Cut!

The New York Times polled Christopher Buckley, Jonathan Franzen, Stephen King, Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, Ann Patchett, and Neal Pollack on a burning question: what authors ought to be abridged? I must say that the NYT chose a weird assortment of authors to poll, and the authors' responses are equally weird--so weird that one suspects (or, at least, one hopes) that the interviewer's leg is being pulled right out of the hip socket.  Granted, those who are not fans of Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard will probably sympathize with Buckley, and others will be happy that Franzen leaves literature intact.  Then again, Stephen King will probably have rampaging Victorianists and Modernists on his doorstep.  And how on earth could one possibly abridge Hemingway and Austen?  (Please, JCO, say it isn't so!)