Philip Wylie, American novelist
and short-story writer, hat had
a wide and varied Ufe. He hat
worked at press agent, advertis
ing manager for a publisher, was
for a time one of the editors of
the New Yorker and a studio
writer in the movies. He worked
on farms, in Manhattan stores,
in factories, on ships and else
where. Intending to be a doc
tor, his education was largely
scientific, and his travels abroad
gave him a knowledge of three
foreign languages. He collab
orated on several books with
Edwin Balmer and others were
anonymous or written under a
pseudonym. The following ar
ticle was written exclusively for
The Star.
MOST “constant readers’’
reach a point in their
lives at which, incensed
by a book or an article,
they take their pens in hand and
inform the author that he is a
liar, a fool, a malicious person,
misinformed, or a menace. I
have written such missives my
self and I have received such.
Of them, some were justified and
many gave me insigm imu over
looked categories of thought and
opinion. But the other day,
While I was lying meditatively
on the Florida beach, there flew
Into my range of vision five
pelicans. The birds were at first
strung out in a line; as I idly
watched (I am something of a
pelican buff), one took the lead
and two fell behind each flank
so that the birds proceeded in a
"V” formation.
This commonplace occurrence
reminded me of a letter I long
ago received from a gentleman
who quoted from a magazine
story of mine the description of
pelicans flying in a “V” and
who asserted that, in his long
experience as a pelican-watcher
and resident of the west coast
of Florida, he had never seen
pelicans take that formation. He
stated that he was, in conse
quence, positive the birds always
flew in a line and that I was a
nature-faker. The magazine,
which got the letter first, was
naturally' depressed and referred
the matter to me with some
petulance. Now, for all I know,
pelicans on the west coast of
Florida never fly in “Vs”—but I
watched them do it on this coast,
where I live, for the umpteenth
time, only day before yesterday.
The chuckle-head who gave me
the lie put me to some pains and
I A Word to Constant Readers
trouble simply because he did
not know enough about pelicans,
but was nevertheless Tseirtadn he
knew more than I did.
Niggling Dopes Who
Heckle Authors
In the course of 30 years of
wilting such things as books,
magazine stories, articles, criti
cism and a newspaper column, I
received several thousand, letters
of this and other quibbling sorts.
Each one usually goes to an edi
tor first. Editors dislike errors—
writers do sometimes make them
—but the result 1s often a tart,
unjustified order from editor to
writer to make amends. I have
had to spend more than enough
time to write a whole book in the
egregious business of corre
sponding with dopes who were
engaged either in niggling over a
point not worth discussion or in
a fallacious attempt at correcting
me.
There was, for example, a gen
uciimu wuu oom x iiou uocu uiv
wrong common name for a fish.
This cost me a trip to the library,
several phone calls to learned
persons, two letters, and consider
able irritation, before I could
prove to his and the editorial sat
isfaction that I knew my stuff
and he did not. There was a gen
tleman who wrote me five letters
from Texas over the alleged fail
ure by me to use the subjunctive
in a contrary-to-fact condition. I
wrote, "was”; he said it should'
have been, "were.” Even when I
summoned a famous English pro
fessor to the judgment and when
he decided in my favor, the self
appointed Texas purist kept on
writing! Whenever I publish a
book, I know that I will soon be
showered with missives, both cute
and bitter, from the spelling and
punctuation correctors. These
people as often as not assume I
set the book in type myself and
hold me to blame for every print
er’s error as well as trivial blun
ders of my own. And legion is the
number of Individuals who have
both the energy and time (not to
mention the egotism or the neu
rotic compulsion) to write four or
five pages of disagreement over
the definition of a word.
All authors are similarly
heckled. All are annoyed, when
they have poured grey matter and
By Philip Wylie
_ —Sketch by Newman Sudduth.
heart's blood into their work, to
receive endless communications
from readers who say exactly
nothing about their reactions to
the opus, but merely point out
»
Just for Fun
Among the humorous books
of the year the following are
recommended as likely to lend
a riotous touch to your Christ
mas list:
THE BEST OF DON MAR
QUIS, with an introduction by
Christopher Morley (Doubleday
& Co., $3.00). “Those who can
bear the nostalgia—read these
tales and weep.”—Mary-Carter
Roberts.
THE PSYCHOPATHIC DOG,
by John Philip Sousa, III
(Doubleday & Co., $3.00). “If
you are an admirer of individ
uals and a lover of dogs, you’ll
find a good evening’s entertain
ment here.”—Martha Lewis.
KEEP IT CRISP, by S. J.
Per el man (Random House,
$2.50).
THE LEACOCK ROUNDA
BOUT, by Stephen Leacock
(Dodd, Mead & Co., $3.50).
with smug glee that on page 148,
line 23, two letters have been
transposed In the fourth word
from the right-hand margin.
The plague of trifling is cer
tainly a poor comment on general
education, which is shown by it
to make of multitudes, not readers
in any sense of the word, but mere
amateur proof-readers. And the
scale on which the author-cor
rector operates is limited only by
his purse and leisure. I have had
sent to me, with no comment, a
copy of a book of mine, neatly re
proof-read and annotated with
suggestions for “better” words
than those I used.
In the case of a book I wrote
some years ago on the poor sub
jective condition of modem man,
I had mailed to me five “con
densations”—five shortened, new
versions of my humble effort.
Three of these were more than
twenty thousand words in length
—representing an enormous vol
untary labor—and one had ac
tually been set in type! It is very
flattering that five persons should
think enough of my intellectual
effort to execute an abbreviation
of it; but from my standpoint, the
fThe book that
DREW PEARSON
urged you lo read:
DIMLY SEEM
I by Georgia's Governor
I ELLIS G. ARNALL
fact remains that if I had found
a shorter way to say what I
wished to say, I would have used
it myself. The person who reeds
an exogesis or a syllabus of a book
has In no sense read the book. All
five digesters assumed I would be
overjoyed to drop everything, read
their translation of my Rngit.r.
and send lengthy comment.
They Are Like a
Cloud of Mosquitoes
The season at which this essay
will be published has put a happy
suggestion in my mind. I would
like to use the opportunity to give
each and every one of the five
thousand free lance writers in this
great nation a Christmas present
in the form of a discovery I have
made, partly out of sheer bril
liance, but partly, I confess, from
driving necessity. For I have
solved the problem of these BB
shot critics, these piddling and
usually mistaken theme-markers,
who, if they looked at the Mona
Lisa, would look first, last, and
only, for a fly-speck. Whenever I
open a letter from one of them, I
instantly flick it into the waste
basket. I make it my goal to see
the sort of letter it is without see
ing just what the exact nature of
the midget gripe may be; thus it
never haunts me. Fifty people
wrote me that, in one of my books,
(See HUMOR, Page 35.)
Solve your Christmas shopping problems ideally
by giving books . . . chosen to fit particular
personalities and interests. Books moke truly
personal and welcome Christmas gifts.
Everyone Enjoys Good Booh