I’m a little slow getting around to this story (”Editing of Frost Notebooks in Dispute,” by Motoko Rich, New York Times), but I can’t resist it: last January, Harvard University Press published The Notebooks of Robert Frost, by Robert Faggen (not to be confused with Mr. Dickens’ Mr. Fagin). The hefty tome, which provided transcriptions of 47 notebooks and various loose pages, was widely praised by Frostians (Frovians? Frosties?).

Last October, however, the excellently named James Sitar, in an essay in Essays and Criticism (where else, really?), declared that, ahem, Mr. Faggen couldn’t read Mr. Frost’s writing.

(Last January? October? I’m not that late compared to the Times.)

Mr. Faggen defended himself.

In a forthcoming review to be published in March in Parnassus: Poetry in Review, an American poetry journal, Mr. Logan writes: "Obliged though readers must be for this unknown Frost, the transcription is a scandal. To read this volume is to believe that Frost was a dyslexic and deranged speller, that his brisk notes frequently made no sense, that he often traded the expected word for some fanciful or perverse alternative."

But Mr. Faggen suggests that Frost, who died in 1963, did often employ "odd spellings" in the notebooks. He disputed one reading by Mr. Logan in which he accused Mr. Faggen of failing to make note of a biblical reference when he had done so. In Mr. Faggen’s version a phrase from the notebooks is rendered as "Sog Magog Mempleremagog," and is footnoted for its source in the Book of Ezekiel. Mr. Logan regards the phrase as a misreading because "Gog and Magog" are the actual Biblical names and because there is a real lake between Vermont and Quebec that is spelled Memphremagog. Mr. Faggen argues that Frost changed the "G" in "Gog" to an "S" as a jest about the lake and says the misspelled lake’s name is what Frost wrote.

Jay Parini provides, alliteratively enough, perspective.

Jay Parini, a Frost scholar and professor at Middlebury College, also described the difficulty of reading Frost’s "chicken scrawlish" handwriting. But he added that niggling over the exact wording in notebooks Frost never intended for public consumption did not seem as important as, say, settling punctuation disputes about the published poems. The notebooks, Mr. Parini said, are "fun to read, but it doesn’t fundamentally alter anything about Robert Frost."

If there’s anyone who questions the enthusiasm of librarians for their line of work–and it sure ain’t me–show them this. Could writers and readers have any better friends? (Further reading.)

Hello, New York Times. Nice to have you with us.

“Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular,” by Norimitsu Onishi (January 20, 2008)

“Cell Phones’ Latest Plot Twist,” by Stevenson Swanson (Chicago Tribune, November 12, 2007)

“Ring! Ring! Ring! In Japan, Novelists Find a New Medium,” by Yukari Iwatani Kane (Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2007)

Also in the Guardian’s theblogbooks, Kathryn Hughes considers Dmitri Nabokov’s dilemma:

However, there’s something about the way in which Vladimir Nabokov and his son Dimitri have conducted themselves over this business that makes me think that none of these normal considerations apply. Nabokov père was the most extraordinary trickster, playing games not just with language but with readerly expectation and desire. How typical of him then to leave behind this little mystery, designed to get the whole of the literary establishment in a tizz.

Common sense suggests that, if he had really wanted The Original of Laura not to be seen, he would have taken care to have it destroyed before his death (the logistics might be tricky, but surely once he started feeling really queasy he could have put in a call to Switzerland and asked the bank to burn the 50 index cards on which his novel was jotted?) The fact that Nabokov allowed Laura to live on in any form suggests to me that, at some level, he wanted it read.

And then there’s the peculiar attitude of Nabokov’s son Dimitri. For the past 30 years apparently he’s been dropping tantalising hints about the quality of ‘Laura while sounding like he was only five minutes away from taking a match to it. If you ask me, it sounds like he loves the attention.

Her conclusion? An author’s wishes should be respected–unless the author is Vladimir Nabokov. She thinks the whole thing is a “practical joke from beyond the grave.”

Why not let the joke go on into eternity? Burn it!

In the Guardian’s theblogbooks, Jean Hannah Edelstein attacks “sizeism” in fiction and suggests that novellas might be the perfect antidote to the reading public’s (supposedly) declining attention span:

And then I had an epiphany: could it be that we should look to classics like Ethan Frome to find the key to saving fiction from the worrisome tides of publishing sturm and drang, the statistics that indicate that people distracted by the trillions of choices provided by digital media are giving up on fiction? Might the way to stop our atrophied attention spans becoming terminally distracted be to simply publish more short books?

I’m in favor of shorter books in the same way that I’m in favor of 100-minute movies and 3-minute pop songs–works of art are usually made better by some judicious cutting. But I suspect that novellas have never caught on for the same reason short stories are dying out: because so many people view reading as being more like homework than a hobby, if they are going to read, they want to feel as though they’ve “accomplished something.”

Oprah just announced her new pick–perhaps a pick-me-up for any lingering hangovers from reading The Road?

Best-selling author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle has been inspiring readers since his first book, The Power of Now. In A New Earth, Eckhart provides practical teachings for waking up to a new, enlightened mind-set. If you’re seeking a more loving self and a more loving planet, this is the book for you.

The Australian reports more recent developments in the Ishmael Beah (Long Way Gone, 2006) controversy.

“US critics ‘wanted to believe’ child soldier’s tale,” by David Nason:

THE US literary establishment gave former Sierra Leone child soldier Ishmael Beah a “free pass” on the accuracy of his international bestselling memoir A Long Way Gone because it wanted to believe his story was true, according to a US author and book critic.

“Deadly fight Beah describes ‘didn’t happen’,” by Peter Wilson:

RELIEF workers from Sierra Leone and international agencies have cast further doubt on best-selling author Ishmael Beah’s account ofhis time as a child soldier, saying they can find no evidence ofadeadly fight that he claims took place in a rehabilitation camp in 1996.

Those who’ve been following this story on other blogs (this was a link in previous comments) know that Dan Chaon has said that he was “radically misquoted.” Shelley Gare of the The Australian writes that colleague David Nason has sent a transcript of his interview with Chaon to Chaon and asked him to explain how he was misquoted. It will be interesting to see if they publish their transcript–especially interesting if they include the audio.

Well, I’m with the reviewers who wanted the story to be true, because the child-soldier tragedy certainly doesn’t need this kind of negative publicity. But since book reviewers don’t necessarily have the time or training to do fact-checking, I think of reporters as part of a useful system of checks and balances. A sad story in all ways, but it’s worth knowing what really happened.

So Internet use is allegedly dominating people’s time and causing them read fewer books. But an awful lot of people are using the Internet to buy books. (Although U.S. online shoppers don’t crack the top 10.) From BBC News (”Books ‘most popular online buy’“).

More books are sold on the internet than any other product and the number is increasing, research suggests.

Polling company Nielsen Online surveyed 26,312 people in 48 countries. 41% of internet users had bought books online, it said.

This compares with two years ago when 34% of internet users had done so.

Is the act of reading endangered or thriving? Experts will continue to disagree.

From the Guardian (”‘Plot to kill’ Nobel laureate,” by Richard Lea):

Thirteen people have been arrested in Turkey as part of an investigation into an ultra-nationalist gang reported to be planning the assassination of Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.

According to reports in the Turkish press, the author of international bestsellers including My Name is Red was targeted as part of a campaign to sow chaos in preparation for a military coup, scheduled for 2009.

Not to make light of a terrible situation, but I wonder if Pamuk (Other Colors, 2007) and Salman Rushdie (Shalimar the Clown, 2005) should form a support group.

OK, I guess that does make light of the situation, but it’s only possible because–thankfully–they’re both still with us.

Simon Dumenco wittily dismisses Steve Jobs’ dis of the reading public (”The Written Word? It’s So Totally Over, According to Mr. IPod,” Advertising Age)–but that still doesn’t change the fact that, riding the bus last Friday, I was sandwiched between two guys watching TV on their iPods.

As for Jobs’ stat, it seems he extrapolated it from an old National Endowment for the Arts study, which found that in 2002, just 57% of American adults reported reading a book. Then again, according to an Associated Press-Ipson poll released last August, 27% of American adults read no books last year — ergo, nearly three-quarters did. In fact, the poll revealed that the “typical American adult” read four books last year.

“Who are these ‘people’ to whom Steve Jobs is referring?” Publishers Weekly Editor in Chief Sara Nelson asked me last week. “Not the million-ish who are devouring Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ or the ones who line up for Harry Potter and/or James Patterson novels.” She added: “All I can say is that when I sat in restaurants and airports or on buses or trains and pulled out my Kindle, I got more attention than if I’d shown up naked — with an adorable puppy.”

At this point you should type “Sara Nelson naked with an adorable puppy” into Google Image Search.

To save yourself the typing time, click here.