Monday, June 14, 2010

Risqué literature: driving the point home

I recently commented on the history blog about the travails of "The Mount," the estate dedicated to the commemoration of Edith Wharton's home, life, and works.  There, I cited a rather disingenuous interview given by current Executive Director Susan Wissler concerning the organization's disastrous earlier financial and management decisions. However, she also spoke about the organization's future.

Unfortunately, what caught my eye was this equally disastrous typo by the interviewer.  The conversation turned to new cultural programs:
[SW] Last summer we brought a Wharton play back to the drawing room with Xingu It was adapted from a short story of Wharton's by Dennis Krausnick (The husband of Shakespeare & Company founder, Tina Packer). This summer we will also present one of Dennis's adaptations Summer. She called it her "Hot Ethan." It is a story of a young woman's sexual awakening and takes place in the Berkshires.

CG [=interviewer] It sounds steamy.

SW It has a few steamy passages. It is too risqué to be read in school which is why students ream Ethan Frome. It entails such hot issues as teenage pregnancy and abortion. [emphasis added]

CG That sounds like a lively production . . .

1) Ouch.

2) And:  Indeed—though not too risqué for Amherst, I'd wager.