Subject: editorial
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Wed Mar 15 2000 - 03:05:49 EST
Remembering what Tim had reported about
the contribution of editors to the eventual appearance
of Salinger's stuff, I couldn't but apply it as I continued
my entranced - & envious - progress through War & Peace.
There doesn't seem to have been any Shawn or Perkins
in Tolstoy's publishers, whoever they were. Leo quite
often repeats himself within the same brief chapter -
character traits, such as Pierre's stoutness & youthful
awkwardness, or the lovely Princess Helen's 'downy upper
lip' (this latter so frequently that one wonders did he
have a moustache fetish.)
I'm not complaining at all. In the torrential flood
of the story it's hardly surprising he forgets what he had
written a couple of pages earlier. It's reassuring - that he
wasn't perfect. But also dismaying - that at this level
of exuberant creativity he can afford to neglect
the nitty-pitti-pickiness of rewriting that so many of us
hope will substitute for the real thing.
It also, to my mind, illustrates the essential irrelevance
of the editor - at least where the big boys are concerned.
Scottie B.
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