The really real Raymond Carver stories?
There’s a battle brewing over a plan by Raymond Carver’s widow to publish a book of 17 Carver stories, The New York Times reports.
Tess Gallager wants to publish the stories from Carver’s breakout 1981 book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love as Carver originally wrote them.
Largely as a result of that collection, which became a literary sensation, Carver was credited with popularizing a minimalist style. But many of his fans have been aware of reports that Gordon Lish, Carver’s first editor at Alfred A. Knopf, had heavily edited, and in many cases radically cut, the stories before publication to hone the author’s voice. At the time, Carver begged Mr. Lish to stop production of the book. But Knopf went ahead and published it, to much critical acclaim.
Ms. Gallagher, who is also a novelist and poet, wants to see the original stories published as a volume called “Beginners,” the title that Carver gave to the story that became the title story in What We Talk About.
“I just think it’s so important for Ray’s book, which has been a kind of secret, to appear,” Ms. Gallagher said by telephone from her home in Port Angeles, Wash. But, she added, “I would never want to take What We Talk About out of publication.” Those versions of the stories, she said, “are now part of the history.”
Ms. Gallagher’s plan has created controversy. Carver’s later editor, Gary Fisketjon of Knopf, which holds the copyright to What We Talk About, is deeply opposed to the idea.
“I would rather dig my friend Ray Carver out of the ground,” he said. “I don’t understand what Tess’s interest in doing this is except to rewrite history. I am appalled by it.”
Knopf has warned Gallagher that if she tries to publish with another house, it will consider the book an illegal, competitive edition.
It’s a thorny issue that calls into question everything from Carver’s reputation as a master of minimalism to the metaphysical problems of determining what a late author really thought and would want.
The bottom line (for me):
1. The stories as they originally appeared, with Gordon Lish’s inputs, are the stories.
2. However, the stories, the ideas for the stories, are Carver’s, so no matter how much Lish changed them, Carver still gets the credit.
The bottom line (for me):
1. The stories as they originally appeared, with Gordon Lish’s inputs, are the stories.
2. However, the stories, the ideas for the stories, are Carver’s, so no matter how much Lish changed them, Carver still gets the credit.
A mentor in a recent one-week writing workshop at the Humber School of
Writing in Toronto commented, in response to a question regarding the
difference between “commercial” and “literary” fiction is that “commercial” fiction deals with the “blacks and whites” of life, whereas “literary” fiction deals with the “grays” of life. Or “commercial” fiction is, for the most part, predictable; “literary,” somewhat unpredictable.
To me, I find the recent publishing of Carver’s “Beginnings” fascinating, as I’d find
the publishing of the entire original collection. Ultimately, I’d like to see the originals
published side-by-side with the editing versions.
After all, it is Raymond Carver (not to mention Gordon Lish), and any education,
especially in this extremely rare format, by craftsmen such as these is…a delight!
The original stories are NOT Carver’s, but rather an odd symbiosis of his and his editor’s voice.
This is made clear by the fact that Carver HIMSELF wanted to back out of the deal and changed his mind about publishing this book - when it was already too late.
How terrible it must have been for him, knowing that the stories he received acclaim for, were not really his own, the ones he took the time to write and ponder over. He must have asked himself “What If?” quite often - what if his genuine stories HAD appeared? Could he have gained the same respect?
I would rather read his own stories, however flawed, than a ghost writer’s. That is the only way to really know him and understand his intentions. Kudos to his widow for being brave enough to take on the publishing agents and get her husband’s REAL voice out there.