THE NEW YORKER AND CAREFUL EDITING.

THE NEW YORKER AND CAREFUL EDITING. The Kerouac exhibition at the New York Public Library may be a sign of the return of a wilder form of American prose. The hallmark of the New Yorker has been careful editing, Twice recently I have seen a New Yorker writer question the value of fine writing. James Wood in the November 25 issue has an article discussing translations of WAR AND PEACE. Woods praises the new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky for following Tolstoy more closely than other translations. He quotes a passage in their translation which they follow Tolstoy in repeating the word “juicy” three times. He says “Tolstoy’s repetition of that adjective “juicy”—three times in a short passage—is typical, and should not deserve the scorn of the Flaubertian fanatic. Flaubert, the agonist of style, swatted repetitions like insects, and today’s copy editor, no less than Tolstoy’s early translators, is post-Flaubertian in this way. But Tolstoy surely wants the word “juicy” to take the weight of Andrei’s renewed optimism….” Later, he quotes a paragraph from another translator, and says, “This sounds like good English, while Pevear and Volokhonsky’s version, with its hiccupped run-on, does not…” However, Woods seems to prefer the “hiccuped run-on.” All this in the New Yorker.