As I tackle yet another revision of Sing a Worried Song, I'm comforted by John Steinbeck's letter to his editor in 1952, written as he finished East of Eden. His "armful of damp garbage" is one of my all-time favourite books.
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| John Steinbeck |
New York
1952
Dear Pat:
I have decided for this, my book, East of Eden, to write dedication, prologue, argument, apology, epilogue and perhaps epitaph all in one.
The dedication is to you with all the admiration and affection that have been distilled from our singularly blessed association of many years. This book is inscribed to you because you have been part of its birth and growth.
As you know, a prologue is written last but placed first to explain the book's shortcomings and to ask the reader to be kind. But a prologue is also a note of farewell from the writer to his book. For years the writer and his book have been together—friends or bitter enemies but very close as only love and fighting can accomplish.
Then suddenly the book is done. It is a kind of death. This is the requiem.
Miguel Cervantes invented the modem novel and with his Don Quixote set a mark high and bright. In his prologue, he said best what writers feel—the gladness and the terror.
"Idling reader," Cervantes wrote, "you may believe me when I tell you that I should have liked this book, which is the child of my brain, to be the fairest, the sprightliest and the cleverest that could be imagined, but I have not been able to contravene the law of nature which would have it that like begets like—"
And so it is with me, Pat. Although some times I have felt that I held fire in my hands and spread a page with shining—I have never lost the weight of clumsiness, of ignorance, of aching inability.
A book is like a man—clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.
Well—then the book is done. It has no virtue any more. The writer wants to cry out—"Bring it back! Let me rewrite it or better—Let me burn it. Don't let it out in the unfriendly cold in that condition."
As you know better than most, Pat, the book does not go from writer to reader. It goes first to the lions—editors, publishers, critics, copy readers, sales department. It is kicked and slashed and gouged. And its bloodied father stands attorney.
1952
Dear Pat:
I have decided for this, my book, East of Eden, to write dedication, prologue, argument, apology, epilogue and perhaps epitaph all in one.
The dedication is to you with all the admiration and affection that have been distilled from our singularly blessed association of many years. This book is inscribed to you because you have been part of its birth and growth.
As you know, a prologue is written last but placed first to explain the book's shortcomings and to ask the reader to be kind. But a prologue is also a note of farewell from the writer to his book. For years the writer and his book have been together—friends or bitter enemies but very close as only love and fighting can accomplish.
Then suddenly the book is done. It is a kind of death. This is the requiem.
Miguel Cervantes invented the modem novel and with his Don Quixote set a mark high and bright. In his prologue, he said best what writers feel—the gladness and the terror.
"Idling reader," Cervantes wrote, "you may believe me when I tell you that I should have liked this book, which is the child of my brain, to be the fairest, the sprightliest and the cleverest that could be imagined, but I have not been able to contravene the law of nature which would have it that like begets like—"
And so it is with me, Pat. Although some times I have felt that I held fire in my hands and spread a page with shining—I have never lost the weight of clumsiness, of ignorance, of aching inability.
A book is like a man—clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.
Well—then the book is done. It has no virtue any more. The writer wants to cry out—"Bring it back! Let me rewrite it or better—Let me burn it. Don't let it out in the unfriendly cold in that condition."
As you know better than most, Pat, the book does not go from writer to reader. It goes first to the lions—editors, publishers, critics, copy readers, sales department. It is kicked and slashed and gouged. And its bloodied father stands attorney.
EDITOR
The book is out of balance. The
reader expects one thing and you give him something else. You have written two
books and stuck them together. The reader will not understand.
WRITER
No, sir. It goes together. I have
written about one family and used stories about another family as—well, as
counterpoint, as rest, as contrast in pace and color.
EDITOR
The reader won't understand. What
you call counterpoint only slows the book.
WRITER
It has to be slowed—else how
would you know when it goes fast?
EDITOR
You have stopped the book and
gone into discussions of God knows what.
WRITER
Yes, I have. I don't know why.
Just wanted to. Perhaps I was wrong.
SALES
DEPARTMENT
The book's too long. Costs are
up. We'll have to charge five dollars for it. People won't pay $5. They won't
buy it.
WRITER
My last book was short. You said
then that people won't buy a short book.
PROOFREADER
The chronology is full of holes.
The grammar has no relation to English. On page so-and-so you have a man look
in the World Almanac for steamship rates. They aren't there. I checked. You've
got Chinese New Year wrong. The characters aren't consistent. You describe Liza
Hamilton one way and then have her act a different way.
EDITOR
You make Cathy too black. The
reader won't believe her. You make Sam Hamilton too white. The reader won't
believe him. No Irishman ever talked like that.
WRITER
My grandfather did.
EDITOR
Who'll believe it?
SECOND
EDITOR
No children ever talked like
that.
WRITER
(Losing
temper as a refuge from despair)
God damn it. This is my book.
I'll make the children talk any way I want. My book is about good and evil.
Maybe the theme got into the execution. Do you want to publish it or not?
EDITORS
Let's see if we can't fix it up.
It won't be much work. You want it to be good, don't you? For instance the
ending. The reader won't understand it.
WRITER
Do you?
EDITOR
Yes, but the reader won't.
PROOFREADER
My god, how you do dangle a
participle. Turn to page so-and-so.
There you are, Pat. You came in with a box of glory and there you stand with an armful of damp garbage. And from this meeting a new character has emerged. He is called the Reader.
There you are, Pat. You came in with a box of glory and there you stand with an armful of damp garbage. And from this meeting a new character has emerged. He is called the Reader.
THE
READER
He is so stupid you can't trust him with an idea.
He is so clever he will catch you in the least error.
He will not buy short books.
He will not buy long books.
He is part moron, part genius and part ogre.
There is some doubt as to whether he can read.
Well, by God, Pat, he's just like me, no stranger at all. He'll take from my book what he can bring to it. The dull witted will get dullness and the brilliant may find things in my book I didn't know were there.
And just as he is like me, I hope my book is enough like him so that he may find in it interest and recognition and some beauty as one finds in a friend.
Cervantes ends his prologue with a lovely line. I want to use it, Pat, and then I will be done. He says to the reader:
"May God give you health—and may He be not unmindful of me, as well."
John Steinbeck
He is so clever he will catch you in the least error.
He will not buy short books.
He will not buy long books.
He is part moron, part genius and part ogre.
There is some doubt as to whether he can read.
Well, by God, Pat, he's just like me, no stranger at all. He'll take from my book what he can bring to it. The dull witted will get dullness and the brilliant may find things in my book I didn't know were there.
And just as he is like me, I hope my book is enough like him so that he may find in it interest and recognition and some beauty as one finds in a friend.
Cervantes ends his prologue with a lovely line. I want to use it, Pat, and then I will be done. He says to the reader:
"May God give you health—and may He be not unmindful of me, as well."
John Steinbeck
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