Sewing and Tailoring

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Joan Didion uses a sewing analogy to describe how she had to insert a substantial new section into her draft of A Book of Common Prayer:

Finally, when I got within twenty pages of the end, I realized that I still hadn’t delivered this revolution. I had a lot of threads, and I’d overlooked this one. So then I had to go back and lay in the preparation for the revolution. Putting in that revolution was like setting in a sleeve. Do you know what I mean? Do you sew? I mean I had to work that revolution in on the bias, had to ease out the wrinkles with my fingers. (1978, p. 155)

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Didion’s description of “setting in” her revolution is unlike the other figures we have seen: It suggests not a unitary text, but one that can be divided into elements or components, into which major sections can be inserted even as the text nears completion. Overlooking the ends of an important “thread” merely resulted in an awkward, though manageable construction problem. The materials were not at fault. And solving a problem of sewing certainly requires craft, skill, but not necessarily the artistry of a painter or sculptor.

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Lawrence Durrell also uses an analogy to sewing when he describes his revising. At one point he says: “The construction gave me some trouble, and I let in a hemstitch here, a gusset there” (1963, p. 267). A “hemstitch” is an ornamental stitch that involves pulling out a number of parallel threads, then stitching groups of the cross-threads together. A “gusset” appears to imply a more direct way to solve a “construction” problem, since it consists of a small, triangular piece of material that is inserted in an item of clothing to reinforce it or make a better fit. Durrell represents his revising as essentially strengthening and ensuring the fit of a consciously constructed artifact. I assume that Durrell would describe such revision as “tailoring” (a term also used by Audre Lorde, 1983), since in the same interview he uses the term “retailor” to indicate a kind of revising that he finds himself unable to do: He says, “I know it’s a wrong attitude, because some people can, with patience, resurrect and retailor things. But I can’t” (1963, p. 271). Metaphorical stories referring to sewing and tailoring place the writer in a practical situation, trying to put together and adjust a simple, serviceable garment, not make valuable metal or unique artwork. They represent revision as a matter of technical skill and cleverness.