(6 of 7)
Di Capua's acquisition technique was quite different from Coleman's go-go methods. In 1975, the Farrar, Straus editor read Agee's article-length account of his East German childhood in The New Yorker. Recalls Di Capua: "I thought, 'I've got to do something about this.' I tore it out and put it in a pile of things to do. But all editors are overworked and I never got to it."
Agent Claire Smith of the Harold Ober agency rekindled Di Capua's interest about a year later. He received a fast O.K. from his editorial board and a $5,000 advance for his new author. Says the editor: "We don't write memos. Who has time? Basically we say to each other, 'I've got this and I think it's great,' or 'I've got this thing by a big name but I think it's awful, and I'm going to turn it down unless someone objects.' "
Agee went off to write at his own pace.
When the manuscript arrived last summer, the editor began his real work. He and Agee sat down and went over every paragraph. Explains Di Capua: "My method is to read a book over and over again at every stage until there is nothing that bothers me and I can read it through without stopping." For Agee, the experience marked that point where the craft of editing becomes an art: "Di Capua felt himself into my intentions. At no point did I have the feeling that he was imposing himself into the work."
Examples like these are heartening, but there are still too many books that prompt people like Di Capua to wonder what ever happened to good writing. Literacy continues in its parlous state. Standards decline as the difference between the formalities of written language and the informalities of the spoken word blur. Schools neglect the rigors of grammar, and the last generation that can parse a sentence is dying off.
The world is full of tempting distractions: travel, entertainments, sports, the pervasive din of popular music. People read less decent prose and watch and listen to more TV. When Howard Cosell says commentation for comment, he is heard by millions of Americans who may not know the difference. The word could become a neologism, like profitability and futurability, and seep into the language. The fight against the misuse of "hopefully" (for "I hope") is just about lost, and even otherwise literate people keep speaking of the "media" in the singular.
Linguists may argue that English has grown in just this way. Purists grumble about pollution of the mother tongue. The dispute has raged ever since Shakespeare's pedant Holofernes railed against the "rackers of orthography" in Love's Labour's Lost. Dr. Johnson's and Mr. Webster's dictionaries have spurred sharp debate. But the disputants have usually known their grammar; they were aware of the necessity for rules. Proper usage matters because writing is thought and clear writing is essential for clear thinking.