MOBY-DICK AND CAREFUL EDITING. I said yesterday in my post on James Wood’s essay on translations of WAR AND PEACE that the New Yorker has published two articles recently which question the value of careful editing and fine writing. Adam Gopnik wrote the other article in the New Yorker for October 22. (Only this abstract is available on the internet.) Gopnik writes about the new Orion series of abridgments of masterpieces such as MOBY-DICK, ANNA KARENINA, and VANITY FAIR. Gopnik praises the editing: “MOBY-DICK…is, by conventional contemporary standards of good editing and critical judgment IMPROVED [in italics in original].” The result is “the ‘taut, spare, driving’ narrative beloved of Sunday reviewers.” However, Gopnik winds up lamenting the skillful editing because “it turns a hysterical, half-mad masterpiece into a sound, sane book.”
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I laughed at the description of Moby-Dick as “a hysterical, half-mad masterpiece” but I can definitely appreciate what Gopnik was saying, even without having read the book. In writing, style and substance are not so separated as one might think. The style of writing has so great of an impact on the reading experience, I used to value style over plot. Learning to write and reading the Harry Potter books has taught me to appreciate plot a whole lot more than I used to, to the point where a weak plot annoys me more than a spare style of writing. However, it’s style I keep coming back to when I think about my favorite books. The Lord of the Rings is commonly lauded for the immensely detailed world-building, but my favorite thing about it has always been the style of writing (especially in the hobbity parts) and the characters.
As a Lord of the Rings maniac, I will agree that the dialogue was one of the strongest points of the books. Although, as a historian-in-training, I found the incredibly detailed historical background to every element of the environment to be what made it truly special.
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