Interesting Emendations: Jonathan Franzen's "The End of the End of the World"

Blexbolex's illustration for Jonathan Franzen's "The End of the End of the World"

Jonathan Franzen’s “The End of the End of the World” (The New Yorker, May 23, 2016) is one of the best New Yorker pieces to appear in the last ten years. It’s both an account of a three-week trip Franzen took to Antarctica on board the National Geographic Orion, and a tribute to his uncle Walt whose bequest made the trip possible. The piece is included in Franzen’s great 2018 collection The End of the End of the Earth. Comparing the magazine piece with the book version, I noticed a few changes. 

In the New Yorker piece, penguin chicks are downy, whereas in the book they’re fluffy. Here’s the book version of the description:

Fluffy gray chicks chased after any adult that was plausibly their parent, begging for a regurgitated meal, or banded together for safety from the gull-like skuas that preyed on the orphaned and the failing-to-thrive.

In the New Yorker piece, Franzen writes,

I’d never before had the experience of beholding scenic beauty so dazzling that I couldn’t process it, couldn’t get it to register as something real. 

In the book, he adds another eight words that strike me as unnecessary (but who am I to question the moves of a master writer):

I’d never before had the experience of beholding scenic beauty so dazzling that I couldn’t process it, couldn’t get it to register as something real that I was really in the presence of. [My emphasis]

In the magazine, he writes,

Immanuel Kant had connected the sublime with terror, but as I experienced it in Antarctica, from the safe vantage of a ship with a glass-and-brass elevator and first-rate espresso, it was more like a mixture of beauty and absurdity.

In the book, he puts it slightly differently:

Immanuel Kant had defined the Sublime as beauty plus terror, but as I experienced it in Antarctica, from the safe vantage of a ship with a glass-and-brass elevator and first-rate espresso, it was more like a mixture of beauty and absurdity.

It’s interesting to see Franzen making these subtle adjustments – a glimpse into his compositional process. I prefer the New Yorker piece. Both versions are brilliant.