Interesting Emendations: Rebecca West's "Extraordinary Exile"

Rebecca West (in the 1930s)

Ian Buruma, in his absorbing “Fools, Cowards, or Criminals?” (The New York Review of Books, August 17, 2017), a review of Marcel Ophuls 1976 documentary The Memory of Justice, quotes Rebecca West. He writes, “The main Nuremberg war crimes trials began in November 1945 and continued until October 1946. Rebecca West, who reported on the painfully slow proceedings for The New Yorker, described the courtroom as a ‘citadel of boredom.’ ”

The piece Buruma is quoting from is called “Extraordinary Exile,” which appeared in the September 7, 1946, New Yorker. West later retitled it “Greenhouse with Cyclamens I” and included it in her great 1955 collection A Train of Powder. Comparing the New Yorker piece with the book version, I find almost every sentence is different. For example, the “citadel of boredom” phrase quoted by Buruma comes from the piece’s opening paragraph. Here’s the New Yorker version:

There rushes up toward the plane the astonishing face of the world’s enemy: pine woods on little hills, gray-green, glossy lakes too small to be anything but smooth, gardens tall with red-tongued beans, fields striped with red-gold wheat, russet-roofed villages with high gables, and pumpkin-steepled churches that no architect over seven could have designed. Another minute and the plane drops to the heart of the world’s enemy: Nuremberg. In not many more minutes, one is in the courtroom where the world’s enemy is being tried for his sins, and immediately one forgets those sins in wonder at a conflict going on in that court which has nothing to do with the indictments it is considering. The trial is now in its tenth month, and the courtroom is a citadel of boredom. Every person attending it is in the grip of extreme tedium. This is not to say that the work at hand is being performed in a languid or perfunctory way. An iron discipline meets that tedium head on and does not yield an inch to it. But all the same, the most spectacular process in the court today is a certain tug of war concerning time. Some of those present are fiercely desiring that the tedium should come to an end at the first possible moment, and the others are as fiercely desiring that it should last forever.

And here’s the Train of Powder version:

There rushed up toward the plane the astonishing face of the world’s enemy: pine woods on little hills, gray-green glossy lakes, too small ever to be anything but smooth, gardens tall with red-tongued beans, fields striped with copper wheat, russet-roofed villages with headlong gables, and pumpkin-steeple churches that no architect over seven could have designed. Another minute and the plane dropped to the heart of the world’s enemy: Nuremberg. It took not many more minutes, to get to the courtroom where the world’s enemy was being tried for his sins; but immediately those sins were forgotten in wonder at a conflict which was going on in that court, though it had nothing to do with the indictments considered by it. The trial was then in its eleventh month, and the courtroom was a citadel of boredom. Every person within its walk was in the grip of extreme tedium. This is not to say that the work in hand was being performed languidly. An iron discipline meets that tedium head on and does not yield an inch to it. But all the same, the most spectacular process in the court was by then a certain tug-of-war concerning time. Some of those present were fiercely desiring that the tedium should come to an end at the first possible moment, and the others were as fiercely desiring that it should last for ever and ever.

First, note the change in tense – from present in the New Yorker version to past in the Train of Powder version. Second, “glossy lakes too small to be anything but smooth” (New Yorker) is changed to “glossy lakes, too small ever to be anything but smooth” (Train of Powder). Third, “red-gold wheat,” “high gables,” and “pumpkin-steepled churches” (New Yorker) become “copper wheat,” “headlong gables,” and “pumpkin-steeple churches” (Train of Powder). Fourth, “In not many more minutes, one is in the courtroom where the world’s enemy is being tried for his sins” (New Yorker) is changed to “It took not many more minutes to get to the courtroom where the world’s enemy was being tried for his sins” (Train of Powder). Fifth, “and immediately one forgets those sins in wonder at a conflict going on in that court which has nothing to do with the indictments it is considering” (New Yorker) is changed to “but immediately those sins were forgotten in wonder at a conflict which was going on in that court, though it had nothing to do with the indictments considered by it” (Train of Powder). Sixth, note the change from “The trial is now in its tenth month” (New Yorker) to “The trial was then in its eleventh month” (Train of Powder). Seventh, “Every person attending it is in the grip of extreme tedium” (New Yorker) becomes “Every person within its walk was in the grip of extreme tedium” (Train of Powder). Eighth, “This is not to say that the work at hand is being performed in a languid or perfunctory way” (New Yorker) is changed to “This is not to say that the work in hand was being performed languidly” (Train of Powder). Ninth, “and the others are as fiercely desiring that it should last forever” (New Yorker) is changed to “and the others were as fiercely desiring that it should last for ever and ever” (Train of Powder).

The New Yorker version strikes me as slightly more elegant. Both versions are brilliant. Both use the exact same words to describe the Nuremburg courtroom, the words quoted by Buruma – “a citadel of boredom.”

Credit: The above photo of Rebecca West is from Brian Hall’s “Rebecca West’s War” (The New Yorker, April 15, 1996).