The Official
Elmore Leonard Website

Archives

--Select Month-- November 2018 July 2018 October 2016 August 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Essay: Putting the classics on a diet

BYLINE: Frank Wilson, The Philadelphia Inquirer
http://go.philly.com/frankwilson

The last commandment in Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing (Morrow, $14.95) declares that an author should “try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” The people at Phoenix Press think a number of classic authors were negligent in observing this rule. Anna Karenina, for instance, weighs in at a whopping 800-plus pages. Who can possibly hope to read that and still have time to watch Dancing With the Stars?

“The great classics contain passionate romance, thrilling adventure, interesting characters, and unforgettable scenes and situations,” Phoenix generously acknowledges. “But finding the time to read them . . . can be a problem.” Their solution? Compact Editions: “Now,” they tell us, “these masterpieces have been sensitively and intelligently condensed, retaining both the author’s own words and all the drama of the original!” The first six Compact Editions—Melville’s Moby-Dick, Dickens’ David Copperfield, Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, Tolstoy’s Anna, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, and Mrs. Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters—arrived in bookstores in September.

 

The Phoenix Press edition of Anna Karenina is a mere 385 pages because, as it tells you right there on the cover, it’s Anna Karenina in half the time. Phoenix’s Moby-Dick in half the time comes in at just 313 pages (compared with 720 for the Penguin Classics edition).

There is a note, “About this Compact Edition,” appended to each. The one for Moby-Dick tells us that it “retains the main narrative line”—that would be the whale hunt—and even the “supporting characters . . . feature strongly.” What’s missing? “Lengthy descriptions of whaling history and of whales, some philosophical observations, a number of other digressions and reflections”—in other words, the pith and marrow that are precisely what makes Melville’s idiosyncratic masterwork the epic that it is.

As for Anna Karenina, in the Compact Edition “the central focus is on the ill-starred love affair of Anna and Vronsky, the marriage of Dolly and Stiva, and the coming together of Kitty and Levin.” So “some descriptions of society life in Moscow and Petersburg” have been excised, and “overlong dialogue is reduced . . . some minor characters are either eliminated or have a diminished emphasis.” Oh, and “philosophical and political sections are outlined . . . and detailed descriptions, from characters’ reactions to particular events, are cut back.”

What this comes down to in practice is that, of the 13 paragraphs in Chapter One of Moby-Dick, six are missing and three others have been trimmed. On the other hand, Chapter 36, “The Quarter-Deck”—a key chapter to be sure, in which Ahab descants to Starbuck upon his belief that “all visible objects . . . are but as pasteboard masks” and that “some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask,” and “that inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate”—that chapter is left mostly intact. Of course, in this edition “The Quarterdeck” is Chapter 29, not Chapter 36, because seven other chapters have been left out altogether, among them “Cetology”—everybody’s choice for omission—but also “The Pulpit” and “The Sermon,” which contain some of Melville’s most splendid prose. Apparently, Father Mapple’s sermon on Jonah and the whale doesn’t have as much bearing on the “main narrative line” as we thought.

And there’s the rub, as Hamlet might not say, if a Phoenix editor thought better of it. There is nothing inherently wrong with what Somerset Maugham called “the useful art of skipping.” Maugham himself in fact helped produce a series of abridged classics in 1948 called “Great Novelists and Their Novels.”

But it’s one thing for me to skip. I know what I’ve passed over and can go back and read it if and when I choose. It’s another thing altogether for someone else—even a Somerset Maugham—to do my skipping for me. The only abridged book I can remember reading was the edition of War and Peace that I read as a teenager. It left out the historico-philosophical essays that Tolstoy interrupts the action with. (To tell the truth, when I finally got around to reading the whole thing last year, I found myself feeling retroactively grateful.)

No, the real problem with the Phoenix series is its premise—that you can take away just about everything from a great novel as long as you leave the “narrative line” intact.

One example will have to suffice (after all, we mustn’t go on). Only two paragraphs of Chapter One, Part III, of Anna Karenina survive in the Compact Editions version. In fact, the first two chapters of the third part take up only a page and a half and the first 15 pages (four chapters) are condensed into three. The mowing of Mishka’s Knoll, which takes up all of Chapter Five and a good part of Chapter Four in the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation, is here reduced to just more than two pages.

So what? It’s only about mowing a meadow. But it happens to be one of the splendors of world literature. And the effect is lost if you cut it, because you lose the sense of the passing of time, of the exhilaration that comes of overcoming weariness, of the sense that Tolstoy’s book, as Matthew Arnold observed, is not a work of art, but “a piece of life.” What the editors at Phoenix seem not to realize is how much texture and tempo contribute to a literary masterpiece. Without them, Anna Karenina is just another desperate housewife.

I had better leave it at that, but before closing, I just want to say that I went out of my way here to observe Elmore’s Rule No. 10, just so you could read what I had to say in half the time. Of course, you’ll never know what you missed.

Contact books editor Frank Wilson at 215-854-5616 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Read his recent work at . Visit his blog at http://booksinq.blogspot.com/.

To see more of The Philadelphia Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.philly.com. Copyright (c) 2007, The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

Recent Posts

Elmore is Buried Today on His Birthday

Elmore Leonard Forever

Elmore Leonard Podcasts

The Enduring Appeal Of Elmore Leonard and Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens

The Gregg Sutter Blog

Japanese FU-GO Balloon Bombs in Michigan

The Pontiac Story of Progress & Promise

Tom Morwatts on Growing Up in Detroit

Detroit Punks: Mitch Ryder

Amazon 2015 Pilots Now Online – Including Point of Honor

Even Bank Robbers Decide What Tie To Wear: The Essence Of Elmore Leonard

On Twitter