32
PARTISAN REVIEW
The first secret is the rest period in the drawer, and I believe it
has a general value . Between the first draft and the final one a few
days must pass; for reasons which I do not know, for a certain period
of time the eye of the writer is not very sensitive to the recent text. It
is necessary, so to speak, for the ink to dry well; before that, the
flaws elude you: repetitions, logical gaps , improprieties, grating, off–
key notes.
An excellent surrogate for the rest period can be a guinea-pig
reader endowed with common sense and good taste, not too in–
dulgent : one's spouse, a friend. Not another writer: a writer is not a
typical reader, he has preferences and peculiar fixations; faced by an
inept text he is disdainful, faced by a beautiful text he is envious. I
am contravening this rest period concept at this very moment,
because as soon as I have written this letter I shall mail it; so you will
be able to verify its validity .
After the ripening period, which assimilates a piece of writing
to wine, perfumes and medlars, there comes the time to decant,
refine. One almost always realizes that one has sinned by excess,
that the text is redundant, repetitive, prolix: or at least, I repeat,
that's what happens to me. Incorrigibly, in the first draft I address
myself to an obtuse reader, who has to have the concepts hammered
into his head. After the thinning down, the writing is more agile: it
approaches what, more or less consciously, is my goal, that of max–
imum information with minimum clutter.
Take note that one can attain the maximum of information by
various paths, some quite subtle; one, fundamental, is the choice of
synonyms which almost never are equivalent to each other. There is
always one which is "more right" than the others: but often it is
necessary to look for it, depending on the context, in the old Tom–
maseo, or among the neologisms of the new Zingarelli, or among the
barbarisms stupidly prohibited by the traditionalists, even among
the terms of other languages; if there is no Italian term, why go in for
contortions?
In this research, it seems to me important to keep alive the
awareness of the original meaning of each word ; if, for example, you
remember that "to unleash" meant to free from leashes (bonds), you
will be able to use the term in a more appropriate manner and in less
threadbare senses. Not all readers will notice the artifice, but they
will at least perceive that the choice wasn't obvious, that you have
worked for them, that you have not followed the line of least
resistance.
