According to Paul Duguid in his review of Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, in the July 7, 2006 issue of the TLS (not online):

Gutenberg offers some 17,000 “etexts”. Many seem unexceptional, but for some the need to avoid copyright entanglements has led contributors to resurrect editions which were better left buried. Its version of Pan, the novel by Nobel-Prizewinner Knut Hamsun, for example, puts William Wurster’s ridiculously prudish translation of 1921 before unsuspecting readers.

Leaving aside Duguid’s reference to W. W. Worster as “William Wurster” — he also refers to the film, A Mighty Wind, as The Mighty Wind; you can check that kind of stuff on the Internet, you know — this line made me wonder: what constitutes “ridiculous prudishness”?

So I got down my copies of Worster’s 1921 translation and MacFarlane’s 1957 translation and compared them line by line. I found four points of variation that could be considered relevant to a charge of prudishness:

Chapter 8:

Worster: “I lay my hand on her.”

MacFarlane: “And she is naked under her dress from head to foot and I place my hand on her.”

Chapter 32:

Worster: And Eva — Eva lay beside it, mangled and broken, dashed to pieces by the shock — torn beyond recognition.

MacFarlane: Eva laid beside it, crushed and broken, smashed by the blow, torn beyond recognition down her side and below the waist.

Postscript – Chapter 2

Worster: I might have listened much more, but I had to go.

MacFarlane: Glahn and Maggie were obviously awake and I could have overheard a great deal more, but I had to go.

But I suspect this is the passage Duguid had in mind, from Chapter 8:

Worster: “Tie my shoestring,” she says, with flushed cheeks …” The sun dips down into the sea and rises again, red and refreshed, as if it had been to drink. And the air is full of whisperings. An hour after she speaks, close to my mouth: “Now I must leave you.”

MacFarlane: “Tie my shoelace,” she says with flaming cheeks. And in a little while she whispers against my mouth, against my lips: “Oh, you are not tying my shoelace, you my dearest heart, you are not tying … not tying my …” But sun dips his face into the sea and comes up again, red, refreshed, as if he had been down to drink. And the air is filled with whispers. An hour later she says against my mouth: “Now I must leave you.”

And that’s everything I could find. Prudish, yes. But still, “better left buried”? If you’ve read Worster you know there’s incomparable poetry in his translations, and on many dimensions — there are literary qualities other than sexual candor; you’ll just have to trust me on that — they’ve never been bettered. I might argue you’ve never read Hamsun until you’ve read the Worster translations, which served as the English-speaking world’s introduction to Hamsun for more than a generation.

If Worster is the worst you can find in Gutenberg, then maybe I’m starting to believe in this Internet thing after all.

Remember the extremely cool Chicago Review special issue on Objectivist poet Louis Zukofsky from last year? I know you do. Well, the Zukofsky revival, cooked up in his centenary year of 2005, is still simmering. A few recent items:

* The July 2006 issue of Jacket includes a selection of papers written for the Zukofsky conference at Columbia and Barnard in 2004. (via Chicago Vowel Movers)

* In Chicago, a new poetry series carries the Zukofskian title, series A. This is the second poetry series in Chicago that tips a hat to an Objectivist poet. (The other is the Discrete Series.)

* Despite the recent interest, Zukofsky’s Complete Short Poetry and his masterwork A went out of print earlier this year (via ReadySteadyBook). Which leaves the new Library of America Selected Poems the only Zukofsky poetry volume in print. Can’t imagine this will last long. (There is still some of Z’s criticism, fiction, and correspondence on the market.)

Some events just can’t be captured within the 20-character limit of my events listing. ”Progressive Reading”: it sounds like an Evelyn Wood spin-off or an insurance company pitch.

Anyway, here’s the Chicago Reader’s blurb on this week’s reading, which features Aleksandar Hemon and a host of other good folks:

PROGRESSIVE READING SERIES Stephen Elliott (Looking Forward to It: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the American Electoral Process) hosts readings by novelists Aleksandar Hemon (Nowhere Man), Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler’s Wife), and Peter Orner (The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo) and poets Dan Beachy-Quick (Mulberry) and Simone Muench (Lampblack and Ash). Tue 7/18, 7:30 PM, No Exit Cafe, 6970 N. Glenwood, 773-743-3355, $10-$20. Proceeds benefit the campaign of Sixth Congressional District candidate Tammy Duckworth. Advance tickets available at actblue.com/page/chicago.

From the letters column in today’s New York Times Book Review:

To the Editor:

In his review of Anthony Arthur’s ”Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair” and Kevin Mattson’s ”Upton Sinclair and the Other American Century” (July 2), David Thomson understates the enduring influence of Sinclair’s ”Jungle.”

I have assigned the book for more than 30 years to first-year undergraduates in an American history survey course. It is the title that alumni seem to remember decades later from among the many I assign in my various courses. There is something about the gritty people, the shocking city and the compelling issues involving work as well as production that my former students recall vividly.

Nor are they alone. Earlier this year I helped to organize a modest symposium — three professors and a journalist — on a bitterly cold Saturday morning in Chicago. We had little idea what was in store. The room filled up. And it wasn’t professors who attended. It was well-read people of all ages and backgrounds who simply wanted an opportunity to discuss a book that they deemed a classic. Many of them carried their own cherished copies of ”The Jungle.” The symposium proved memorable, not because of the erudite professors but because of the audience of spirited, informed readers.

Sinclair’s long life, as the authors of these two centennial biographies surely appreciate, contained other notable episodes worthy of our attention. But ”The Jungle” unquestionably represents his lasting legacy and merits proper recognition. Undergraduates have known as much, I suspect, far longer than I have been teaching American history.

MICHAEL H. EBNER
Lake Forest, Ill.

Catching up after my summer blog-vacation, I’ve taken the first step of bringing my events list up to date.  There are some interesting additions, including, on July 20th, the 2nd Annual Printers’ Ball, a fantastic event that will introduce you to everyone who’s anyone among local print publications, book publishers, and literary organizations.

Also of interest, this Saturday Mark Siegel stops by Quimby’s to deliver an “interactive multi-media presentation about graphic novels,” whilst promoting the launch of his own new imprint, First Second Books.

Finally, some bad news: I recently noticed that Tomás Eloy Martínez’s October appearances in Chicago are no longer being advertised on the website of the host organization, the Instituto Cervantes Chicago.  I’ve made an inquiry but no response yet.  Will keep you informed.