2. Word “said” is okay. Efforts to avoid repetition by inserting “grunted,” “snorted,” etc., are waste motion, and offend the pure in heart.
3. Our writers are full of clichés, just as old barns are full of bats. There is obviously no rule about this, except that anything that you suspect of being a cliché undoubtedly is one, and had better be removed.
4. Funny names belong to the past, or to whatever is left of Fudge magazine. Any character called Mrs. Middlebottom or Joe Zilch should be summarily changed to something else. This goes for animals, towns, the names of imaginary books and many other things.
5. Our employer, Mr. Ross, has a prejudice against having too many sentences begin with “and” or “but.” He claims that they are conjunctions and should not be used purely for literary effect. Or at least only very judiciously.
6. See our Mr. Weekes on the use of such words as “little,” “vague,” “confused,” “faintly,” “all mixed up,” etc., etc. The point is that the average New Yorker writer, unfortunately influenced by Mr. Thurber, has come to believe that the ideal New Yorker piece is about a vague, little man helplessly confused by a menacing and complicated civilization. Whenever this note is not the whole point of the piece (and it far too often is) it should be regarded with suspicion.
7. The repetition of exposition in quotes went out with the Stanley Steamer:
Marion gave me a pain in the neck.
“You give me a pain in the neck, Marion,” I said.
This turns up more often than you’d expect.
8. Another of Mr. Ross’s theories is that a reader picking up a magazine called The New Yorker automatically supposes that any story in it takes place in New York. If it doesn’t, if it’s about Columbus, Ohio, the lead should say so. “When George Adams was sixteen, he began to worry about the girls he saw every day on the streets of Columbus” or something of the kind. More graceful preferably.
9. Also, since our contributions are signed at the end, the author’s sex should be established at once if there is any reasonable doubt. It is distressing to read a piece all the way through under the impression that the “I” in it is a man and then find a woman’s signature at the end. Also, of course, the other way round.
10. To quote Mr. Ross again, “Nobody gives a damn about a writer or his problems except another writer.” Pieces about authors, reporters, poets, etc., are to be discouraged in principle. Whenever possible the protagonist should be arbitrarily transplanted to another line of business. When the reference is incidental and unnecessary, it should come out.
11. This magazine is on the whole liberal about expletives. The only test I know of is whether or not they are really essential to the author’s effect. “Son of a bitch,” “bastard” and many others can be used whenever it is the editor’s judgment that that is the only possible remark under the circumstances. When they are gratuitous, when the writer is just trying to sound tough to no especial purpose, they come out.
12. In the transcription of dialect, don’t let the boys and girls misspell words just for a fake Bowery effect. There is no point, for instance, in “trubble,” or “sed.”
13. Mr. Weekes said the other night, in a moment of desperation, that he didn’t believe he could stand any more triple adjectives. “A tall, florid and overbearing man called Jaeckel.” Sometimes they’re necessary, but when every noun has three adjectives connected with it, Mr. Weekes suffers and quite rightly.
14. I suffer myself very seriously from writers who divide quotes for some kind of ladies club rhythm. “I am going,” he said, “downtown” is a horror, and unless a quote is pretty long I think it ought to stay on one side of the verb. Anyway, it ought to be divided logically, where there would be a pause or something in the sentence.
15. Mr. Weekes has got a long list of banned words beginning with “gadget.” Ask him. It’s not actually a ban, there being circumstances when they’re necessary, but good words to avoid.
16. I would be delighted to go over the list of writers, explaining the peculiarities of each as they have appeared to me in more than ten years of exasperation on both sides.
17. Editing on manuscript should be done with a black pencil, decisively.
18. I almost forgot indirection, which probably maddens Mr. Ross more than anything else in the world. He objects, that is, to important objects, or places or people, being dragged into things in a secretive and underhanded manner. If, for instance, a Profile has never told where a man lives, Ross protests against a sentence saying “His Vermont house is full of valuable paintings.” Should say “He has a house in Vermont and it is full, etc.” Rather weird point, but it will come up from time to time.
19. Drunkenness and adultery present problems. As far as I can tell, writers must not be allowed to imply that they admire either of these things, or have enjoyed them personally, although they are legitimate enough when pointing a moral or adorning a sufficiently grim story. They are nothing to be light-hearted about. “The New Yorker cannot endorse adultery.” Harold Ross vs. Sally Benson. Don’t bother about this one. In the end it is a matter between Mr. Ross and his God. Homosexuality, on the other hand, is definitely out as humor, and dubious, in any case.
20. The more “as a matter of facts,” “howevers,” “for instances,” etc., you can cut out, the nearer you are to the Kingdom of Heaven.
21. It has always seemed irritating to me when a story is written in the first person, but the narrator hasn’t got the same name as the author. For instance, a story beginning: “George,” my father said to me one morning; and signed at the end Horace McIntyre always baffles me. However, as far as I know this point has never been ruled upon officially, and should just be queried.
22. Editors are really the people who should put initial letters and white spaces in copy to indicate breaks in thought or action. Because of overwork or inertia or something, this has been done largely by the proof room, which has a tendency to put them in for purposes of makeup rather than sense. It should revert to the editors.
23. For some reason our writers (especially Mr. Leonard Q. Ross) have a tendency to distrust even moderately long quotes and break them up arbitrarily and on the whole idiotically with editorial interpolations. “Mr. Kaplan felt that he and the cosmos were coterminous” or some such will frequently appear in the middle of a conversation for no other reason than that the author is afraid the reader’s mind is wandering. Sometimes this is necessary, most often it isn’t.
24. Writers also have an affection for the tricky or vaguely cosmic last line. “Suddenly Mr. Holtzman felt tired” has appeared on far too many pieces in the last ten years. It is always a good idea to consider whether the last sentence of a piece is legitimate and necessary, or whether it is just an author showing off.
25. On the whole, we are hostile to puns.
26. How many of these changes can be made in copy depends, of course, to a large extent on the writer being edited. By going over the list, I can give a general idea of how much nonsense each artist will stand for.
27. Among other things, The New Yorker is often accused of a patronizing attitude. Our authors are especially fond of referring to all foreigners as “little” and writing about them, as Mr. Maxwell says, as if they were mental ornaments. It is very important to keep the amused and Godlike tone out of pieces.
28. It has been one of Mr. Ross’s long struggles to raise the tone of our contributors’ surroundings, at least on paper. References to the gay Bohemian life in Greenwich Village and other low surroundings should be cut whenever possible. Nor should writers be permitted to boast about having their telephones cut off, or not being able to pay their bills, or getting their meals at the delicatessen, or any of the things which strike many writers as quaint and lovable.
29. Some of our writers are inclined to be a little arrogant about their knowledge of the French language. Probably best to put them back into English if there is a common English equivalent.
30. So far as possible
make the pieces grammatical, but if you don’t the copy room will, which is a comfort. Fowler’s English Usage is our reference book. But don’t be precious about it.
31. Try to preserve an author’s style if he is an author and has a style. Try to make dialogue sound like talk, not writing.
E. B. WHITE
LIFE CYCLE OF A LITERARY GENIUS
I
Shows precocity at six years of age. Writes poem entitled, “To a Little Mouse,” beginning, “Last night I heard a noise in my scrap-basket.” His mother likes poem and shows it to Aunt Susie.
II
At fourteen years of age, encouraged by former success, writes short essay entitled, “The Woods in Winter,” beginning, “I whistled to my dog Don and he raced and romped as we set out together.” Sends this to St. Nicholas Magazine and wins silver badge.
III
At eighteen years of age, encouraged by success, writes sonnet entitled, “To——” and sends it to newspaper column. Columnist rewrites thirteen lines and publishes it on dull day.
IV
Encouraged by success, at twenty-four years of age writes whimsical article on “Sex Above 138th Street,” which he sends to popular magazine. The article refers incidentally to seventeen-year locusts. Editor of magazine marks it Use When Timely and publishes it sixteen years later when the locusts appear.
V
At forty, encouraged by success, accepts invitation to have lunch with editor of the popular magazine. Editor orders exotic dishes and mentions an opening “on the staff!”
VI
Encouraged by success, dies of nervous indigestion right after lunch, leaving an illegitimate son who grows up in obscurity and writes the great American novel.
1926
RUTH SUCKOW
COMPLETE GUIDE FOR BOOK REVIEWERS
BOOK reviewing is one of the great literary industries. Yet I doubt whether any other is so poorly organized. Short-story writers have rule books which may be regarded as authoritative, compiled as they are by professors of the art who fifteen years ago sold a short story to the Argosy. But the great intellectual army of book reviewers must still plod on with the same old methods of presumably looking into each book as it comes, and writing each review afresh, thus cutting down immeasurably the number of books that can be reviewed and the reception of those gratifying cheques for six dollars and thirty-two cents. Individual reviewers, to be sure, have their own little stock supplies of words into which they can dip and re-dip and so reduce the labor of thinking. A still more useful possession, one in fact which almost eliminates any need for thinking at all after the initial book has been reviewed, is a theory or a point of view. This gives the reviewer a certain reputation for critical reliability and profundity as well. But these aids have their limits, as every reviewer must realize.
A larger preparedness is called for in this modern age of invention. A certain famous author, well known in the literary world, realizing this great need, has caused to be compiled, after much research, a little booklet, available to reviewers for the sum of only a few cents. It will prove of incalculable service to the young author starting out on the career of book reviewing, and contains new hints for the seasoned reviewers as well. The numerous cases which this booklet covers can be no more than indicated, since it is a complete guide. But even the table of contents here reproduced will prove intriguing and illuminating:
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY
The problem before us—Why this book—Be alert—Never use last season’s words—Know correct authors for reference—Compare women poets to Emily Dickinson—Better go slow now on “Rabelaisian”—Easiest reviews rehash plots—Fine chance to be clever here—Reviewer must maintain superior attitude—Ways of getting in dig at the author—Use of full name, “Mr. Jason Blank,” gives English touch—How to work off own prejudices, predilections, grievances, etc., through reviews.
CHAPTER II. HOW TO BEGIN REVIEWS
“Out of the great mass of undistinguished and indistinguishable verse”—“There are times when even the most seasoned reviewer”—“If you happen to be one of those old-fashioned readers to whom …”—“As a refreshing antidote to …”—“A new novel by Mrs. Wharton is always sure of a welcome from her large …”—“No book of recent times …”—“This is another of those …”
CHAPTER III. HOW TO END THEM
“But I shall not give away Mr. Soandso’s story”—“The reader must read for himself to find out …”—“Suffice it to say that the mystery is eventually cleared up and all ends happily”—“venture to predict will outlast all the …”—“Meanwhile I shall await Mr. Blank’s next attempt with …”—“but it is not Art”—“provides a veritable feast for kings”—“takes its place at once among the great masterpieces of …”
CHAPTER IV. HOW TO HAIL THE NEW GENIUS
“Not since The Old Wives’ Tale has”—“There comes to the jaded reviewer”—“Ring all the bells and sound all the drums”—“Sees the rising of a new star”—“For all time”—“Of no less than astounding and astonishing genius”—“Combines all the——of a Homer and an Anatole France with all the ——of a Mary Roberts Rinehart”—“Takes its place at once among the great masterpieces of …”
CHAPTER V. THE SOPHISTICATED REVIEW FOR THE CIVILIZED AUDIENCE
That intimate personal touch in the introduction—But avoid too highbrow suggestion—“In the cellars of Greenwich Village”—“Brilliant satire”—“Gallic wit and brevity”—“Not meat for morons”—“Will not please the Rotarians”—“Has a sardonic eye for …”—“Innocent and diverting foibles of the human race”—“This very modern heroine”—“Wise, witty and profound”—“Old woman from Dubuque.”
CHAPTER VI. HOW TO REVIEW NOVELS OF THE SOIL
“This saga of”—“Does for the plains of (prairies of, mountains of) ——what Knut Hamsun did for peasants of Norway—what Reymont did for peasants of—what Hardy did for …”—“Epic sweep”—“Titanic struggle”—“Brute forces of nature”—“Elemental forces”—“Primitive passions”—“Stark tragedy”—“Same pagan love of the soil that …”—“Takes its place at once among the masterpieces of …”
CHAPTER VII. THE MODERN REVIEWERS’ THESAURUS
“Erudition”—“pity and irony”—“devastating sense of …”—“brilliant subtlety”—“like the flash of a rapier”—“sane”—“eminently readable”—“to while away the hours of …”—“most fascinating heroine in modern …”—“cerebral”—“the art of Joyce, Proust, and Richardson”—“pungent, sharp, unsparing”—“merciless dissection”—“in hands of a skillful surgeon”—“relentless realism of the most …”—“our smart young writers”—“so-called modernists”—“attack on most cherished …”—“to pull down from the pedestals where history has …”—“Unlike the method of the old dull biographers, Strachey unlocks the inner heart of … shows Blank was the victim of …”—“genius due to Oedipus complex, Electra complex, inferiority complex, inversion, perversion, extraversion, Freud”—“Miss Blank knows her region, and these simple folk, so simple and at the same time so profound”—“cleanly factual, bare, unadorned, admirable prose”—“admirably nervous”—“takes its place at once among the masterpieces of …”
NOTE: If all other terms of derision go stale make some simple reference to the lady novelists.
1927
E. B. WHITE
HOW TO TELL A MAJOR POET FROM A MINOR POET
AMONG the thousands of letters which I received two years ago from people thanking me for my article “How to Drive the New Ford” were several containing the request that I “tell them how to distinguish a major poet from a minor poet.” It is for these people that I have prepared the following article, knowing that only through one’s ability to distinguish a major poet from a minor poet may one hope to improve one’s appreciation of, or contempt for, poetry itself.
TAKE the first ten poets that come into your head—the list might run something lik
e this: Robert Frost, Arthur Guiterman, Edgar Lee Masters, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Stephen Vincent Benét, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Lorraine Fay, Berton Braley, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Can you tell, quickly and easily, which are major and which minor? Or suppose you were a hostess and a poet were to arrive unexpectedly at your party—could you introduce him properly: “This is Mr. Lutbeck, the major poet,” or “This is Mr. Schenk, the minor poet”? More likely you would have to say merely: “This is Mr. Masefield, the poet”—an embarrassing situation for both poet and hostess alike.
All poetry falls into two classes: serious verse and light verse. Serious verse is verse written by a major poet; light verse is verse written by a minor poet. To distinguish the one from the other, one must have a sensitive ear and a lively imagination. Broadly speaking, a major poet may be told from a minor poet in two ways: (1) by the character of the verse, (2) by the character of the poet. (Note: It is not always advisable to go into the character of the poet.)
As to the verse itself, let me state a few elementary rules. Any poem starting with “And when” is a serious poem written by a major poet. To illustrate—here are the first two lines of a serious poem easily distinguished by the “And when”:
Disquiet, Please! Page 17