[research] the angel esmeralda
DESCRIPTION
This paper explores the textual history of Don DeLillo's short story collection The Angel Esmeralda (Scribner, 2011) and the editorial principles underlying its development before proposing a critical edition of DeLillo's short stories.TRANSCRIPT
08 Fall
An Examination of the First Edition of Don
DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
Alexandra Haehnert, December 2014
Portland State University Editorial Theory Dr. Per Henningsgaard Fall 2014
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
2
Introduction
In 2011, Scribner published The Angel Esmeralda, Don DeLillo’s first short story collection.1 The
choice of publisher is hardly surprising, given that DeLillo’s major works (Underworld through
Point Omega) have appeared with Scribner since 1997. This essay will explore the collection’s
textual history and the editorial principles underlying its development before proposing a
critical edition of DeLillo’s short stories.
This is going to be the first study of the editorial history of DeLillo’s short stories as
represented in The Angel Esmeralda. Indeed, scholarship on DeLillo’s short pieces (I refer here
to both fiction and nonfiction) is scant in general—most critics concern themselves with his
novels, especially those written between 1982 and 1997. As far as textual scholarship goes, a
few critics have remarked on the relation between “The Angel Esmeralda” and Underworld (e.g.,
May, McCormick, Sarmento); apart from this, no explorations of the stories’ development
appear to exist.
The Arrangement of The Angel Esmeralda
The Angel Esmeralda contains nine of DeLillo’s short stories published between 1979 and 2011.
All nine stories had previously been published in a variety of magazines, and some of them had
appeared in other anthologies before.2 The collection presents the stories in chronological
order by their original publication date, arranged in three parts: Part One is made up of
“Creation” and “Human Moments in World War III”; Part Two contains “The Runner,” “The
1 Picador published the UK version, with which this paper will not concern itself, in the following year. 2 I will discuss the details of the stories’ specific publication history when I deal with single stories specifically later in the paper.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
3
Ivory Acrobat,” and “The Angel Esmeralda”; and Part Three includes “Baader-Meinhof,”
“Midnight in Dostoevsky,” “Hammer and Sickle,” and “The Starveling.”
The Angel Esmeralda is not a comprehensive collection of DeLillo’s short stories. Before
1979, he had published at least eight other short stories. The collection also omits the stories
“The Sightings” (1979), “Pafko at the Wall” (1992), “Videotape” (1994), “The Black and White
Ball” (1996), “Sputnik” (1997), and “In the Men's Room of the Sixteenth Century” (2002)—if not
more—which fall well within the timeframe covered by the Scribner collection.3
The Angel Esmeralda: A Collaborative Effort
DeLillo worked with his long-time editor Nan Graham on preparing The Angel Esmeralda for
publication. Graham has been DeLillo’s editor since Mao II (Passaro 80), his 1991 novel that
was first published by Viking, now an imprint of Penguin Random House.4 Graham left Viking
around 1995 (Konigsberg 31) to become editor-in-chief at Scribner, an imprint of Simon &
Schuster. In 2012, she became senior vice president and publisher of Scribner (Scribner). After
Mao II, all of DeLillo’s novels have been published, as previously indicated, by Scribner—both
editor and author transitioned from one publisher to another within the same time frame.
While I cannot make a conclusive statement on this parallel development, it is presumably not
coincidental; indeed, it might hint at the quality of Graham and DeLillo’s professional
relationship.5
3 This paragraph comes with a number of qualifiers because DeLillo has been known to publish under pseudonyms. 4 Before her, DeLillo’s editor at Viking was Gerald Howard (Alter). 5 It might also hint at Scribner’s superior negotiating powers; according to Eric Konigsberg, DeLillo was “wooed away from [Viking] with a reported $1.7 million advance, although his last novel, Mao II, sold only in the range of 40,000 copies” (28).
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
4
When asked by Larry Dark what made him decide to publish the first short story collection
of his career, DeLillo responds without hesitation: “My editor” (21:17).6 In a speech on the
occasion of Nan Graham winning the 2011 Maxwell E. Perkins Award, DeLillo further clarifies
her role in the publication of The Angel Esmeralda: “Nan said, ‘Now.’ One of us laughed
nervously. I think it was me. She named the publication date, discussed the stories that could
be included, determined the order of the stories, worked out a three-part structure and an
illustration for each part” (10:27–10:38).7 The choice of what stories to include in the collection
appears to have been a team effort, according to the author: “Together we chose nine stories—
there are many earlier stories, maybe for a future volume—these were the nine we thought
would work best in a collection” (I-Dark 21:52–22:04); “At this particular juncture, I became
the editor and decided the book would be better without [other stories he and Graham had
considered including]” (ibid. 23:21–23:26).
It becomes clear very soon that The Angel Esmeralda did not spring from DeLillo’s mind
alone; Graham had a big part in its conception and development, and the author explicitly
acknowledges her contributions. This example validates textual scholar Jerome McGann’s
“argument for a socialized concept of authorship and textual authority” (8), which runs counter
to traditional Romantic conceptions of isolated authorship: “The production of books …
sometimes involves a close working relationship between the author and various editorial and
publishing professionals” (34).
6 My transcription. From here on out, parenthetical references will identify interviews with DeLillo by “I-,” followed by the name of the interviewer. Similarly, parenthetical references to The Angel Esmeralda will be identified by “AE.” 7 My transcription. I will come back to the illustrations later on in this paper.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
5
Revisions in The Angel Esmeralda
As concerns actually editing the stories for publication, DeLillo appears to have wielded a great
amount of control. He says that he was surprised how little he needed to revise, particularly
with the earlier stories included in Part One of the collection (I-Dark 22:22). “What I changed
were all the magazine editors’ additions of semicolons, colons, commas, serial commas. Took
’em all out” (ibid. 22:26–38).
This statement is significant for this paper for two reasons.8 One, it suggests that much of
the punctuation included in the magazine versions of the stories was absent from the
manuscripts, and two, that for the preparation of The Angel Esmeralda, DeLillo and Graham
referred to the magazine versions as their base texts. Considering the displeasure at the
magazine editors’ emendations DeLillo expresses above, this seems a rather odd choice.
Making the leap to classic editorial theory, then, one could say that DeLillo and Graham
followed—and the reasons for this are unclear to me—Phillip Gaskell’s logic of choosing the
first edition as a base text,9 although it seems that they would have been better served by
choosing the manuscript instead, as recommended by W. W. Greg and elaborated by Fredson
Bowers.
Having said this, examining the stories’ magazine and Scribner forms side by side confirms
DeLillo’s statement. The majority of the kinds of revision I documented are consistent comma
8 I want to mention here that all extrapolations I make from statements by DeLillo are to be taken with a modicum of skepticism. Both literary and textual scholars are well aware of the slippery slope that is taking the author at his or her word. For the purposes of this paper, I will trust that DeLillo made those statements in good faith, simply because they are the only window into the stories’ history—apart from the stories themselves—that I have access to at this moment. All my arguments here should, in due time, be tested by actually consulting the manuscripts and page proofs that are on file at the University of Texas at Austin. 9 Gaskell posits that authors expect their spelling and punctuation to be normalized by their editors and generally endorse their emendations; he therefore recommends taking the first edition as copy-text rather than the manuscript (339–40).
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
6
deletions. For the people working on the Scribner edition, the author’s wishes concerning
punctuation reigned supreme—and it is clear from scrutinizing the edition that if DeLillo’s
omission of serial commas, for example, did not at the outset conform to an established house
style, DeLillo was given exemption from it. In fact, when asked how much control his publisher
sought to exert upon the edition, DeLillo says that “[he] was a free man” (I-Dark 22:50).
I should note that the amount of comma revisions varies from story to story, however,
according to the stories’ first publication venues. For example, the editors at Granta—a British
literary magazine in which both the early “The Ivory Acrobat” (1988) and the recent “The
Starveling” (2011) originally appeared—inserted much fewer commas in the first place
(presumably due to British convention), which means that the Granta and the Scribner versions
do not differ significantly in their comma usage. On the other hand, “Hammer and Sickle” as
published in Harper’s in 2010 has ten more commas than the Scribner version.
My initial hypothesis in investigating the variations between the stories’ first appearances
and their republication in the Scribner collection was that progressing with DeLillo’s growing
recognition as a preeminent contemporary American author—the growth of his brand and
platform—the frequency of variations between the two versions would decrease. I assumed
that, looking back at the first printings of the earlier stories, I would find that the magazine
editors had normalized much of DeLillo’s idiosyncratically sparse punctuation. Conversely, I
expected the versions of the more recent stories not to differ significantly, as magazine editors
treated DeLillo’s writing more as a brand with recognizable properties. This expected pattern, I
can say now, did not manifest itself—the 2010 Harper’s editor of “Hammer and Sickle” was a
much more assiduous user of commas than the 1979 Antaeus editor of “Creation,” for example.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
7
This is probably due to the sheer multiplicity of first publishing venues; the magazine versions
were not produced with according to one unified editorial approach.
Other kinds of “accidentals” (spelling, hyphenation, capitalization) in the magazine
versions are treated consistently in the Scribner edition10: British spellings were made to
conform to American English standards; many nouns and adjectives hyphenated in the
magazine versions were either closed or opened up; and specific word classes received
consistent typographical treatment according, presumably, to Scribner’s house style and/or a
style sheet.
Another expectation I had when going into this research project was that the majority of the
“substantive” changes I would find would concern the older stories in the collection. I assumed
that DeLillo’s current literary tastes and judgments would differ more significantly to those
represented by a story written in the late 1970s than one written just a few years ago. I assumed
that DeLillo, going over the stories in 2011, would find more fault with those farther removed
in time. Again, this turned out not to be the case. For example, the first story in The Angel
Esmeralda, “Creation,” differs from the previous 1979 publication in Antaeus in only one
substantive: where the Antaeus version says, “and the near consciousness we always seem to
find, even resisting the force of our earliest summers, in zones of overgrown terrain” (43), the
Scribner version gives the contracted “and the near consciousness we always seem to find in
zones of overgrown terrain” (19).
10 I have determined that the denotative quality of Greg’s terms “accidentals” and “substantives” is sufficient for the purposes of this paper.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
8
By contrast, “Hammer and Sickle,” a story that appeared in Harper’s only about one year
before the publication of The Angel Esmeralda, saw a large amount of substantive revisions.11
DeLillo inserted a sentence that does not exist in the Harper’s version: “At least their mother
had assigned the vulgar line to the older girl” ends the particular story section in Harper’s (69).
In the Scriber edition, however, the section ends on “Was the daily market report becoming a
performance piece?” (164). In a 1993 interview, DeLillo said, “I used to look for things to keep.
… Now I look for ways to discard things” (I-Begley). In light of this statement in particular, the
addition of this sentence is especially compelling. It goes directly to the heart of the story and
spells out explicitly for the reader the narrator’s thought process, which is more obscure in the
Harper’s version. One might surmise, then, that DeLillo felt that the trajectory of “Hammer and
Sickle” needed clarification upon rereading it while preparing The Angel Esmeralda.
DeLillo also rewrote one sentence completely: “The men yelled and clamored, releasing
themselves, these flabby white-collar felons, giving themselves up to some powerful impulse”
in Harper’s (73) becomes “The men yelled and clamored, these flabby white-collar felons,
seeming to reject everything they’d believed all their lives” in the Scribner edition (175), which,
again—at least in the opinion of this reader—is more explicitly in tune with the thrust of the
story as a whole. The narrator, moreover, is one year older in the Scribner edition, which has a
kind of amusing logic to it, given that the story itself aged one year between its original
publication and its publication in the collection.
The most perplexing editorial development arguably belongs to “Human Moments in World
War III.” Originally published in Esquire magazine in 1983, the story later appeared in a 1996
collection of American Gothic Tales edited by Joyce Carol Oates. Bookended by Harlan Ellison
11 For a complete list of substantive changes, consult page v of the Appendix.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
9
and John L’Hereux, this version of the story mostly replicates the original Esquire version, and
both the Oates and the Esquire versions differ from the Scribner version mostly in the matter of
accidentals. However, in the Oates version, a sizable chunk of text has been added to the first
half of the story (Table 1).12
Esquire (1983), p. 122 Oates (1996), p. 333 AE (2011), p. 36 We count down from five.
The enhanced voice says, You are locked in now.
As we move from one
step to the next a growing satisfaction passes through me—the pleasure of elite and secret skills, a life in which every breath is governed by specific rules, by patterns, codes, controls.
We count down from five. The enhanced voice says, You are locked in now.
“Random factor seven,” I say. “Problem seven. Solution seven.” Vollmer says, “Give me an acronym.”
“BROWN, for Bearing Radius Oh White Nine.”
My color-spec lights up brown. The numbers on my display screen read 2, 18, 15, 23, 14. These are the alphanumeric values of the letters in the acronym BROWN as they appear in unit succession.
The logic-gate opens. The enhanced voice says, You are logical now.
As we move from one step to the next, as the colors, numbers, characters, lights and auditory signals indicate that we are proceeding correctly, a growing satisfaction passes through me—the pleasure of elite and secret skills, a life in which every breath is governed by specific rules, by patterns, codes, controls.
We count down from five. The enhanced voice says, You are locked in now.
As we move from one
step to the next a growing satisfaction passes through me—the pleasure of elite and secret skills, a life in which every breath is governed by specific rules, by patterns, codes, controls.
Table 1. Variations in “Human Moments in World War III.”
12 In this section, I intentionally use a sans-serif font to make it easier for the reader to locate variants.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
10
Apart from this major difference, the Oates version also includes the phrase “well back in
the mouth” (327) in a sentence that in both other versions just says, “It is too direct, a deep
voice from high in the mouth, [well back in the mouth,] slightly insistent, a little loud” (Esquire
120, AE 28). Conversely, the Oates version omits an entire sentence included in both other
versions:
Coming from that mild face, in that earnest resonant run-un voice, these ideas unnerve and worry me as they never do when they remain unspoken. I want words
to be secretive, to cling to a darkness in the deepest interior. [omitted in Oates] Vollmer’s candor exposes something painful. (Oates 328, Esquire 120, AE 30)
It also exchanges what in both other versions is given as “cassettes” for “videocassettes” (329).
Among the Don DeLillo Collection at the University of Texas at Austin are typescript drafts
and proofs of the story dating from between 1983 and 1986, which confirms that DeLillo
continued working on it until at least three years after the Esquire publication (Harry Ransom
Center). It is noteworthy that DeLillo and Graham chose not to use—or merely overlooked—the
later version, the Oates version, as their base text for The Angel Esmeralda.
A Critical Edition of Don DeLillo’s Short Fiction
Examining The Angel Esmeralda, a trade publication, has shown that—even though DeLillo is
still alive and producing work—a critical edition of his short fiction is warranted. The variations
between the early magazine versions of the stories and their publication by Scribner are
numerous and significant enough to warrant further scrutiny. Given DeLillo’s status in the
academy—at least since the publication of Underworld, his place in the canon of contemporary
American literature has been solidifying—scholars would surely be interested in such an
edition, and procuring funding for the undertaking should therefore not be an insurmountable
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
11
obstacle. In the following, I outline a number of principles according to which a critical edition
of DeLillo’s short stories could be produced.
Choose an appropriate book format
The edition I propose would predominantly serve readers with a high interest in and
commitment to the material, but it should easily satisfy the needs of a more casual readership
as well. For this reason, I propose producing a clear reading text (according to the principles
outlined below) that gives ample room for annotations that are easily accessible to the reader.
This accessibility can be facilitated by specific physical characteristics of the book. A square
format, or, even better, one where the width of the page is greater than its height, would
accommodate the clear reading text and the annotations to appear side by side. Jeffrey S.
Cramer’s edition of Walden approximates the arrangement (Fig. 1) I am envisioning.
Fig. 1. Spread view of pages 2–3 of Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition, ed. Jeffrey S. Cramer, New Haven: Yale UP, 2004.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
12
Include all stories
In order for the reader to get a thorough understanding of DeLillo’s development as a short
story writer, the critical edition should be as comprehensive as possible and include all known
short stories DeLillo has ever published. Unlike a trade publication, a critical edition need not
be concerned with presenting the stories according to some overarching theme; ordering them
by original publication date seems perfectly adequate to me, as long as completion is ensured.
Adhere to DeLillo’s preferred accidentals, but note prominently variations in
substantives.
Many manuscripts, drafts, research notes, and correspondence concerning the stories published
between 1975 and 2009 are freely available at the University of Texas at Austin (Harry Ransom
Center). The editor of the critical edition I am proposing should get thoroughly acquainted with
all of them and try to collect similar material for the stories published outside this time frame.
My proposed critical edition would embrace the documentary spirit of the German-inflected
Continental school of editorial theory (proponents include Hans Walter Gabler and Hans Zeller)
but still present a clear reading text with prominently placed notations on substantive variants
(which a book with of appropriate dimensions, as outlined above, could accommodate).
As my examination of the editorial history of “Human Moments in World War III” has
shown, the temporal development of the stories does not allow for an easy decision as to what
constitutes DeLillo’s “final” version. This circumstance gains further significance by DeLillo
being still alive; his work is, simply, not finished. The edition would have to pay attention to
this fact explicitly.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
13
Accidentals
That said, I would recommend the clear reading text to adhere to the stories’ manuscript forms
as far as punctuation is concerned (in the case of stories published in The Angel Esmeralda,
where it is clear that DeLillo wielded significant editorial influence and presumably restored
punctuation to a state approximating his manuscripts, taking The Angel Esmeralda as a base
text would be equally sensible). Sparse punctuation is typical for DeLillo’s writing style, and it
would be a gross violation to normalize it according to an external style sheet.
Consider, for example, this random sentence from Underworld (also edited by Nan Graham):
“Then someone appeared and began to put things on a table, to move the magazines and
picture books and put out bowls and crocks and cut flowers and then to reinstate some of the
picture books but only the ones that claimed a status of a certain sumptuous kind” (469). One
can easily make out three points where an officious editor would consider inserting commas to
make this run-on sentence more digestible—dulling in the process the effect of its avalanche of
ands and sacrificing for (presumably) easier readability its urgent quality, which is a hallmark of
DeLillo’s prose. This example my argument that the hypothetical critical edition of the short
stories adhere to the manuscripts as far as punctuation is concerned—in line with W. W. Greg’s
recommendations to consult the manuscript in the matter of accidentals (22). Variations in
punctuation should only be documented in the edition (and this goes against the German
school’s approach) if they have a significant impact on the respective sentence’s meaning.
Serial commas often do not fall into this category; nor do variations in hyphenation.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
14
Substantives
Again, I would recommend going with Greg’s recommendation of referring to a published
edition in deciding which substantives to include in the reading text. This decision is a rather
arbitrary one and simply grounded on matters of recency. Thus, I would refer to The Angel
Esmeralda for substantives in the stories included in this collection, and to the magazine
versions of the stories that would complete the critical edition. As for substantive variations—
and this is important—they should be prominently noted in the margins of the text so as to
attenuate, to a certain extent, the implied primacy of the substantives included in the reading
text. For the same reason, editors might consider giving a distinctive typographical treatment
to those words that underwent substantive changes in other editions, such as I have done in my
documentation of variants in the Oates version of “Human Moments in World War III” above.
Here is Don DeLillo reflecting on his writing process:
I construct sentences. There’s a rhythm I hear that drives me through a sentence. And the words typed on the white page have a sculptural quality. … They match up not just through meaning but through sound and look. … One syllable too many [for the rhythm of a sentence], I look for another word. There’s always another word that means nearly the same thing, and if it doesn’t then I’ll consider altering the
meaning of a sentence to keep the rhythm, the syllable beat. I’m completely willing
to let language press meaning upon me. (I-Begley, emphasis added; cf. also I-Franzen 14)
While I want to caution, in the spirit of Morse Peckham, against succumbing to “literary
hagiolatry” and letting DeLillo’s remarks intrude too heavily on our editorial decisions, this is
certainly of interest for the editor puzzling over DeLillo’s substantive alterations and his
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
15
reasons for changing specific words. In some instances, DeLillo might, while revising his
writing, simply have preferred the sound of one word to another.13
His statement suggests, then, the tenuousness of “authorial intention” as a guiding post for
making editorial choices, at least as promulgated by Fredson Bowers and as “the intention that
the work ‘mean (and be taken to me) something or other’” (Tanselle 175). It supports me in my
view that adhering, fundamentally, to the documentary slant of German theory—and
articulating this approach explicitly—is a way for the editor to bypass this problem, as long as
she makes it very clear that the substantives represented in the clear reading text have been
chosen according to the most recent printed edition merely on the grounds of recency and for
reading ease.
I understand that my proposed edition would be striving to serve two masters: representing
a clear reading text while at the same time conscientiously and as transparently as possible
accounting for textual variants. I think attempting this is worthwhile. A successful execution
would, potentially, resolve to some extent the problems of text representation as presented by
the eclectic text and by the genetic/synoptic text (as proposed by Gabler in his edition of
Ulysses, for example).14 Great care would have to be given to smart book design, therefore, and
the editorial team should work closely together with book designers who have a keen
understanding of the editorial challenges presented by the edition I am proposing.15
13 This could very well explain many of the changes made to “Hammer and Sickle” that I have catalogued in the Appendix, for example. 14 The eclectic text obfuscates the text’s “fluidity” (Bryant) in favor of greater readability and, of course, in order to present the work as such, according to assumption about authorial intention. (This point is moot for my proposed edition, however, as discussed.) The genetic/synoptic text, conversely, sacrifices readability for a representation of the text’s fluidity, thereby making it accessible to a highly specialized readership only. 15 I limit myself here to conceiving of a print edition. The text representation in a digital environment presents a different set of challenges, although it is my belief that the problems with representing the text in the manner I propose would be more easily accomplished digitally. This is material for another paper, however.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
16
Include commentary on stories’ relation to novels
The scholarly edition I am proposing would dedicate generous room to commentary on the
stories’ relation to DeLillo’s novel. It would include, for example, a side-by-side presentation of
“The Angel Esmeralda” and the story’s reincarnation in Underworld (237–51, 810–24) as well as
extensive critical commentary on this particular textual relationship.16 The edition would,
similarly, point out the intimate relationship of “Baader-Meinhof” and DeLillo’s 2010 novel
Point Omega, and make other informed decisions about presenting the connections between
the short stories and DeLillo’s larger-scale work. Seeing that the majority of scholarly interest
is in DeLillo’s novels, this would not only be a scholarly conscientious decision but also one
that acknowledges the importance of audience and marketplace.
Include paratextual material
Scholars have variously reminded us of the importance of paratexts and the material
circumstances of publication (e.g., Bornstein, Young, McLaverty 105). John K. Young, for
example, discusses Thomas Pynchon, but I would argue that the following point holds true for
DeLillo as well (DeLillo’s stories clearly participate in the same marketplace of popular media):
“Only by studying these stories within their full textual history [only by giving an account of
their original sites of publication, popular magazines] can we understand Pynchon’s place
within popular media and his responses to the consumer culture through which he developed
his initial authorial image.” Young stresses the “crucial role [of] materialist criticism” (389) for
both textual and literary scholarship.
16 Cf. I-Franzen 21–23 for DeLillo talking about the process of transitioning “The Angel Esmeralda” to Underworld.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
17
The wealth of paratexts accompanying DeLillo’s short stories in their different original
venues of publications is astounding. This includes story-focused taglines, extraneous
advertisement, and images apparently illustrating for the reader the content of the respective
stories. Thus, the New Yorker version of “Baader-Meinhof,” for example, is accompanied by a
reproduction of Gerhard Richter’s painting Confrontation 1. Characters in the story are viewing
this particular painting. The Esquire version of “The Angel Esmeralda” is supplemented by the
tagline “How do you live when the Terror is local? A tale of the South Bronx in a time of
plagues and miracles.” It is also adorned by ornate callout boxes and a full-spread illustration
by Kinuko Craft, which more or less gives away the climax of the story (Fig. 2). This is work that
Fig. 2 “The Angel Esmeralda” in Esquire (1994)
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
18
has been done specifically to accompany the short story in the magazine.17
The Angel Esmeralda itself also includes three pictures on the pages separating the volume’s
three parts. Those pictures were originally produced in a separate context altogether; Scribner
or Graham did not commission them specifically. Part One is preceded by a photo of Earth
taken from space (AE 1). While the obvious relationship is to “Human Moments in World War
III,” which takes place in space and makes direct reference to a character looking wistfully at
the planet (AE 43–44), the image also resonates curiously with the first story’s title, “Creation,”
and may be said to amplify its religious connotations. Part Two shows a presumably Minoan
fresco depicting bull-leaping (AE 45), which explicitly refers to the story “The Ivory Acrobat,”
and Part Three reproduces Gerhard Richter’s painting Dead, from the same cycle of paintings
that “Baader-Meinhof” refers to explicitly.
While it is not too challenging to recognize the most immediate relationships between the
images and the texts, as can be seen in my sketching them above, a more thorough exploration
of them—and the other paratexts—certainly promises to produce critical insights on DeLillo’s
work and contemporary literary culture more generally. Therefore, my proposed critical edition
would make ample room, if it turns out to be impossible to reproduce facsimiles of the stories
as they appeared in magazines, then at least to verbally identify and catalog the visual and
other paratextual elements.
17 The Granta version of “The Starveling” is preceded by a photograph of a New York City street (66); the Harper’s version of “Hammer and Sickle” includes a picture of a highway (63); the Esquire version of “Human Moments in World War III” includes a big illustration depicting several story elements (118–19); the Harper’s version of “The Runner” includes an abstract illustration by David Moyers (63). There are more examples of visuals prominently placed in the stories, but I think my point about their quasi-ubiquitousness has become clear.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
19
Conclusion
My examination of the first edition of Don DeLillo’s short story collection The Angel Esmeralda
sheds light on the fact that we do not have to deal with literary classics or dead authors to
uncover dynamic textual and social relationships. DeLillo, far from being an isolated writer-
figure, worked closely with his editor Nan Graham in preparing The Angel Esmeralda.
Comparing the stories included in the collection to the versions previously published in
magazines was a worthwhile exercise: it revealed a number of variations that are of interest not
only to the textual archaeologist but also to the literary critic. Whether my proposed new
edition of DeLillo’s short stories is the most viable is certainly arguable, but my paper has
shown that a properly critical edition of all his stories is in order, indeed.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
i
Works Cited
Primary Sources
DeLillo, Don. The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories. New York: Scribner, 2011.
Previous publication venues of short stories collected in The Angel Esmeralda
Each entry is followed by a notation in parentheses indicating the page range of the respective story as printed in the Scribner
edition of The Angel Esmeralda.
DeLillo, Don. “The Angel Esmeralda.” Esquire, May 1994, 100–09. (AE 73–102.)
–––. “Baader-Meinhof.” New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2002, 78–82. (AE 105–18.)
–––. “Creation.” Antaeus 33 (1979): 32–46. (AE 3–23.)
–––. “Hammer and Sickle.” Harper’s, Dec. 2010, 63–74 .(AE 147–81.)
–––. “Human Moments in World War III.” American Gothic Tales, ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New
York: Plume, 1996. 325–38. (AE 25–44.)
–––. “The Ivory Acrobat.” Granta 25 (1988): 200–12. (AE 55–72.)
–––. “Midnight in Dostoevsky.” New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2009, 68–77. (AE 119–45.)
–––. “The Runner.” Harper’s, Sept. 1988, 61–63. (AE 47–54.)
–––. “The Starveling.” Granta 117 (2011): 66–90. (AE 183–211.)
Novels
DeLillo, Don. Point Omega: A Novel. New York: Scribner, 2010.
–––. Underworld. New York: Scribner, 1997.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
ii
Interviews
DeLillo, Don. Interview by Adam Begley. Paris Review 128 (1993). Rpt. in Paris Review, n.d. The
Paris Review Foundation. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1887/
the-art-of-fiction-no-135-don-delillo>.
–––. Interview by Jonathan Franzen. New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman
Building, 24 Oct. 2012. New York Public Library, n.d. New York Public Library. 8 Dec.
2014. <http://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/livedelillofranzen_10.24transcript_0.doc>.
–––. Interview by Larry Dark. Story Prize Awards 2012, The New School, New York, 21 March
2012. YouTube, 28 March 2012. Google. 8 Dec. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=5TjVFCkZ4tg>.
Speech
DeLillo, Don. Annual Benefit and Awards Dinner. The Center for Fiction, University Club, New
York, 11 Dec. 2011. YouTube, 14 Dec. 2011. Google. 8 Dec. 2014.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRA8TYqiobU>.
Secondary Sources
Alter, Alexandra. “What Don DeLillo's Books Tell Him.” Wall Street Journal, 30 Jan. 2010. Dow
Jones and Company. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://www.wsj.com/articles/
SB10001424052748704094304575029673526948334>.
Bornstein, George. “Textual Scholarship and Diversity: Which Needs Affirmative Action More?”
Textual Cultures 3.1 (2008): 65–76.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
iii
Bowers, Fredson. “Some Principles for Scholarly Editions of Nineteenth-Century American
Authors.” Studies in Bibliography 17 (1964): 223–28.
Bryant, John. The Fluid Text: A Theory of Revision and Editing for Book and Screen. Ann Arbor: U
of Michigan P, 2002.
Cramer, Jeffrey S., ed. Henry David Thoreau. Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition. New Haven:
Yale UP, 2004.
Gaskell, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography. New York: Oxford UP, 1972. Rpt. New
Castle: Oak Knoll, 1995.
Greg, W. W. “The Rationale of Copy-Text.” Studies in Bibliography 3 (1950/1951): 19–36.
Harry Ransom Center. “Don DeLillo: A Preliminary Inventory of His Papers at the Harry
Ransom Center.” Harry Ransom Center, n.d. The University of Texas at Austin. 8 Dec.
2014. <http://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00313>.
Hidalgo, Emilse B. “The Iconic and the Symbolic: The Consumer Society in Don DeLillo’s White
Noise and Andy Warhol’s Serigraphies.” Invenio 12 (2004): 19–38.
Konigsberg, Eric. “The Next Hot Book.” New York Magazine 10 Feb. 1997. 24–33.
May, Thom. “Local and Spectral Violence in Don DeLillo’s Underworld.” Dandelion 5.1 (2014). 8
Dec. 2014 <http://www.dandelionjournal.org/index.php/dandelion/article/view/170>.
McCormick, Casey J. “Toward a Postsecular ‘Fellowship of Deep Belief’: Sister Edgar's Techno-
spiritual Quest in Don DeLillo's Underworld.” Critique 54.1 (2013): 96–107.
McGann, Jerome J. A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
iv
McLaverty, James. “The Mode of Existence of Literary Works of Art: The Case of the ‘Dunciad
Variorum.’” Studies in Bibliography 37 (1984): 82–105.
Passaro, Vince. “Dangerous Don DeLillo.” Conversations with Don DeLillo, ed. Thomas
DePietro. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2005. 75–85.
Peckham, Morse. “Reflections on the Foundations of Modern Textual Editing.” Proof 1 (1971):
122–55.
Sarmento, Clara. “The Angel in a Country of Last Things. DeLillo, Auster and the Post-human
Landscape.” Arcadia 41.1 (2006): 147–59.
Scribner. “Meet the Scribner Team.” Scribner, n.d. Simon and Schuster. 8 Dec. 2014.
<http://imprints.simonandschuster.biz/scribner/meettheteam>.
Tanselle, G. Thomas. “The Editorial Problem of Final Authorial Intention.” Studies in
Bibliography 29 (1976): 167–211.
Young, John K. “Pynchon in Popular Magazines.” Crititique 44.4 (2003): 389–404.
Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
v
Appendix
Substantive changes in “Hammer and Sickle”
Harper’s (2010) AE (2011) the scale of his crimes (64) the arc of his crimes (148) the thing with weight and shape? (64) the thing with weight and heft? (149) distanced from one another (64) distanced from each other (150) The Japanese man took on distinct features, a certain configuration, (64)
The Japanese man took on facial features, a certain size and shape, (152)
demands of others and mostly disentangled (65)
demands of others but mostly disentangled (153)
developing in the United Arab Emirates (65) developing in the Arab Emirates (153) The DAX in Germany. (65) The DAX index in Germany. (153) I’m thirty-eight years old, (65) I’m thirty-nine years old, (155) referees on the sidelines sharing a cigarette. (66)
linesmen sharing a cigarette. (158)
into the region (68) into the Gulf (161) But we needed this no less than we did the devices (68)
But we needed this no less than the devices (162)
At least their mother had assigned the vulgar line to the older girl. (69)
At least their mother had assigned the vulgar line to the older girl. Was the daily market report becoming a performance piece? (164)
wheedling half-assed infractions. (69) wheedling half-assed felonies. (165) conveying credit to the man (69) conveying simple credit to the man (165) news in high rumble (71) news in high clamor (171) Laurie says softly (72) Laurie said softly (174) Kate says briskly (72) Kate said briskly (174) a long way from the funny terminology (73) a long way from the funny place-names (175) The men yelled and clamored, releasing themselves, these flabby white-collar felons, giving themselves up to some powerful impulse. (73)
The men yelled and clamored, these flabby white-collar felons, seeming to reject everything they’d believed all their lives. (175)
a familiar look creep into her eyes (73) a familiar look slide into her eyes (176) People, a few at first, (73) People, a few at a time, (177)