Write Cut Rewrite - Bodleian Libraries - Review

En route to visit relatives for Christmas, I found myself back in Oxford with a decent slice of time to kill. What better use of it than visit some temporary exhibitions. The next three reviews were visited in relatively quick succession on the 19th of December 2024. 

Image via The Bodleian

Write Cut Rewrite could be found in Weston Library's treasury room, across the street from the Radcliffe Camera, all the way towards the back right of the spacious entrance hall. It was on display between February 2024 and January 2025 - having been curated by D. van Hulle and M. Nixon. Their accompanying book sits conspicuously above a bookshelf, visible as you enter. 

The treasury is a rather small, single room exhibition space, and - this time - it is home to four central square cabinets. The walls are separated into thematic displays. The final element is the aforementioned bookshelf, containing published copies of the works under consideration in the exhibition. I wonder if anyone is spending any time with the available books? I wasn't.

The central theme of the exhibition is simple. Writers edit. Their edits can give us insight into their creative process. It isn't a groundbreaking idea - yet the wealth of texts and drafts available to the Bodleian make this exhibition worthwhile. In their own words, we get to see "an intimate glimpse over the solder of your favourite author". 

As to who our favourite author is? The works included paint quite the traditional picture, albeit widened to include more modern works less traditionally considered Classics. A banner above the wall lists out names of authors included in the exhibition. Interestingly, both Mary and Percy Shelley are grouped together. This is later justified as both are used to explore collaboration in each other's works. 

The themes of the displays are rather simple: doodles in the margins, ripped out pages, physical acts of cutting and pasting, multiple drafts of crucial first lines. Yet, while the purpose of these displays is a tad basic, the objects included in them become far more fascinating than the reason for their inclusion. 

I clocked off engaging with the exhibition as it was presented to me, and instead found myself marvelling - well, nerding out really - over the texts and manuscripts. As Baudrillard suggests, my fascination with the objects was because you could confirm their authenticity in the makers marks that they bore. Every scratched-out line, every torn-out page, this was physical evidence of actions taken by some of my 'favourite authors'. In this sense, the exhibition wildly succeeds. I did, genuinely, feel as if I was given a privileged view into the actions and mindsets of the displayed writers, as seen through their process of edits and re-edits. 

To take an example, we see an early manuscript for Kafka's Das Schloss (The Castle) in which every instance of 'ich' is crossed out and replaced with K. A major shift in perspective demonstrated through his actual penmanship. Penmanship that was borderline illegible, I have to comment. He did not have the best handwriting...

Another fun object is a list of similes created by Raymond Chandler. He would cross out ones he had used, noting which book they had appeared in, as to not re-use descriptive text. That's the thing, though. Irrespective of the theme of the case or cabinet, I was purely using this exhibition to look at interesting things. I mean, they had the first draft of P. Shelley's Ozymandias. How can you not find that at least a bit fun.   

P. Shelley's Ozymandias, image via The Bodleian 

Oddly, one of the most prevalent texts was la Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. No complaints here, I have an unhealthy obsession with Vinterberg's film adaptation. Drafts were used to explore re-writing first lines of re-describing characters. However, in a particularly poor move, one text panel actively names who 'the mole' is, thus spoiling the entire book. This isn't the only instance of odd curatorial practices. Later on an object label contains exactly the same text as a much larger interpretive text banner, directly above it. A direct copy and paste. Perhaps here there is a clever comment to be made about the evidence of editing and production not only in the exhibition themes, but in the exhibitory text, but, ultimately, this is just lazy.   

Overall, I enjoyed the objects, but wasn't fully convinced by the exhibition in the form it was presented. It felt as if the curators had found some genuinely fascinating and fun objects within the Bodleian's collections and then built the exhibition around them as an excuse to exhibit them. Granted, some interesting aspects of editing were brought to light: self-censorship, paratextual influence of editors, the potency of titles. Perhaps the companion text goes into more detail, detail I felt lacking in the gallery. Ultimately, Write Cut Rewrite is a collection of very fun manuscripts and objects, grouped together by a rather surface level theme.