WHAT HAROLD KNEW

James Thurber: The Art of Fiction X-Excerpt (Interviewed by George Plimpton and Max Steele, Fall 1955, The Paris Review)

INTERVIEWER

Could [The New Yorker editor, Harold Ross] develop a writer?

THURBER

Not really. It wasn't true what they often said of him-that he broke up writers like matches-but still he wasn't the man to develop a writer. He was an unread man. Well, he'd read Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi and several other books he told me about-medical books-and he took the Encyclopedia Brittanica to the bathroom with him. I think he was about up to H when he died. But still his effect on writers was considerable. When you first met him you couldn't believe he was the editor of The New Yorker and afterwards you couldn't believe that anyone else could have been. The main thing he was interested in was clarity. Someone once said of The New Yorker that it never contained a sentence that would puzzle an intelligent 14 year old or in any way affect her morals badly. Ross didn't like that, but nevertheless he was a purist and perfectionist and it had a tremendous effect on all of us: it kept us from being sloppy. When I first met him he asked me if I knew English. I thought he meant French or a foreign language. But he repeated, "Do you know English?" When I said I did he replied, "Goddamn it, nobody knows English." As Andy White mentioned in his obituary, Ross approached the English sentence as though it was an enemy, something that was going to throw him. He used to fuss for an hour over a comma. He'd call me in for lengthy discussions about the Thurber colon. And as for poetic license, he'd say, "Damn any license to get things wrong." In fact, Ross read so carefully that often he didn't get the sense of your story. I once said: "I wish you'd read my stories for pleasure, Ross." He replied he hadn't time for that. [...]

INTERVIEWER

Did he have much direct influence on your own work?

THURBER

After the seven years I spent in newspaper writing, it was more E. B. White who taught me about writing, how to clear up sloppy journalese. He was a strong influence and for a long time in the beginning I thought he might be too much of one. But at least he got me away from a rather curious style I was starting to perfect-tight journalese laced with heavy doses of Henry James.

INTERVIEWER

Henry James was a strong influence then?

THURBER

I have the reputation for having read all of Henry James. Which would argue a misspent youth and middle-age.

INTERVIEWER

But there were things to be learned from him?

THURBER

Yes, but again he was an influence you had to get over. Especially if you wrote for The New Yorker. Harold Ross wouldn't have understood it. I once wrote a piece called The Beast and the Dingle which everybody took as a parody. Actually it was a conscious attempt to write the story as James would have written it. Ross looked at it and said: "Goddam it, this is too literary; I got only 15% of the allusions." My wife and I often tried to figure out which were the 15% he could have got.

Thus the unreadable Henry James.

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