Apparently, there’s a bit of an uproar over Orion Books’s decision to print abridged versions of classics. (Link)
So, they’re taking out something around 40% of a book like Moby Dick, then calling it a Compact Edition.
I guess I don’t really care. My first reaction was that it’s a terrible thing to do. These books were written and published to be read as they are. The authors haven’t agreed to any editing, and they probably wouldn’t like what comes out of the grinder.
But on the other hand, people who want to read literature will still read it as it was meant to be. And people who normally wouldn’t attempt a long-ish classic might give it a try with one of these new editions.
I’ve often thought about recasting Shakespeare’s stuff into something more easily digested so that I can tell the stories to kids. My thinking is that the kids will grow up knowing the plots, and when they read Shakespeare, they can concentrate on the language.
And people go to movies, like Vanity Fair, which is really just a short (and altered) version of the 800 page book. Which I haven’t read.
I guess that some people are worried that readers of the Compact Editions will walk around saying that they’ve read the thing, but they really shouldn’t try to sound as smart and educated as those who really have read the whole thing. But that seems like a small objection.
What’s kind of sad to me is that in promoting the abridgements, the publisher purposely makes it seem as though the classics are almost impossible to read. This is complete bullshit, and it’s even bullshitter to say that cutting the SIZE down will make it easier to read.
1. Most of these novels are NOT hard for an educated adult to read. Some of the language is unusual (Victorian), and some of the sentences are longer. But the plot lines are generally pretty easy to follow, and there’s not symbolism on every page that you have to understand in order to enjoy the book. And you get used to the language and might even start to enjoy it. It’s not Shakespeare, after all. This stuff was only written a hundred or two hundred years ago, and it’s completely comprehensible.
So this publisher is HURTING the appeal of classics by pretending otherwise in order to get more money for himself. He’s playing into the popular MISconception that these books are hard and boring. His research told him that’s what people think about classics, so he’s trying to cash in on that, rather than to point out that the perception is wrong.
The books may be long, but as a rule they’re still around because they’re really good. Not because they’re hard to read.
2. If a book IS hard to read, shortening it won’t make it any easier. When someone describes a book as “difficult,” they don’t usually mean “long.”
The publisher should be saying something like, “these are great books, but some of them are so long that people just don’t have the time to read them, or the will to commit themselves to reading them.”
Anyway, what’s new about this? Haven’t abridged versions of books been around forever?
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