Aharon Appelfeld: Editor’s Cut

Abstract

I.IN FEBRUARY 1982, I submitted my doctoral dissertation in Hebrew literature department at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. topic was The Developmental Structure in Aharon Appelfeld's Early Prose. When my advisors returned my thesis to me, I sent it, with fear and trepidation, to Aharon Appelfeld, whom I had never met.Appelfeld read dissertation and invited me to discuss it in his home in Mevaseret Zion, and since then he has become an inseparable part of my life. In fact, I know much more about Appelfeld, in certain respects, than I know about my father and mother, who are natives of Hungary and, like him, are Holocaust survivors. My mother came to Israel after surviving one of death marches from Auschwitz to Germany at age fourteen. My father, who was about seventeen, was among fortunate passengers on Kasztner transport who made it to Switzerland, after a short spell at Bergen-Belsen. Thanks to Appelfeld, I now know more about my mother and father-about cultural space from which they came, their childhood and youth, their dreams and nightmares, their loves and disappointments, and their complex encounter with State of Israel. Moreover, thanks to Appelfeld I know a lot more about what he terms the Jewish people's hundred years of solitude in modernity, as well as about Western culture, its positive and negative manifestations, and human nature.In 1986 Appelfeld moved from Hakibbutz Hameuchad publishing house to Keter Books, where I was, since previous year, editor of Hebrew prose. In 1988, I edited a manuscript of his for first time: novella Floor of Fire. Since then, I have edited seventeen other manuscripts of Appelfeld's. First at Keter, then at Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, which I joined in 2008-and to my great delight, Appelfeld followed suit. most recent of his manuscripts that I've had privilege to edit is To Edge of Sorrow, which was published on February 29, 2012.II.Author-editor relations usually unfold away from limelight. What transpires in room is usually akin to psychologist's office, in that both entail a relationship whose effectiveness depends, according to convention, on an unwritten agreement. breach of author-editor relationships therefore involves a particular kind of sensitivity. This is because in editing space, unlike in psychologist's office, it is not at all clear who is professional authority, since author does not concede that editor is a greater master in art of writing even if s/he accepts editor's comments (some, most, or all of them). In candid moments, many authors have testified that admitting their text has been treated by another person is akin to hanging their soiled undergarments in open, and, worse, as diluting what they cherish most: their voice.No wonder, then, that one modest shelf can accommodate all of world's writings on author-editor relationships. And yet, despite scarcity of works on this subject-such as relationship of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, Thomas Wolfe and Maxwell Perkins, Raymond Carver and Gordon Jay Lish, and fragmentary information on Yosef Hayim Brenner's relations with authors he edited (Reuveni and Burla among others); or today, relationship Menachem Perry had with A. B. Yehoshua versus with David Grossman-it is obvious that this is fraught psychocultural territory, intelligent exploration of which may shed light on some of mysteries of artistic creativity.In this modest essay I wish to break confidentiality agreement between myself and Aharon Appelfeld. I would like to expose (with his permission, of course), a little of what takes place behind scenes of editorial process; to point out a few milestones on road upon which his manuscripts travel before becoming books.First is scene in which he delivers a new manuscript to me. …