On a Scale of 1 to Lish*

I’ve been nosing around of late in The Afterlife, a collection of Penelope Fitzgerald’s essays and criticism.

First, she wanted to call a novel The Unobservables, “but the publishers, or rather their sales department, rejected this immediately as lacking not only in sex but also in human appeal of any kind.”

Then she tried Mistakes Made by Scientists, which she “liked almost as much.” But she was told “that it wouldn’t fit on the jacket and didn’t sound like a novel.”

Finally, the novel came out in 1990, called The Gate of Angels.

Hmm.

*Thanks to Hilary Plum for the phrase, inspired by the awesome displays of Lish’s editorial interventions covered in the New Yorker late last year.