Customer Reviews

Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker: The Invisible Art of Editing (Continents of Exile)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had never read any of Ved Mehta's books or articles before this. He offers an interesting glimpse into the New Yorker and "Mr. Shawn's" role as editor of the fabled magazine. He also offers a look into a writers life as he describes how the New Yorker cultivated and nurtured the writers it had in it's cubicles. I never subscribed to the New Yorker during William Shawn's time as editor. But, a few years ago I snuck into the old offices on 43rd Street. The writers cubicles were gone but, there outlines were still on the floor. There were odd pieces here and there of the writers who once filled the spaces were scattered about. A pencil here, an old wooden easel there, an old office chair, notes and drawings scribbled on a wall. Mehta fills in the space and one can almost here the clacking of typewriters and muffled conversations as writers work in a unique environment of a unique magazine. It seemed like a very interesting time to be a writer there. Before the Tina Brown's bought "Celebrity Culture" to the magizine. A time when editors like Shawn were more interested in ideas than superficial popularity.

Mike Girardo New York

Intriguing and informative look at a title (and by extension, an industry) in transition. Clearly illustrates both the reasons for and effects of corporate acquisition of magazines. Mehta's tone of hero worship for Shawn is occasionally grating. In fairness, this may be earned, as the Mr. Shawn in this book has many qualities you'd expect from a quiet hero. Fascinating stuff.

I'm surprised three of the prior four reviewers found this title deserving of just four stars. I found this book to be an illuminating work, exposing the intriguing convergence of factors that made The New Yorker great in its formative years. It wasn't Mr. Shawn alone, but the culture he created. He created it by example, and his example drove the magazine's writers to a level of excellence rarely seen since.

The author's success in capturing the tone Shawn set is powerful testimony to Ved Metha's skill as a writer. But beyond that, his book brings into focus a management style sorely lacking in today's enterprises, be they magazines, professional offices, retail stores -- whatever. That style is one which prizes pleasing the customer over profits, because it recognizes that happy customers are the KEY to long-term profitability.

Should we be surprised that our publications have become cursory instruments which place a greater emphasis on flashy advertising than on editorial substance when the vast majority of "publishers" have climbed the accounting side of their particular corporation's ladder, rather than the editorial side?

Editors of Mr. Shawn's caliber no longer exist because what used to be their primary job -- ensuring the accuracy and quality of editorial content -- no longer exists. Gone are the fact checkers and the grammarians, not to mention intelligent writers, able to produce 5,000 incisive words on the economy as easily as 7,000 on border disputes in the Middle East. And those writers are gone because their publications' ownerships lack the business sense necessary to build a following (or the attention span to appreciate any article which does not end on the same page upon which it begins).

And as sure as these bean-counting bottom liners have no business being publishers, any editor who hasn't read this book shouldn't be editing anything.

Ved Mehta's eighth volume in his autobiographical series "Continents of Exile" is about his time at The New Yorker magazine during the William Shawn period. It's often described as a biography of Shawn, which may account for much of the criticism that the book has attracted. But it is not primarily about Shawn, and this must be remembered: the book is first and foremost concerned with the world of Ved Mehta and how William Shawn fit into it.

It begins with Mehta's first meeting with Shawn in the old New Yorker offices on West Forty-third Street and passes through Shawn's editorship of Mehta's first submissions to his time as a staff writer to the fatal day in 1987 when Shawn was fired. Mehta's prose is engaging and his view of chameleon-like Shawn no more right or wrong than anyone else's.

I recommend this book for both the subject matter and the writing. It was an unexpected treat.

Ved Mehta is my favorite writer. I've bought nearly all his books, even old ones out of print that I've found through Amazon. Ved Mehta's endearing personality and superb writing style make an irresistable combination. Having said that, I must also say that Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker is the Mehta book I like least. It is the latest volume in Ved Mehta's autobiography, but it reveals too little about Mr. Mehta and redundantly much about Mr. Shawn. It tells more about the New Yorker than I really care to know, although I have been a New Yorker fan for years. Perhaps this book simply lacks the editorial guidance Mr. Shawn gave to Mehta's previous books. On the other hand, an unexpected gift I found in Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker is an explanation of the background behind other Mehta books written while Mehta was on the New Yorker staff. I do recommend that all Mehta and New Yorker fans read this book, but don't set your expectations too high.

I urge everyone to collect these wonderful books. Ved Mehta writes with care, and from an unusual point of view. I have enjoyed this book in particular. His attention to detail is nothing less than amazing. He is a well-educated man, very scholarly, and it does come through in his books. As good as Churchill, Camus, and Ignatieff, if not better.