Dream editor
Letters of Note featured the correspondence between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his editor Maxwell Perkins beginning when Scott submitted an early draft of the novel tentatively titled The Great Gatsby. At that point Scott wasn’t in love with the title—he was considering Gold-Hatted Gatsby (ehh), Trimalchio in West Egg (ew) and The High-Bouncing Lover (what).
Maxwell Perkins replied with the sort of letter writers wish their editors would send them.
Dear Scott:
I think the novel is a wonder. I’m taking it home to read again and shall then write my impressions in full;—but it has vitality to an extraordinary degree, and glamour, and a great deal of underlying thought of unusual quality. It has a kind of mystic atmosphere at times that you infused into parts of “Paradise” and have not since used. It is a marvelous fusion, into a unity of presentation, of the extraordinary incongruities of life today. And as for sheer writing, it’s astonishing.
Now deal with this question: various gentlemen here don’t like the title,—in fact none like it but me. To me, the strange incongruity of the words in it sound the note of the book. But the objectors are more practical men than I. Consider as quickly as you can the question of a change.
But if you do not change, you will have to leave that note off the wrap. Its presence would injure it too much;—and good as the wrap always seemed, it now seems a masterpiece for this book. So judge of the value of the title when it stands alone and write or cable your decision the instant you can.
With congratulations, I am,
Yours,
[Maxwell E. Perkins]
Two days later Perkins sent a longer letter that began, “I think you have every kind of right to be proud of this book…” There’s a postscript in which he discusses royalties and asks, “Why do you ask for a lower royalty on this than you had on the last book…” That’s amazing!
Maxwell Perkins was also the editor of Ernest Hemingway, which reminds us that we saw the movie Hemingway and Gellhorn starring Clive Owen as Ernest and Nicole Kidman as Martha Gellhorn, the writer and war correspondent who became Hemingway’s third wife (and the first wife to dump him). Clive Owen is one of our favorite actors but we never believe he’s Ernest. Nicole Kidman is very good and with her voice pitched an octave lower we forget that she’s Nicole. But the real shocker of Hemingway and Gellhorn is finding that its director Philip Kaufman—the guy who made The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Henry and June—is capable of such…how do we say this…Kabaduyan. The movie has its moments, but generally it is mawkish, corny and wtf. In short is baduy. We need to erase the memory by watching Henry and June.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
July 13th, 2012 at 08:25
Re: Hemingway and Gellhorn. Nicole Kidman was fantastic, especially during the scenes where she plays the older Martha Gellhorn. I was annoyed, however, by the interview-as-framing device (what is this, Frost and Nixon?) and the ending was two minutes too long. I also couldn’t stand the characterization for Mrs. Hemingway #2; that confrontation scene where she finds out about Gellhorn stretched out way too long, and was staged too melodramatically.
But the most unforgivable part, for me, was the implied off-screen cat murder. I don’t care how important it is to the script, or if it did happen in real life; nothing good comes out of killing a cat.
July 13th, 2012 at 14:14
currently reading The Great Gatsby :)