Subject: Re: An About Town Republican
From: Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Date: Sat Mar 11 2000 - 14:08:52 EST
At 12:15 PM -0800 on 3/8/2000, Bruce wrote:
> Yes, this I find incredible. That after APDFB, JDS met with many
> rejections. A bunch in '48, '49 & maybe '50? Standing in the aisle of the
> huge bookstore near my home, I gasped at all of them. And of course the
> Glass story rejections were still to come! (If not for Shawn, I shudder to
> think...)
Yes, William Shawn was a gem of an editor anyhow, and the fact of his
salvaging Salinger (now, THERE'S an interesting book title!) alone
makes him worth a toast or two at dinner.
> >some of it shows reaction by other writers (as someone previously
>>quoted Cheever as saying to Gus Lobrano, "You may have invented Salinger
>>and Brodkey, but you didn't invent me."),
>
> That 'someone' was me, and STILL the word "invented" leaves me woozy. I am
> assuming there is a bit of professional envy/jealousy in there? In mean,
> INVENTED Salinger?!?
On the one hand, that's what makes me think that the magazine's
editors had such a crucial role in shaping Salinger's style and, as
time passed, his status as a writer. On the other hand, though, I
think there's more than a little envy there. Virtually all the
writers had some kind of grudge or another against each other or
against the magazine or against individual editors. I especially
like the nickname of, I believe, John O'Hara, known as "the master of
the imagined slight." He was always getting into a snit about
something, under the impression that he had been snubbed.
There may be some additional truth to what Cheever says.
Harold Brodkey published a wonderful collection of stories, "First
Love and other Sorrows," in 1958. The book, and the appearance of
some of its stories in The New Yorker, won him a contract for a
novel, which led to the infamous writer's block that kept the book in
his hands for nearly 40 years, until his wife more or less seized the
start of the manuscript and said, essentially, "This goes to the
publisher!" It was published as "The Runaway Soul." Given that it
was the beginning of a novel, it's rather breathtaking to consider
that it clocked in at nearly 900 pages! (At one point in the book's
life, it was called "Party of Animals," which was known in the
publisher's typing pool as "Party of Typists," because of the massive
cycles of revisions Brodkey did. The book passed from publisher to
publisher, with one publisher buying out another, as the years went
by and no book appeared.) Although it and "Stories in an Almost
Classical Mode" (1989) are interesting, they are nowhere near as
piercing as the 1958 collection, leading, again, to the idea that a
truly fine editor helped Brodkey early in his writing life to achieve
a certain height that he could not later match. It reminds me of the
relationship between Thomas Wolfe and Max Perkins, where Wolfe would
submit manuscripts that were six feet tall, and Perkins would work
with him to trim and cut and revise to make the material publishable.
In at least one case, Perkins persuaded the writer to cut out a
section that was later published as an entirely separate novel!
> Goodness, I really wonder about this. Once JDS had been set on the right
> path (the first several New Yorker stories), I would have _thought_ he was
> home free. And the thought that Shawn really aggressively edited the Glass
> Stories boggles my mind, but well I guess it is true (given the dedication
> of _F&Z_). But I can't imagine a writer such as Joyce or Beckett accepting
> any editing of their later work. I guess what I'm stumbling around with is
> the difficulty of accepting JDS being edited to any significant manner after
> say 1950. (Since _The Catcher_ was NOT a New Yorker story, I wonder about
> the editing at Little, Brown for that.)
I once had a chance to review the papers between JDS and Little,
Brown, and it seems (to my recollection) that there was not much
editing done -- certainly nothing done without the author's complete
agreement. I believe Salinger was considered a "problem author,"
that is, one with whose work the editors didn't fiddle because it
would cause them too much of a headache. Given that the bulk of what
Little, Brown published was previously "vetted" via publication in
magazines, it seems to me that they essentially acted as reprinters
for all but Catcher. If one had online copies of the magazine
appearances and the book appearances, it would be illuminating to see
if there were any fine differences between the way the stories
appeared in magazines and the way they were printed in hardcover.
(Not counting typos, which are not particularly interesting when
reading for textual changes.)
> I wholly agree with this. It's just how much editing did go on after say
> '50?
I guess we won't know until ... well, until something else pokes its
head up in print. If that ever happens. Part of me (the wishful
part) rationalizes that you don't build a room-size safe to hold
manuscripts that you intend to burn or have burned upon your death.
So, the wishful part of me continues to hope that one day all that
work will see print. I can't fathom why a writer would so
elaborately safeguard his work if he didn't intend to have it see
daylight, eventually.
> I agree and I think that Maxwell letter to K. White that Yagoda quotes
> supports this.
Yes. And that letter is fascinating, because Maxwell was a close
friend of Salinger, so it's odd that he committed the "treason" of
making a derogatory remark in writing about Salinger's work. Maxwell
was one of the people who always refused to discuss anything about
Salinger, as was expected of the JDS inner circle.
>>Where there is a passage of substance, it
>>either shows that the fiction department didn't want to publish
>>certain stories, or it offers a summary of Salinger's career that is
>>definitely closed-out, as if he were dead and had no further work
>>extant.
>
> God, the end of your sentence, beginning with 'Salinger's career', reads
> eerily at this moment.
I'm not sure I get it; in what way? (Your remark sent me nervously
scurrying to the New York Times online to see if there was some
newsbreak I should see.)
> Good points in this last sentence. I need to move 3,000 miles due east.
> MANY THANKS, Tim, for all of this post, especially given your physical
> condition. I hope you are mending, and mending much faster than a
> Salingerian soon or Soon (you know, on the flap copy of _F&Z_).
8-) Thanks! My leg is definitely doing the Salinger equivalent of
fussing with revisions.
--tim
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