the sound and the hurry: the new unbearable lightness of reading

mokoto rich of the new york times recently had an inspired idea -- he asked several prominent authors to give their opinions on one of the more recent phenomenons in literature: the shortening of classic fiction.

indeed. it seems that publishers are cutting into the classics to make them simpler to digest, easier to carry, and generally more appealing to the microwave generation.

personally, i am perfectly happy pretending to have read the greats in their excessively lengthy entireties. i love telling people that i mastered all of the faerie queen (and the better part of victor hugo's oeuvre too). regardless of the added convenience of these shortened texts, i still hold dear the right to ignore, on my own, the excessive descriptions, the informative passages, the chapters on whaling. i feel it should be my choice to allege that i've read these difficult books in their original incarnations.

and i think it is worth noting that, in the cases of certain post-modern writers, it seems the point of their works might be somewhat lost if all of their repetition and seemingly nonsensical language were reduced to pared down, coherent, sentences. (in certain cases, wouldn't we just lose the whole thing?)

of course, everyone who loves books wants to keep great lit. alive, so i understand the impetus to publish these shortened texts. (if anyone else asks me "who this james joyce guy is," i may just consider going insane.) but loony or not, i know that my own purchases won't include anything abridged.

i simply won't have publishers denying me my god given right to deprive myself of a thorough education.

that said, the most irreverent responses to mr. rich's query came from stephen king and jonathan franzen (although many other excellent authors were also questioned).

i have pasted their responses below (in their unabridged formats) , for your enjoyment:

(of course, feel free not to read them and to later pretend that you did.)

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Stephen King, author of “The Shining” and “Lisey’s Story”

Certainly the Bible could use cutting; think of all those begats, not to mention minor-league prophets such as Habbakuk (there isn’t even a car dealership named after him).

What about “Ulysses”? All that tiresome stream of consciousness could go.

And there is “Gone With the Wind,” which I would shorten to this:

“Civil War?” said Scarlett.

“Fiddle-de-dee!”

But Atlanta burned! Rhett left!

“I will think about it tomorrow,” said Scarlett, “for tomorrow is another day.”

That’s so good you could probably fit “Dombey and Son” in the same edition. Or shorten “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” to a National Enquirer headline:

UNFORTUNATE GIRL SLEEPS THROUGH RAPE, IS LATER HUNG.

Jonathan Franzen, author of “The Corrections”

Mr. Franzen said he can’t think of any great work that he would like to see slashed, but tinkered with some book titles, should they be chopped.

“The Pretty Good Gatsby”
“Alyosha Karamazov”
“The Adventure of Augie March”
“Paler Fire”
“Lite in August”
“Shortmarch”

for the entire text of rich's article, see nyt here.