Question

“You'd paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa.” No, of course not. No sane person would do such a thing, Duchamp notwithstanding. In the realm of visual art, no gallery owner, and no gallery employee, would take a brush to a painting by an exhibiting artist. So why, when it comes to prose, “editors” do something equivalent to that all the time, sometimes, to extend the analogy, going as far as taking a chain saw to a canvas, or a sledgehammer to a sculpture—this I will never understand.

AlanCliffe 7

Answer 1

Because many of us authors are self indulgent egoists with intermittent bouts of verbal diarrhoea who require someone to polish our rough diamonds.

If you want prime examples look at T.S. Elliots unedited version of "The Wasteland" and the published and rightly famous version edited by Ezra Pound ("The better craftsman" as Elliot refers to him in his preface to the said epic poem)
In a more modern example compare the early works of Anne Rice with those later works prior to her sad death in 1981, when she insisted that her books be published unedited and as she wrote them.
The former are thrilling snappy well paced and frightening, whereas the latter are over long rambling diatribes that substitute story for exposition, continuity for convenient retconning and long conversations for character development and world building.
Editors do a valuable job, equate the with cultural vandals if you must, but it is a false equivalence and a poor metaphor that does not stand up to scrutiny.

Answer 2

You're looking at it wrong. People wouldn't paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa because it's already famous (for whatever reason). If it was just some random painting from a high school art show you won as a door prize no one would give a single shit if you painted on it.
Editors want to change works-in-progress so that they may one day hopefully be seminal works no one would dare change.
That make it make more sense?

Answer 3

example of chainsaw editing?

Answer 4

Yes, there were already all manna of heaven's chainsaws and hammers in the old testament.


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