In a recent AP article titled SPIN METER: ‘War and Peace’ in 209 Pages by Calvin Woodward and Douglass K. Daniel, the authors purport to correct the ‘theatrical legislation inflation’ put forward by GOP members of Congress regarding the length of the health care reform bill.But while masquerading their opinion piece as analysis, Woodward and Daniel took some creative license of their own:
The actual Senate bill, which Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced last week, came in at 2,074 double-spaced pages, 84 more pages than the House version, which was already being ridiculed for its size.Though the critique seems snarky, and hard-hitting, it simply isn’t true.
"That's larger than the novel 'War and Peace,'" Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said of the Senate bill.
"Exceeding even 'War and Peace' in length," Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said of the House bill.
Said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas: "'War and Peace' — some people consider it the greatest book ever written, but most people recognize the novel because at 1,284 pages its length is often the butt of jokes. Now imagine trying to read something that long overnight."
Actually, Leo Tolstoy's tome is longer than either bill. Full translated versions are nearly twice as long.
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The definitive English translation of War and Peace released by Pevear & Volokhonsky in 2007 is exactly 1,215 pages – or a pithy 1,273 pages if one reads all of the footnotes.
Unless Messrs. Woodward and Daniel are reading the original Russian, the length of the bill well exceeds that of Tolstoy’s masterpiece.
Thus, for most Americans who read and speak English, the GOP critique is apt.
Disclosure: While yours truly is no scholar of Russian literature, I am a bit of an expert on the length of War and Peace. The novel is the only book that I have started in earnest yet failed to finish – a failure thrice over, no less.
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4 comments:
You realize that the point is not War and Peace? The point is that there is 2,000 some-odd pages. That doesn´t seem even a little bit fishy to you? You don´t think the Obama administration might have slipped in a couple extra clauses? They have quite a bit of space to do it in. Or do you really beleive it is only 2,000 pages of really long winded boy-scout honesty?
Hello Anon-
Well, the point of the piece I cited was about War and Peace.
If you read the original AP article I cited, you will see that it was written by a couple of reporters who were making hay about the length of the Senate Finance Committee Bill, saying that GOP criticisms of its length were really just 'theatrics,' and that the bill was NOT as long as the novel War and Peace.
The point of my post was simply to say that actually the Senate bill IS longer than the preeminent English translation of the work, thereby implying that the GOP critique was appropriate.
If you want to take issue with the substance of the bill, or question whether it was 'fishy,' understand that I'm sympathetic, but I have addressed this elsewhere.
The purpose of this piece was merely to fact check the AP and set the record straight, noting that, actually, the Senate Bill is longer than the English translation of War and Peace.
Have you looked at the spacing on the bill?
The reason it's 1000+ pages is that the font is big, it's double-spaced, and the margins take up more than half of each line. (Go here and get past the introductory stuff: http://docs.house.gov/edlabor/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf)
When you count the number of *words*, which is what the AP story goes on to do, the bill is significantly shorter than War and Peace.
You can adjust the fonts and margins of any document to manipulate the length. That's the point of being able to adjust the fonts and margins. But the fact remains, the full text of the bill in it's conventional printing, indeed, was longer than War and Peace. Thus, the critique was factually accurate.
Even assuming your point about word count was valid, are you really arguing that 319,145 words is a short bill?
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