Literary Summits

A friend and I were discussing spiritual disciplines recently and he remarked that the one spiritual discipline he didn’t want to adopt is submission. Submission to God or to others, there’s something about the concept that just doesn’t fit into his perception of how God created him.

What if, I suggested, rather than thinking of submission in terms of master/slave, we submitted to God in the same way that authors submit a manuscript to an editor?

So we pondered, “What if God is our editor?”

(It’s maybe a prideful comparison for someone who spends a fair bit of time editing at work, a little like the fable where Elephant declares that God has a trunk, etc.)

One way in which the comparison worked: Sometimes in life it feels like we need a “light edit” — just proofreading, please. Other times it seems like our life plan has been rejected or comes back with “MAJOR REWRITE NEEDED.”

And although we may wish to live without editorial constraints, I believe an editing colleague of mine has it right when she insists, “Everyone needs an editor.”

Even Proust. Especially Proust.

As I started the second volume, “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower,” translator James Grieve observes that Proust’s 6-volume work was essentially unedited. He notes: “[Proust’s] novel is one of the few masterpieces never properly edited before publication.”

Originally vanity-published, Proust’s manuscripts never received the attention that Maxwell Perkins gave to Scott Fitzgerald’s or the devoted Bouilhet to Flaubert’s. . . . It has been said that Proust’s contract with Grasset “rid him of all editorial constraints.”

This makes Proust both frustrating and interesting to read. Throughout the first volume, I wondered how old, exactly, the young narrator was supposed to be. And there are details that don’t square with the “facts” of the narrative. And interesting, because I continue to think, “Would I have included this passage? Why is that here?”

Now that I read this intro, it makes more sense.

Proust didn’t have the full editorial team that J.K. Rowling had at her disposal for the seven volumes of Potter. Fitzgerald, apparently, was prevented from burdening “The Great Gatsby” with the much inventive title, “Trimalchio in West Egg.”

Proust may not have considered “submission” a spiritual discipline worth observing. Or he may have feared that an editor would just mess things up (see article on Raymond Carver and his editor, Gordon Lish).

Was that it? What do you think?