Turning Every Page

After being enthralled by “The Fountainhead” in high school (ahh, the follies and foolishness of youth), I felt a strong draw to become an architect. Though I became a lawyer instead because I realized I didn’t have the necessary talent for architecture, I never lost my love for that discipline. So while I haven’t created new edifices, structures, or modes of transportation, transformed old ones into new, or shaped urban spaces, I satisfied my teenage itch through books or documentaries. Examples include the building, and sometimes destruction, of a dam (“The Johnstown Flood” by David McCullough), a bridge (“The Brooklyn Bridge,” ditto), the airplane (“The Wright Brothers,” ditto again), a canal (“The Path Between the Seas,” yet again — he was one of my favorite writers), the largest dirigible (“Her Majesty’s Airship” by S. C. Gwynne), and a full-block multi-building development in Hell’s Kitchen (“Skyscraper,” a four-part documentary about the construction of One Worldwide Plaza, where the Madison Square Garden I remember once stood). As for the last, my dear friend, the late Michael Hammer, loved it as did I, to the complete bewilderment of our spouses and kids. (What did they know? We were right.)

It should be no surprise, therefore, that I’m also a giant fan of Robert Caro’s breathtaking masterpiece, the 1,336-page “The Power Broker,” about the New York that Robert Moses created through his development and building of parks, bridges, tunnels, housing developments, beaches, power plants, roadways, more roadways, and yet more roadways. I followed that by reading his more recent, and much shorter, book, “Working,” in which he gives us a brief tour of his process of researching and writing the epic books he is known for, including the as-yet-unfinished five-part trilogy (no, that’s not a typo) about the life of Lyndon Johnson. And just recently, on a family trip to the New York Historical (also not a typo), I abandoned one of my adorable grandchildren for a short time so he could enjoy the basement area more suited to his age while I immersed myself in the temporary exhibit about “The Power Broker’s” 50th anniversary as well as the permanent one about Caro’s research and writing methodology.

All this whetted my appetite for the documentary “Turn Every Page,” delving deeply into his relationship with his long-time editor, Robert Gottlieb (whose daughter Lizzie made the film). I was mesmerized by the rapport between these two geniuses, each in their own field, and can’t help but think what I would give to spend an hour with Caro discussing writing and research and an hour with Gottlieb wielding his pencil (yellow only, not mechanical) editing one of my columns. But some things, sadly, are likely not meant to be.

In addition to the substance of the documentary — how enthralling it was to hear them intensely debate the use of a semicolon — I was very taken by its title. It was the advice Caro’s managing editor at Newsday gave him when he was first made an investigative reporter. In its simplest form, it means exactly what it says; when you get a large file of documents, make sure to turn every page. Do not skip any page, because you never know where the nugget, containing a fact that might solve your investigative mystery, is hiding.

That was a lesson I learned as a lawyer, especially when involved in a large discovery project. The other side would try to bury us in paper in the hope that we might skip some of the tens of thousands of documents piled before us in pre-computer days, and thus miss the fact they didn’t want us to discover. But I was taught early on to turn and look through every page. That resulted in many late nights and even all-nighters, but every once in a while I found gold.

There’s another meaning to the phrase, though: to turn every page all the way to the end and finish the job. If you stop turning at page 650 in “The Power Broker,” you still haven’t finished, even if you’ve turned and read every page until then; you’re missing half the story.

This goes beyond reading, researching, or investigating, of course. If you haven’t written every page of the novel you’ve been working on for years, it won’t be published; if you haven’t completed all six orders of the mishna, you can’t yet make the final siyum (religious study completion ceremony); if you haven’t performed the final steps on your difficult DIY project it will remain undone, languishing in your garage. Caro’s advice in those situations is to turn every page, take every step, make it to the very end, and finish what you’re doing.

When I think of the phrase, though, what most resonates with me is yet another iteration of meaning. It tells me to turn every page but no more. It teaches me not to reread pages as an excuse to procrastinate and not pick up the next book; not to keep reviewing mishna as an excuse not to start page one of the Talmud (I know it’s really called page two). Turning every page reminds me to be aware that when every last page is actually turned the job is truly done; it highlights that while it’s important to do jobs thoroughly, it’s likewise critical to understand when they’re finished, and it’s time to move on.

This is my 175th column for the Jewish Standard/Times of Israel. Writing this column for the past eight years has brought me immense joy and fulfillment; it’s become an essential part of my retirement life; it helps me think about things I otherwise might not have thought about, and it enables me to interact with people I otherwise might never have met. It was an essential part of the book I recently wrote, “A Passionate Writing Life,” which might never have appeared had it not been for the many Standard columns in it which are critical to telling the story I wanted to tell. And it introduced me to my editor, Joanne Palmer, my Robert Gottlieb, whose gentle blue pencil and advice have been so indispensable to me in this work.

[Gasp.] Oh my goodness; one of my early readers has just told me that it sounds like I’m writing a valedictory. No, no, no, no, no. I have no intention of giving up my spot on the Standard’s Opinion pages — at least not now. But at certain special times (and a 175th column — my demisemiseptcentennial — is one of those times), I try to be a bit introspective about “I’ve Been Thinking.” And the confluence of this anniversary and the Caro documentary brought home to me the third meaning of turn every page. Once I sit down at my computer to write one of my bi-, sometimes tri-, weekly columns after I’ve spent several hours just thinking and composing in my head, I spend yet more hours writing, editing, tinkering, and polishing, putting each column through about five to 10 drafts. But sometimes I don’t realize that I’ve already turned every page, that my rereading and rewriting is really procrastinating, and my polishing is really potchkying. (I can’t think of an English word that captures the full connotation, or alliteration, of the Yiddish). But finally — finally! — I understand that I’ve turned every page and it’s time to hit send and share the column with Joanne — and then with you.

As I’ve now done.

About the Author
Joseph C. Kaplan, a regular columnist for the Jewish Standard, is the author of “A Passionate Writing Life: From ‘In my Opinion’ to ‘I’ve Been Thinking’” (available at Teaneck's Judaica House and its website). A retired lawyer and long-time resident of Teaneck with his wife Sharon, they’ve been blessed with four wonderful daughters and five delicious grandchildren.
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