According to this weekend's issue of Information, a number of historiographic passages in Åsne Seierstad's Angel of Grozny: Inside Chechnya were removed in the editing process. It is Seierstad herself who reports this during a debate meeting in Copenhagen last week, and she argues that such passages tend to lessen the emotional impact of the narrative.
This is not a controversial statement in itself, but apparently her opponent in the debate asks about a specific part of history which he finds highly relevant to the story and yet missing from her book.
It was covered in the original manuscript, says Seierstad and refers to her editor who read that particular passage and then stated that "facts are a dead horse".
Now this is a controversial statement in itself. The phrase is an expression of resignation which completely outmatches the journalistic notion of BBIs, boring but important passages or entire boring but important stories, by saying either
BNI, boring so nevermind the importance, or worse:
IBDH, important - but dead horse.
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2 comments:
Tragic. Also because I think Seierstad ought to be more inventive than that. It is possible to add historic facts without disturbing "emotional impact" - f.ex. in foodnote or similar. Maybe there is another reason why the passage wasn't included?
You're right. As opposed to the notion of a dead horse in your text which is just waiting to be done away with, BBIs are at least considered a challenge in terms of creative invention.
I should even hope that there has been other reasons, perhaps more political ones, on Seierstad's part for leaving the historical passages out, but her public framing of the issue seems to indicate that form - gripping form - has actually been all-important. Her intention was to catch people's attention on a general level and nevermind informing us on a very accurate level.
That form has been given absolute priority is also reflected in the fact that fact checking has apparently been left to assistant experts. Fact checking as such is fine, of course, but still - I don't like her way of promoting this division of labour and implying that other folks handled the content while she took care of the catchy form.
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