3 ms·

Remembering Robert Gottlieb, editor extraordinaire

44 points by cocacola1 3y ago

flomo 3y ago
Not a substantive comment, but I hope Caro will be able to finish his book.
richardatlarge 3y ago
Editor Extraordinaire? Perhaps, but Remnick does a shit job of making the case. He retells stories too often told, and without doing the work of the writer: to make us see something we could not have otherwise imagined. The N Yorker suffers from chronic digititis: the loss of quality in the pursuit of senseless quantity
- dang 3y ago
  Probably worth linking the obit you submitted (thanks for that btw!): Robert Gottlieb, editor of literary heavyweights, dies at 92 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36337975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36337975 - June 2023 (no comments) (also, it would be better to share something interesting about Gottlieb than complain about Remnick/NYer - most people here have never heard any of the stories you're talking about or even know who he is. One of HN's functions is to offer a sort of basic education about this kind of stuff for readers over time)
  - richardatlarge 3y ago
    Here’s one from Wikipedia: In a 1994 interview with The Paris Review, Gottlieb described his need to "surrender" to a book. "The more you have surrendered," he said, "the more jarring its errors appear. I read a manuscript very quickly, the moment I get it. I usually won't use a pencil the first time through because I'm just reading for impressions. When I read the end, I'll call the writer and say, I think it's very fine (or whatever), but I think there are problems here and here. At that point I don't know why I think that—I just think it. Then I go back and read the manuscript again, more slowly, and I find and mark the places where I had negative reactions to try to figure out what's wrong. The second time through I think about solutions—maybe this needs expanding, maybe there's too much of this so it's blurring that." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gottlieb https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gottlieb
    - dang 3y ago
      That's fascinating - thank you! He's describing a phenomenological as opposed to analytical approach.
lasermatts 3y ago
Incredibly sad to see Robert Gottlieb pass. His work as an editor has shaped some of my favorite books. In particular, he brought Robert Caro to national attention. For anyone interested in learning more about Robert Gottlieb, I highly recommend the documentary "Turn Every Page" by his daughter: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14071694/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14071694/ It's about Gottlieb's relationship with the author Robert Caro and provides a fascinating insight into the pair that produced some truly incredible books.
helloworld 3y ago
From 2016, when Gottlieb published his memoir, here's an interesting interview: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/27/robert-gottlieb-editor-memoir-avid-readercatch-22-true-grit https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/27/robert-gottlie... The essential quality of an editor, he told me, is sympathy. “You don’t take on books with which you do not have a sympathy,” he says early in our conversation. “Only trouble can arise if instead of wanting to make a book that you like even better than it is, you want to change it into something that it isn’t.” The most disastrous thing that can happen in an editing process is for an editor to insist on making the book their own.

44 points by cocacola1 3y ago

Not a substantive comment, but I hope Caro will be able to finish his book.

Editor Extraordinaire? Perhaps, but Remnick does a shit job of making the case. He retells stories too often told, and without doing the work of the writer: to make us see something we could not have otherwise imagined. The N Yorker suffers from chronic digititis: the loss of quality in the pursuit of senseless quantity

dang 3y ago
Probably worth linking the obit you submitted (thanks for that btw!): Robert Gottlieb, editor of literary heavyweights, dies at 92 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36337975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36337975 - June 2023 (no comments) (also, it would be better to share something interesting about Gottlieb than complain about Remnick/NYer - most people here have never heard any of the stories you're talking about or even know who he is. One of HN's functions is to offer a sort of basic education about this kind of stuff for readers over time)
- richardatlarge 3y ago
  Here’s one from Wikipedia: In a 1994 interview with The Paris Review, Gottlieb described his need to "surrender" to a book. "The more you have surrendered," he said, "the more jarring its errors appear. I read a manuscript very quickly, the moment I get it. I usually won't use a pencil the first time through because I'm just reading for impressions. When I read the end, I'll call the writer and say, I think it's very fine (or whatever), but I think there are problems here and here. At that point I don't know why I think that—I just think it. Then I go back and read the manuscript again, more slowly, and I find and mark the places where I had negative reactions to try to figure out what's wrong. The second time through I think about solutions—maybe this needs expanding, maybe there's too much of this so it's blurring that." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gottlieb https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gottlieb
  - dang 3y ago
    That's fascinating - thank you! He's describing a phenomenological as opposed to analytical approach.

lasermatts 3y ago

Incredibly sad to see Robert Gottlieb pass. His work as an editor has shaped some of my favorite books. In particular, he brought Robert Caro to national attention. For anyone interested in learning more about Robert Gottlieb, I highly recommend the documentary "Turn Every Page" by his daughter: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14071694/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14071694/ It's about Gottlieb's relationship with the author Robert Caro and provides a fascinating insight into the pair that produced some truly incredible books.

helloworld 3y ago

From 2016, when Gottlieb published his memoir, here's an interesting interview: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/27/robert-gottlieb-editor-memoir-avid-readercatch-22-true-grit https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/27/robert-gottlie... The essential quality of an editor, he told me, is sympathy. “You don’t take on books with which you do not have a sympathy,” he says early in our conversation. “Only trouble can arise if instead of wanting to make a book that you like even better than it is, you want to change it into something that it isn’t.” The most disastrous thing that can happen in an editing process is for an editor to insist on making the book their own.