The ultimate odd couple: Dante and Philip Roth

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Must the Brits always have the fun first?

This fall, in the United Kingdom, Vintage Classics is bringing out what they’re calling ‘Twins’ editions, paperbacks in which two works of literature--one classic, one contemporary--are wrapped together into a single volume. At the Guardian’s book blog, Giles Foden is a bit skeptical about the whole enterprise although he does find good merits in this new line.

What sorts of pairings are we talking about? At one of Random House’s U.K. websites, you’ll find books grouped under brief explanatory labels, like ‘Crime’ for Patricia Highsmith’s ‘Ripley’s Game’ and Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment,’ ‘Lust’ for Martin Amis’ ‘The Rachel Papers’ and Henry Fielding’s ‘Tom Jones,’ and ‘Love’ for George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’ and A.S. Byatt’s ‘Possession.’

Of course, it’s a marketing strategy that can lead to some bizarre matchups: I’m not sure what Dante’s ‘Inferno’ really has in common with Philip Roth’s ‘Sabbath’s Theater’ (they’re presented under the diffuse title ‘Sin’), but, heck, there it is on their list of forthcoming fall releases.

On the other hand, if this gets some people to appreciate classic works and to think of them as being in dialogue with modern novels, is that so bad? No word yet from Vintage on when the twins will appear in U.S. bookstores.

Nick Owchar