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| Hearsay: |
More on abridging the classics.
Without falling into the trap of condemning all abridgement – it happens on radio without a squeak of protest – at least half these titles should not be on the list. The fact that Moby-Dick is a digressive, unboildownable whale of a book is the whole point; The Portrait of a Lady, Vanity Fair and Middlemarch are straightforward reads – page turners, even for less confident readers, though in the case of Middlemarch there are admittedly a lot of pages to turn. The rambling David Copperfield is ripe for cutting, but Bleak House, in which Dickens was consciously widening his scope as an artist, is not. A great novel is more than its plot; it is an ecosystem, a world. Tamper at your peril.
[I'm really stretching for that headline, eh? It's unseemly.]
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February 28th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Great headline, George! First laugh-out-loud of the day, pre-coffee even!
February 28th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
“Abridge too far” perhaps?