Comments on: To editors: thanks for all the fish

By: Sergey

Sergey — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:36:48 +0000

Historical period in which most of the great Russian literature emerged was very tragical indeed. This was a time when the whole social fabric began unravel. We had the same internal contradictions and problems as western Europe had, but we had them simultaneously – Enlightment, Reformation, industrial revolution, urbanization, strive for political freedom, social utopism and political terrorism – all pressed into life of one generation. We had no opportunity to solve these crises consequently, one by one. And we could not solve them at once – one problem aggravated another. Social contrasts were appalling, Church was subservient to the state, it did not address social issues at all. Secular, educated minority had to struggle in two fronts – against absolutist monarchy and against greavances of oppressed benighted masses. What a mess! So literature seeng itself as an agent of social change was under huge psyhological stress: it had to substitute several failed or absent social institutions – Church, political parties, mass education, philosophy, parlament and almost everything else. It could not do all this properly. And all its high spiritual zeal and gloom goes from here.
Tolstoi was Russian Luther – or Calvin. Both were not very pleasant people, either.

By: goesh

goesh — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 19:36:26 +0000

A dark and brooding bunch they are many of those Russian authors….

By: Andrew Zalotocky

Andrew Zalotocky — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 17:31:03 +0000

In case anyone's interested, I've got a longish piece on the Hitchhiker's Guide here.

By: jgr

jgr — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 11:20:49 +0000

Questions for the ‘editing experts.’

Would we have literature (or other forms of the written word) without the work of editors?
Are writers, as a rule, capable of facing the real world/audience without the ‘interface’ (is that correct?) of an editor?

I can appreciate the encouragement of a husband/wife for a writer. Many works I’ve encountered recently openly acknowledge that debt.

By: Bastiat

Bastiat — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:02:22 +0000

I’ve done more editing than writing in my time, and I would have to say they are equally as difficult, albeit in different ways. Writing for me is a problem of persistence. Editing was much more of a business enterprise that required 3 parts manipulation to every 1 part red pen work.

Editing is an unsung occupation that does have its similarities to the unsung heroics of spouses of great talent. That deserves another 500 words… Not penned by me, of course.

By: Margaret Aten

Margaret Aten — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 08:35:56 +0000

Melville’s wife did much the same for him.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 06:53:31 +0000

Tolstoy is terrific, Dostoevsky even better. Dostoevsky has a character in the original that rarely comes through in translation: verbose, excitable, funny. Tolstoy is very clear and translates easily and well.

What makes Russian literature so appealing is that, while it may contain a certain measure of “heaving bosom” romance, it also generally talks about all kinds of psychological states that are usually ignored in other literatures. (Flaubert did a bit of it in Bovary, but such a bore!)

I wouldn’t say Russian authors are morose as much as to say that they will confront, and write about, things many others do not write about, like, the meaning of life, the futility of honor, the minor cruelties we inflict on others, the minor graces, too, the ways in which we are driven by phantoms, and many other psychological insights that only later were picked up by people like Nietzsche, Kafka, and Freud.

I do think Truman Capote had something to do with Kill a Mockingbird, esp since Harper Lee’s book was a one-time deal. I am curious to know who helped Ralph Ellison write invisable Man, again, as a one-shot deal it’s normal to think that way.

Many creative geniuses are creepy. What can I say. If I had to choose, however, I’d rather be a good family man than a creative genius.

However, even a layman like me can see that the key to creating something that lasts is (a) good craftmanship, and (b) sufficiently open-ended in structure and detail that it will appeal to many different types of readers at many different times. The error creative people make who are self-consciously trying to do something timelesss is to suggest not enough and to detail too much.

By: Cappy

Cappy — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 05:15:44 +0000

Don’t know much about Doug Adams. Scott Adams is another story.

By: askmom

askmom — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 04:33:08 +0000

As both an editor and a writer, it’s my opinion that editing is much harder, and so very frequently underappreciated. Here’s to all the editors out there, including my own at McGraw-Hill and elsewhere.

By: stubby

stubby — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 04:16:26 +0000

Long ago, as a wee English major, I decided that I would never read a) George Eliot or b) Russian authors. Philistine? Perhaps. But I’ve never regretted my decision. I even managed to answer an essay question about Middlemarch in a sophomore English class w/out the professor suspecting my anti-Eliot vow. Probably says more about the Prof’s test than my intellect, but still.

I make an exception for modern Russian authors writing in English, esp. the kid who wrote the Russian Debutante’s Handbook, which I haven’t gotten around to reading yet but will. Someday. I swear.