Okay, so maybe we're going a bit overboard, but a New Yorker correction is a rare bird. Rarer still is a New Yorker Editor's Note. This one appeared on page 16 of the Dec. 26, 2005 & Jan. 2, 2006 issue:
EDITORS' NOTE: The New Yorker's review of “The City of Falling Angels,” by John Berendt (Penguin Press), in the issue of October 3, 2005, incorrectly referred to the “seduction and swindling of Olga Rudge, Ezra Pound’s mistress, by the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.” This statement was inaccurate, and The New Yorker regrets the error.
This Editor's Note is unsatisfactory. Here's why:
- It took the magazine almost three months to publish this Note. As a result, the New Yorker should explain the reason for the delay. That's standard correction procedure. (For the record, our delay in writing about this is a result of getting very far behind in reading our emails. We apologize to the two readers who sent this in and had to wait to see it go up.)
- The magazine should have offered more details about the nature of the inaccuracy. Was the book's detailing of this alleged incident incorrect? Or did the magazine misstate the account in the book?
