influential people…known in their respective field, that do
not necessarily show them as literary personalities. This attitude is akin to
the “identified with” syndrome, too.
Some Filipinos buy popular books,
especially, the hard-bound sets of encyclopedia to create an impression so they
are prominently displayed in living rooms. Some friends unabashedly admit that
they have not opened any volume of the set and that they are there, just for
display, without of course expressing their desire to enhance the sophisticated
impression that they practically try to solicit from their visitors.
When word spread about an obscure book that
happened to be a favorite of a rags-to-riches business tycoon, suckers rushed
to book stores to buy a copy or two, with the extra as a gift to a friend,
complete with a “dedication” where the information about its being read by a
famous Filipino businessman is also scribbled. I got my copy this way – from a
friend who tries hard to make an impression that he is “intelligent”, just
because he reads a lot. I have come across the book long before it became
popular and sold for only just less than a hundred pesos, but when it got
popular the tag price has soared between 300-400 pesos depending on the store
selling it. I also found the book prominently displayed in offices I visited,
as some kind of a coffee table book.
During one of my visits to a book store, I
came across a book with a triangulized corner note about its being the fifth
edition, and with sold copies running to millions. This time my sucker instinct
made me buy a copy, parting with my hard-earned pesos, especially, because, as
the synopsis at the outside back cover said, it was indeed a good read. In the
evening when I browsed through the pages thoroughly, my blood pressure shot up
because many paragraphs were enclosed with quotation marks…meaning, contents
were copied with impunity though with the safety of the said literary marks
and bibliography which ate up 14 pages! I
did not notice them when I bought the book because I was in a hurry, and I
trusted the “best seller” come on. There went my 300 pesos! In my disgust, I
burned the trash!
Discussion