The Status Civilization

"You are a verbalizer, Citizen Honners?" "I am, sir. Though perhaps 'author' would be a better word, if you don't mind." "Of course. Citizen Honners, are you presently engaged in writing for any of the periodicals I see on the dissemination stands?" "Certainly not! These are written by incompetent hacks for the dubious delectation of the lower middle class. The stories, in case you didn't know, are taken line by line from the works of various popular writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The people who do the work merely substitute adjectives and adverbs. Occasionally, I'm told, a more daring hack will substitute a verb, or even a noun. But that is rare. The editors of such periodicals frown upon sweeping innovations." "And you are not engaged in such work?" "Absolutely not! My work is noncommercial. I am a Creative Conrad Specialist." "Would you mind telling me what that means, Citizen Honners?" "I'd be happy to. My own particular field of endeavor lies in re-creating the works of Joseph Conrad, an author who lived in the pre-atomic era." "How do you go about re-creating those works, sir?" "Well, at present I am engaged in my fifth re-creation of Lord Jim. To do it, I steep myself as thoroughly as possible in the original work. Then I set about rewriting it as Conrad would have written it if he had lived today. It is a labor which calls for extreme diligence, and for the utmost in artistic integrity. A single slip could mar the re-creation. As you can see, it calls for a preliminary mastery of Conrad's vocabulary, themes, plots, characters, mood, approach, and so on. All this goes in, and yet the book cannot be a slavish repeat. It must have something new to say, just as Conrad would have said it."