Authorship

 

Carver had been up all night reviewing Lish’s severe editorial cuts––two stories had been slashed by nearly seventy per cent, many by almost half; many descriptions and digressions were gone; endings had been truncated or rewritten––and he was unnerved to the point of desperation. A recovering alcoholic and a fragile spirit, Carver wrote that he was “confused, tired, paranoid, and afraid.” He feared exposure before his friends, who had read many of the stories in their earlier versions.

Life and Letters: Rough Crossings: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

I've read much more by Raymond Carver than about him, so this article was a real revelation to me: basically, Carver's famous and much-imitated bare-bones style was not his own, but was imposed on him by an editor, Gordon Lish.

While of course it's not at all the only thing he had going for him, nevertheless the Carver style is a major feature of his work. It shocks me slightly that it was something he not only didn't produce himself -- Lish cut out over-writing, lengthy descriptions, sentimentality and so on -- it was actually something he disagreed with and tried to counter.

The article in the New Yorker's winter fiction issue, which is out here at any rate but which is all online, is accompanied by a selection of letters from Carver to Lish. From this:

July 15, 1970

Hombre, thanks for the superb assist on the stories. No one has done that for me since I was 18, I mean it. High time I think, too. Feel the stories are first class now, but whatever the outcome there, I appreciate the fine eye you turned on them. Hang tough.

To this:

July 10, 1980

Please look through the enclosed copy of “What We Talk About,” the entire collection. You’ll see that nearly all of the changes I suggest are small enough, but I think they’re significant and they all can be found in the first edited ms version you sent me. It’s just, not just, but it’s a question of reinstating some of the things that were taken out in the second version. But I feel strongly some of those things taken out should be back in the finished stories.

There's also a case-history of one of Lish's edits, showing the original Carver and the changes made by Lish. It doesn't sound especially fascinating, but it is. And like it or not, every single edit is an improvement, making the story more Carver-like.

Altogether an excellent piece of coverage, very detailed and very revealing. And it made me want to go back to the stories again, whoever was responsible for them.