Subject: Re: William Maxwell/JDS in New Yorker
From: Ed Fenning (ed361@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Jan 10 2000 - 20:12:33 EST
--- William Hochman <wh14@is9.nyu.edu> wrote:
> The bend around millennium issue of the New Yorker
> has a piece on Bill
> Maxwell--near the end. on page 76, "we" find this
> paragraph:
>
> "As for how other writers regarded his opinion, when
> J.D. Salinger
> finished 'Catcher in the Rye,' he drove to the
> Maxwell's house in the
> country and in the course of an afternoon and
> evening read it to them on
> their porch."
>
> Am I being picky or shall I fire off a letter to the
> editors there for
> allowing the above faux pas. It is ironic that the
> essay was a tribute to
> Maxwell's editing and they can't even get the title
> right for Salinger's
> lone novel...or is the absence of "The" just a mark
> of the book's
> familiarity?
>
> will
The absence of "The" was possibly a judgement call on
the part of whomever was doing the editing; maybe,
based on their perception of the book's familiarity.
However, giving correct and complete information in an
article, in *this* magazine which would include a
book's title, (which might not be the case for example
in Rolling Stone, where a more colloquial,
conversational style, is usually adopted and could
include quoting book titles like "Catcher" on the
fly), makes that supposed call a questionable one.
In my humble opinion, firing off a letter might
put the editors on notice that yes, someone is reading
who notices these things, and who could very well be
uptown, doing the job better.
- Ed
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