Interesting Emendations: William Murray's "Letter From Rome"

Between 1962 and 1989, William Murray contributed over thirty “Letters From Rome” and other pieces to The New Yorker. My favorite Murray piece is the “Letter From Rome” that appeared in the magazine’s August 22, 1988, issue. It’s about a trattoria called Il Grappolo d’Oro, located on the Piazza della Cancelleria, in one of the oldest quarters of Rome’s centro storico. In the piece, Murray says, “From the moment I walked into the Grappolo d’Oro, sometime during the summer of 1968, it became one of my favorite hangouts.” In the course of describing the Grappolo and the people who work there, particularly one of the co-owners named Andrea d’Angelo, Murray captures a point of view that feels quintessentially Italian. This particular “Letter From Rome,” retitled “Cronaca di Roma,” is included in Murray’s collection The Last Italian (1991). Comparing the New Yorker version with the book version, I find some interesting differences. For example, here’s a passage from the magazine version that illustrates what I mean when I say Murray catches a perspective that feels authentically Italian:

Every day, between sixty and eighty mostly contented people will come, eat, and leave, unaware of the effort being made, the price being paid – and why should they care? It’s not their business, after all; they have their own affairs to worry about.

I like the tough-mindedness that springs into being at the end of that passage. The book version is worded slightly differently:

Every day between sixty and eighty mostly contented people will come, eat, leave, unaware of the effort being made, the price being paid, and why should they care? It’s not their business, after all; they have their own affairs to trouble them.

I have to admit I like the book version better. I like the omission of “and” from the “come, eat, leave” line; I like the comma in place of the dash, so that the question “and why should they care?” comes fast on the heels of the statement about the lack of awareness; and, most of all, I like “they have their own affairs to trouble them,” rather than the more ordinary “they have their own affairs to worry about.”

Here’s another example. It’s an excerpt from a long, detailed, delicious passage in which Murray describes the Grappolo’s interior. The New Yorker version is as follows:

On the walls hang landscapes and still-lifes by a friend of Andrea, the Roman painter Franco Mazzilli, who also designed the frieze of vines and grape clusters executed in dark terra-cotta tiles, which rings the walls.

Interestingly, the book version of this passage describes things a bit differently:

On the walls hang landscapes and still lifes by the Roman painter Franco Mazzilli, a friend, who also designed the frieze of vines and grape clusters, executed in dark wooden panels, that ring the walls.

What happened to the terra-cotta tiles? My guess is that, after the publication of The New Yorker piece, it came to Murray’s attention that what he thought were dark terra-cotta tile were actually dark wooden panels. He made the correction in the book version.

The most surprising difference between the two versions comes at the end of the piece. I really like the ending. It’s a comment by the cynical, pragmatic, traditionalist d’Angelo. Here’s the New Yorker version:

“Let the politicians talk,” he said not long ago. “They love to talk, that is what they do best. For me, it is all rhetoric. Life is hard and work is everything. The rest is dreams.”

Here’s the book version:

“Let the politicians talk,” he said not long ago. “They love to talk, that is what they do best. For me it is all rhetoric. Life is hard and work is all. All the rest is dreams.”

The difference is subtle, a matter of rhythm and sound. Again, I prefer the book version. “Life is hard and work is everything” is not as plain and concentrated as “Life is hard and work is all.” “The rest is dreams” is too brisk. The extra beat in “All the rest is dreams” gives the line an Italian flourish – the perfect note on which to end a perfect piece.