Blogging anything in the New Yorker is a total sucker’s bet. Lots of people consume the magazine cover to cover, and so the idea that I’ll bring something new to a reader’s attention is a long-shot. At best. Still, this article by Paul Rudnick, on the professional relationship between Raymond Carver and his editor at Knopf, Gordon Lish, is one of the most fascinating things I’ve seen in some time.
Here’s Rudnick’s lede paragraph, which is its own primer on good writing.
On the morning of July 8, 1980, Raymond Carver wrote an impassioned letter to Gordon Lish, his friend and editor at Alfred A. Knopf, begging his forgiveness but insisting that Lish “stop production” of Carver’s forthcoming collection of stories, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” 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. If the book went forward, he said, he feared he might never write again; if he stopped it, he feared losing Lish’s love and friendship. And he feared, above all, a return to “those dark days,” not long before, when he was broken, defeated. “I’ll tell you the truth, my very sanity is on the line here,” he wrote to Lish.
It seems, based on Rudnick’s reporting at least, that Carver’s inimtable style — stripped of any fat, leaving only the sparest prose — wasn’t really his. It was Lish’s. Lish often cut huge chunks away from the stories Carver sent him, leaving behind what I’ve always understood to be Carver’s distinctive voice.
Here’s an example of the impact Lish’s editing had on Carver’s writing, a paragraph from the story “Beginners” as submitted by Carver to Lish:
“I’m worried about Herb, Terri said. She shook her head. “Sometimes I worry more than other times, but lately I’m really worried.” She stared at her glass. She didn’t make any move for cheese and crackers. I decided to get up and look in the refrigerator. When Laura says she’s hungry, I know she needs to eat. “Help yourself to whatever you can find, Nick. Bring out anything that looks good. Cheese in there, and a salami stick, I think. Crackers in that cupboard over the stove. I forgot. We’ll have a snack. I’m not hungry myself, but you guys must be starving. I don’t have an appetite any more. What was I saying?” She closed her eyes and opened them. “I don’t think we’ve told you this, maybe we have, I can’t remember, but Herb was very suicidal after his first marriage broke up and his wife moved to Denver with the kids. He went to psychiatrist for a long while, for months. Sometimes he says he thinks he should still be going” She picked up the empty bottle and turned it upside down over her glass. I was cutting some salami on the counter as carefully as I could. “Dead soldier,” Terri said. Then she said, “Lately he’s been talking about suicide again.”
And then Carver went on for ten more paragraphs before ending the story. But Lish cut the whole paragraph above and instead suggested the following:
I could hear my heart beating. As a matter of fact, I could hear everyone’s heart. It was awful, the human noise we sat there making, not a one of us moving even when the room went totally dark.
Lish said the story should conclude at that point. Which it did in published form.
In the paper version of the magazine, Rudnick includes a photo of the original manuscript, in which Lish has crossed out Carver’s long paragraph (transcribed above). Carver’s prose is typed in what appears to be Courier, and a huge X runs through its entirety. The shorter paragraph I’ve reproduced above, Lish’s work, is handwritten in a loopy print-cursive hybrid at the bottom of the page. The impact of seeing the editorial process depicted in graphic form is stunning.
On the one hand, all of this is hardly surprising. The legends, almost like tall tales, of great editors transforming a writer’s good work into something transcendent are legion. Ezra Pound cutting T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” in half, and the job Maxwell Perkins did on Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward Angel” — lopping off more than 65,000 words — are just two of the instances mentioned by Rudnick. And, frankly, these kinds of stories elicit in scholars more than a bit of envy. In the academy, we’re often lucky to find an editor who’ll read our work at all, much less make it better. I’m not bashing editors, by the way. Some of my best friends are editors. But the structural constraints of academic publishing make it incredibly unusual — not unheard of, mind you — for any substantive editing to get done. So even after reading about how painful the experience of being edited by Lish was for Carver, I find myself thinking that I’d live with the agony for the payoff.
But, on the other hand, I’m shocked to read about the case of Carver. Carver’s style, I always supposed, was sui generis, totally unto itself. I remember the first time I read him, an extra-credit assignment for my wonderful tenth-grade English teacher at Shaker Heights High. The book was Will You Please be Quiet, Please. I was stunned by the narrative style, by the use of language, by the confidence to say only what absolutely had to be said. The only similar literary experience I can think of involved devouring Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter, which, after I’d spent years browsing only in the “History” section of bookstores while working on my dissertation, taught me to read fiction again as an adult.
And now I learn that much of what I read when I was fourteen should have been attributed to Lish. Or not. Perhaps a great editor is only a counter-puncher, unable to generate offense on her or his own. Perhaps the collaboration is what unlocked the genius in Carver and in Lish. Having never experienced anything like this, I can’t say. All of my mediocre work, in other words, is mine alone.
Anyway, other people, including Geoffrey Wolff in the link above, have done a much better job describing Carver’s prose. So I won’t bore you with my feeble and pretentious efforts at literary criticism. But I will say this: to learn that much of Carver’s work wasn’t his, at least not in the conventional sense, unesettles me, raising all sorts of questions about the nature of authorship.
Most of all, though, it makes me think that I need a good editor.
63 comments
December 26, 2007 at 3:11 am
sverker wahlin
delightful to read that there is literature that’s been saved from the suffocating respect for the writer, the autonomy and sometimes holiness of the author, that one often encounters. musicians get to create with people, why is it authors must always work alone?
December 26, 2007 at 9:56 am
Nebris
Frankly, if anyone tried to edit my work to that extent, I’d put a bullet through their head.
Well, maybe not, though that would be my first impulse. More likely, I’d just suggest something anatomically improbable about their nearest female relative and take my work elsewhere.
December 26, 2007 at 10:33 am
ari
But what if the edits clearly made your work better, as is the case here? I mean to say, I understand your impulse, but this is an extraordinary situation. I honestly don’t know what I’d do. But I’d like to be in a situation where I’d find out.
December 26, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Drew
“better” is in the eye of the beholder. What Lish did was try to get the work to be more SELL-ABLE. Which may or may not have been “better”.
December 26, 2007 at 1:08 pm
ari
Do you really think this was a case of art trumping commerce? I suppose it might have been. But I don’t think I see it that way. The Carver style that Lish helped craft was hardly mainstream, so I’m not sure how I could see this as a matter of crass commercialism. That said, you’re certainly right that “better” is a question of taste. I didn’t mean to be glib originally. Sorry.
December 27, 2007 at 7:24 pm
A R Teschner
I remember reading Carver in my literature class. I liked his stuff, but when
I tried to criticize his work in class, I was told I was reading too much into
Carver’s prose, that his was stark and unemotional and concrete, unlike other
stuff we’d read. I remember being corrected even now because I felt as though
my interpretation was valid, even though it was obvious that the starkness was
overpowering. Was I getting some of the original Carver, peeking through this
Lish-dominated starkness?
Well, I don’t know, because when I look at the revised paragraph above, I
don’t see the same thing. Maybe you have some sort of emotional truth that’s
shared between the revision and the original, but this has to be,
historically, described as what it was: An editor strip mining a writer’s
work, and a writer powerless to stop it. This writer gets notoreity for
something he may not have been responsible for, that is, his style. His
sentiment may have been in tact, but now I’m just angry I never got to see
what Carver’s work might have become under a more attentive, less brutal
editor.
I think it’s specious to suggest I never would have known about Carver if it
hadn’t been for these changes by Lish, since it’s impossible to gauge that
sort of thing. I’m guessing Carver still needed an editor to make the point
of his text clearer and not as muddled, especially for the short story format
this is essential, but when we see this sort of thing happen in Hollywood we
shake our heads, talking about how producers tear text apart to make something
work in their eyes, leaving little behind. Here is pretty much the same
thing, although you’re right, Carver was lucky to have his name on it.
Lish should have struck out on his own if his edits were to be so ambitious.
Anything less would have been (and was) piggybacking. Despite my annoyance,
what I’m left with is pity for Carver. He was, as suggested, lucky to get his
work out at all. But I’m guessing he had enough integrity to at least be
bothered by this sublimation of his work.
I dunno, maybe I’m off base. Anyway, very interesting topic.
Thanks for your time.
December 27, 2007 at 7:35 pm
ari
>Was I getting some of the original Carver, peeking through this Lish-dominated starkness?
Based on the article, it seems that yes, that’s the case.
> Well, I don’t know, because when I look at the revised paragraph above, I don’t see the same thing. Maybe you have some sort of emotional truth that’s shared between the revision and the original, but this has to be, historically, described as what it was: An editor strip-mining a writer’s work, and a writer powerless to stop it.
Hmm, I’m not sure. Strip mining is a great image, but I like the Lish paragraph much better than the original. So Lish doesn’t seem to be pillaging so much as augmenting. At least in my view.
>This writer gets notoreity for something he may not have been responsible for, that is, his style. His sentiment may have been in tact, but now I’m just angry I never got to see what Carver’s work might have become under a more attentive, less brutal editor.
You will see it. His second wife is going to release some of his work, minus the Lish edits.
> I think it’s specious to suggest I never would have known about Carver if it hadn’t been for these changes by Lish, since it’s impossible to gauge that sort of thing.
I don’t think I suggested that. At least I hope not. My point, limited though it may
have been, was just that we might have known a different Raymond Carver, which itself is remarkable.
>I’m guessing Carver still needed an editor to make the point of his text clearer and not as muddled, especially for the short story format this is essential, but when we see this sort of thing happen in Hollywood we shake our heads, talking about how producers tear text apart to make something work in their eyes, leaving little behind. Here is pretty much the same thing, although you’re right, Carver was lucky to have his name on it.
I think I agree with everything you say here. And the Hollywood point is very smart.
> Lish should have struck out on his own if his edits were to be so ambitious. Anything less would have been (and was) piggybacking.
Like I said, I wonder if Lish could only counter-punch. That’s how I am with humor. I like to think that I’m a reasonably funny guy (many would argue that I’m wrong), but I always riff off of what others say. I don’t ever initiative the action on my own. I don’t know if that makes me less funny. I think it just means that my humor is social.
>Despite my annoyance, what I’m left with is pity for Carver.
Me too. Especially because he was such a damaged soul. Reading his reaction to the edits, particularly in the context of his having shown the unedited manuscript to friends, is horribly painful for me.
>He was, as suggested, lucky to get his work out at all. But I’m guessing he had enough integrity to at least be bothered by this sublimation of his work.
Yes, the New Yorker piece makes this very clear. He was in agony.
> I dunno, maybe I’m off base. Anyway, very interesting topic.
I don’t think your off base. And your comment was way more interesting than anything I wrote. Thanks.
December 27, 2007 at 7:44 pm
A R Teschner
> Hmm, I’m not sure. Strip mining is a great image, but I like the Lish paragraph much better than the original. So Lish doesn’t seem to be pillaging so much as augmenting. At least in my view.
I agree, it’s too harsh an image. But in the hands of a kinder editor, as I think I said, Carver’s intent could have come out without so severe a change. I guess I’d have to read the whole original and the whole altered to see if Carver’s intent could be construed as being merely augmented as you put it. The feeling I get from the part of the piece as rendered would be someone writing a different story inspired by a previous work.
Writers do this all the time, we (I think I can count myself as one, as I express myself through writing often enough) read something, get inspired, and expound further upon the theme. We pick stuff up from life, too, sure, but writing’s also part of life. I characterize Lish here as being inspired by Carver’s intent, albeit unpublished, and writing more. He wrote succinctly, perhaps, but because it was Lish’s interpretation, so far removed textually from the original, I think it passes outside the bounds of editing.
That’s the key. Of COURSE an editor cuts away the fat. But cut too much fat away, and you have a different animal.
> You will see it. His second wife is going to release some of his work, minus the Lish edits.
OK, cool. I guess now is as good a time as any to revisit Carver’s work (can I even say that anymore? I guess the tendency is to still credit Carver despite this. I don’t want to look like an asshole and say Lish/Carver or anything).
> I don’t think I suggested that.
No, you didn’t, but bear in mind that I was posting to a comment board. Comment boards demand a bit of pre-emptive defensiveness, especially coming straight off the heels of a Southern Pride comment barrage.
Although, come to think of it, I doubt people will get as heated about this as they do about the Civil War, for some reason.
> At least I hope not. My point, limited though it may have been, was just that we might have known a different Raymond Carver, which itself is remarkable.
I don’t know why you’re putting it that way, your essay was fine. I wouldn’t have commented on it if you’d just put a little blurb with a link to the NewYorker.
This Carver revelation is remarkable, and tragic and insensing. I mean, you’re right, a writer should be so fortunate as to have an editor willing to work with him at all, much less put such energy into that work. But like I keep saying, even that relationship should have boundaries, unless it is openly redefined as co-authorship. Carver was trapped between obscurity and having his work severely changed.
> Like I said, I wonder if Lish could only counter-punch. That’s how I am with humor. I like to think that I’m a reasonably funny guy (many would argue that I’m wrong), but I always riff off of what others say. I don’t ever initiative the action on my own. I don’t know if that makes me less funny. I think it just means that my humor is social.
I think the problem with your analogy is that humor is often a reaction to the moment. You can’t have a humorous observation without something to observe.
Which is why you could argue that my movie analogy isn’t that great. Movies are a collaborative effort, with many peoples’ fortunes riding on it. You go down as an author, the worst you’re going to do is make a publisher take some heat, you go down with a film, you’ve got tons of folks, financial backers on down, who may suffer greatly because of an unmarketable idea.
Independent filmmaking gets closer to the artist’s own voice, as writing does, and it’s largely untouched by the studio system, as long as they can muscle their way in to the theater to get heard.
Really, all three of these media are reactive, because Carver observed life and wrote about it, a humorist does the same, and moviemakers do somewhat similar things depending on how observant they are. There’s just less of a delay with the middle one.
To address your point directly, though, an analagous situation would be more like, a person makes a humorous statement TO YOU, and then you nod, run to your friends, and say “I just heard Ben tell the most amazing joke,” and then tell a different joke with better rhythm, with the same heart behind it, as you understood that heart.
> Me too. Especially because he was such a damaged soul. Reading his reaction to the edits, particularly in the context of his having shown the unedited manuscript to friends, is horribly painful for me.
Maybe just getting this all out in the open might shake things up a bit. I’ve had a bone to pick with the way literary criticism is taught in the US, at least by some. It tends to be that the stuff we’re reading, because it’s achieved this notoreity, exists as if the writer wasn’t even there. Yet, hearing this stuff about Lish, one can’t help but have one’s interpretation of the work affected by the news. At least mine was. That feeling should be a legitimate impression, even though it involves the writer as well as the piece in question. I dunno. That’s a whole other topic I guess.
December 28, 2007 at 7:10 pm
urbino
It is startling news. Carver’s voice is one of Those Voices. Finding out Carver’s voice wasn’t Carver’s voice is like finding out Ella Fitzgerald did her scat-singing by following some studio arranger’s sheet music. “No, sweetheart. It’s dweebidy-DEEP-dop-doot. Not DWEEbidy-deep-dop-doot.”
December 28, 2007 at 7:12 pm
urbino
Or in this case, I guess it’s more like finding out she didn’t do it at all; she lip-sync’ed it.
December 28, 2007 at 7:26 pm
ari
Ella Fitzgerald in the Milli Vanilli story. Haunting.
But yes, I’m still uncomfortable with this revelation. I’ve re-read the piece two more times. One of its great virtues is brevity, particularly for a New Yorker essay. Rudnick says only what needs to be said. There’s very little conjecture and almost no grandstanding. It’s an excellent way to pass along shocking news.
December 28, 2007 at 7:28 pm
matt w
I kind of want to say, hey, by Cathedral and the new stories in Where I’m Calling From Carver had enough power to tell Lish to back off. (From page 2 of the New Yorker article, ‘There was a shift in power. Carver demanded his autonomy. “Gordon, God’s truth, and I may as well say it out now,” he wrote in August, 1982, about his latest stories. “I can’t undergo the kind of surgical amputation and transplant that might make them someway fit into the carton so the lid will close.”’) So at least some of what you think of as Carver’s voice is All Carver. Or at least, probably not much more heavily edited than a lot of other writers, and he had the final cut.
I do edit other people’s jokes when I retell them.
December 28, 2007 at 7:30 pm
urbino
But is the brevity really Rudnick’s?
December 28, 2007 at 7:42 pm
ari
I know early Carver, the edited-beyond-the-bone-and-into-the-marrow (a paraphrase from the Rudnick piece — I’m too lazy to find the real quote now) stuff better than his later work. But I was fascinated by the reporting on the shift in the power dynamic, the way in which Carver, after being nominated for a National Book Award, could tell Lish to bugger off.
Accompanying my sense of anguish, I have to admit, is an ongoing desire for a pocket Lish, someone to make my okay writing really good. Not to say that Carver’s first drafts were only okay. Nor that mine even reach that standard. But still…I’d love to work with an activist editor — at least once. So long as they were really good. I think it would be fun. Or horrible.
“But is the brevity really Rudnick’s?”
No, Lish clearly edited the story. Obviously.
December 28, 2007 at 8:13 pm
eric
I do edit other people’s jokes when I retell them.
Oh, and that works so well for you.
December 28, 2007 at 8:14 pm
eric
I confess I find this news less than shocking. Are we all really so invested in the idea of author as solitary figure in the atelier, from whose forehead Art springs full-formed, like Athena from the brow of Zeus?
December 28, 2007 at 8:18 pm
urbino
Yes. Duh!
December 28, 2007 at 8:19 pm
eric
Oh, all right then. Is the corollary that we really believe Stewart and Colbert can do programs without writers?
December 28, 2007 at 8:26 pm
ari
“Are we all really so invested in the idea of author as solitary figure in the atelier, from whose forehead Art springs full-formed, like Athena from the brow of Zeus?”
No, but: Raymond Carver! Not just an author, in other words, but one of THE voices of modern American letters. I mean, yes, of course, writers are edited. A lot. As noted in the original post, Mr. Snidey Pants, the stories are legion. But: Raymond Carver! I don’t know what to say other than I’m still stunned. And: Raymond Carver! Actually, though, it’s an interesting piece because it’s about Carver, meaning even that singular voice is, in fact, collaborative.
December 28, 2007 at 8:30 pm
matt w
Oh, and that works so well for you.
One of these days… POW! To the moon!
December 28, 2007 at 8:31 pm
urbino
Carver isn’t analogous to Stewart and Colbert. He was the writer. And his most distinctive trait — the most Carverian thing about him — was his voice. He wasn’t a metaphysicalist like Melville, or a satirist like Lewis, or a psychologist like James, or madly brainy and inventive like Pynchon.
He was a stylist. Like Leonard Cohen in music, Carver had his one very distinctive thing that he did extremely well. Or, as it turns out, he didn’t do at all, and Gordon Lish did extremely well.
December 28, 2007 at 8:31 pm
ari
That’s not your bit. And not really edited, either. Joke thief.
December 28, 2007 at 8:32 pm
ari
Mine was to Matt’s.
December 28, 2007 at 8:33 pm
urbino
One of these days… POW! To the moon!
You edited that from Gleason’s original.
December 28, 2007 at 8:33 pm
ari
Is the analogy to Leonard Cohen yours, Urbino? Because that’s very, very good. Careful, Matt might steal it, retell it later verbatim, and then claim to have edited it.
December 28, 2007 at 8:37 pm
urbino
AFAIK, yes.
December 28, 2007 at 8:39 pm
ari
Apt.
December 28, 2007 at 8:39 pm
eric
Vidal told a good story along these lines about Tennessee Williams…. here:
And of course, “le style, c’est l’homme même,” and that.
But we don’t really believe that, do we? I mean, my point about Colbert and Stewart is not that they are stylists but that we evidently believe so much in individual style that we’re prepared to believe they can do it without writers.
Also: Hemingway, Carver’s forebear as stylist (perhaps; tastes differ). Maxwell Perkins’s co-creation, or not?
December 28, 2007 at 8:41 pm
eric
Leonard Cohen’s style was, secretly, a creation of producer Berry Gordy. Doesn’t everyone know that?
December 28, 2007 at 8:45 pm
urbino
we evidently believe so much in individual style that we’re prepared to believe they can do it without writers
Do we? (That’s a serious question. Have people been clamoring for them to single-handedly write shows during the strike?)
December 28, 2007 at 8:47 pm
eric
Well, I don’t know if we do, but they do.
December 28, 2007 at 8:49 pm
ari
Leonard Cohen: The Barry Gordy Years. Not quite in time for Christmas. You’ve now made me curious about Cohen. I expect that he never made enough money to have a producer change his sound much. In other words, there wouldn’t have been enough margin in in the time spent.
Which is another interesting thing about Carver and Lish, the dumb luck of the two finding each other. Contingency rears its head in the arts.
December 28, 2007 at 8:50 pm
urbino
I’m not familiar enough with the . . . what? redaction criticism? . . . of Hemingway to speak intelligently to that question. Never was a big fan.
The Vidal/Williams story, though, reminds me of another Williams story, in which he shows up for a dinner meeting with his editor and a third party, stone drunk and bearing his new manuscript. I forget the exact title, but it had a homosexual slur in it. Five minutes after Williams arrived, the editor read the title aloud, and Williams turned to the editor’s companion and said, “I don’t know who came up with that title, honey, but it’s tacky.”
December 28, 2007 at 8:51 pm
eric
I expect that he never made enough money to have a producer change
No, he dumped Gordy for Quincy Jones to make the big crossover move.
December 28, 2007 at 8:51 pm
eric
“I don’t know who came up with that title, honey, but it’s tacky.”
Awesome.
December 28, 2007 at 8:52 pm
ari
As to whether I want to see Jon Stewart without his writers, no, please no. His team used to be — perhaps still is — composed largely of the crew from the original Onion. As in back in the day when I went to school with them at Madison. But I never knew any of them. Friends of friends and all that. Still, they were/are funny. And he wasn’t so much before he employed them. So, no, I’d rather not see him fall to earth with a resounding splat.
Does this mean that he’s a performer and not a comic genius? I suppose so, but his time is soooo good. That’s performance, of course, but it’s also comedy gold. The Chris Matthews interview: “I don’t troll.” Without missing a beat. Wow.
December 28, 2007 at 8:53 pm
urbino
Well, I don’t know if we do, but they do.
And maybe they can:
December 28, 2007 at 8:54 pm
ari
Time s/b timing. And the bad writing above s/b good. Make changes accordingly.
December 28, 2007 at 8:57 pm
ari
JS humiliates CM: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=104548&title=chris-matthews.
December 28, 2007 at 8:59 pm
ari
Also: “A self-hurt book.” Funny. And seemingly off-the-cuff. But I doubt it. I bet that his writers composed the line earlier. Writers: “Say this, monkey.” JS: “Okay.” Audience: “Hah, hah, hah, hah. We love you Jon.”
December 28, 2007 at 8:59 pm
urbino
No, he dumped Gordy for Quincy Jones to make the big crossover move.
Followed by his tour with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, then the Rick Rubin years, no doubt.
December 28, 2007 at 9:09 pm
ari
Urbino wants a “‘Home; link at the bottom of the page,” whatever that is. And Hank wants an edit feature. And I want a wild pony. But not one that kicks and bites. Anyone? That’s a bit obscure, I’ll grant you.
December 28, 2007 at 9:12 pm
urbino
Verizon commercial?
December 28, 2007 at 9:14 pm
urbino
And as long as we’re asking for stuff, I’d also like a date with Natalie Portman.
December 28, 2007 at 9:14 pm
ari
No, this. See the bottom of the page about “Safety.” Like I said, obscure. Also: one of the most beautiful places on the East Coast — south of Maine, that is.
December 28, 2007 at 9:17 pm
ari
She’s too young for you. You’re more likely to get a docile-but-still-wild pony. Actually, I don’t know that to be true (about your age). But your knowledge of Leonard Cohen and Raymond Carver suggests I’m right. Earlier, I was trying to explain the significance of context clues to my five-year-old son. I don’t think this example will help. What good are you?
December 28, 2007 at 9:21 pm
urbino
Dunno. Nobody ever told me I was supposed to be good for something. I thought I was supposed to just, you know, hang out and sniff up the ladies.
And I’ll have you know I’m a very youthful 39. Youthful enough that I can’t get past the fact that that your little Shangri-La-di-da starts with “ass.”
December 28, 2007 at 9:28 pm
ari
39 (my age as well) is the new 27. That’s what I keep telling myself. My tired bones and fading memory say different. But I keep forgetting what they say. Lakes and gentemen, I’ll be here all week.
December 28, 2007 at 9:29 pm
ari
Speaking of tired bones, I have to get some sleep. Good night.
December 28, 2007 at 9:32 pm
urbino
Toodles.
December 28, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Matt W
But is the brevity really Rudnick’s?
You think you’re joking, but try and find Rudnick’s byline in that link.
[No sleep for the wicked joke-stealers! Thank you, I’ll be here all night.]
December 29, 2007 at 12:11 am
urbino
I often think I’m joking, only to be disappointed.
December 29, 2007 at 6:24 am
Matt W
Let me edit your jokes, everything will turn out great.
[The Story: In the table of contents of the paper New Yorker, Paul Rudnick’s name appears next to the previous article, and there’s no name next to this one — the intro text was presumably written by some latter-day Lish. So it looks kinda like Rudnick wrote this.]
December 29, 2007 at 6:49 am
ari
Matt: Did you change your avatar? Or whatever it’s called? And does this change — assuming it happened — signal a broader shift of tone and/or intent? Are you about to go all Mr. Hyde on us? Or perhaps just a costume change? The whale bones were binding?
December 29, 2007 at 8:15 am
Matt W
Your comments are all sorts of weird, dude. Not only do they sometimes appear to the wrong post, somehow they managed to extract the avatar of one of my sock puppets when I’m not even logged in. (Fortunately this isn’t a very secret sock puppet.)
December 29, 2007 at 8:17 am
matt w
My real avatar is supposed to be a mud skipper, BTW.
December 29, 2007 at 8:26 am
ari
Mine is too. See ————————————————————————->
December 29, 2007 at 8:27 am
ari
And I’ve noticed that about the comments. I have no idea what’s going on. But there does seem to be something amiss.
December 30, 2007 at 4:23 am
A R Teschner
I wonder if my joke analogy sorta diverted the topic a bit :)
December 30, 2007 at 4:29 am
ari
Hey, you got the comments working. Hurrah!
December 30, 2007 at 9:19 am
A R Teschner
Yeah. Perhaps my IE was too old. Firefox at least let me see that it needed an email address.
I wish I could say more about this topic, but I’ve been using the blessed thing that is Project Gutenberg to read some key sections of Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon’s a critical of the way the history of the Empire has been depicted, especially by those who inherited this history. It’s strange to read a refreshing text which happened to be written hundreds of years ago.
Did you say it was Tess Gallagher who was going to submit those old, pre-edit Carver stories? Did she say when she was going to? I forget.
December 30, 2007 at 12:29 pm
ari
Here’s the quote about Gallagher’s plans:
“Now Tess Gallagher is hoping to re-publish all the stories in Carver’s second book in what she believes is their ‘true, original’ form. The story published here,
‘Beginners,’ was the submitted draft of a story that Lish cut by more than a third and retitled ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.’ Gallagher is eager for people to read ‘Beginners.’
And I just found this, a very cool cool version of the story, “Beginners,” showing the original and the edits.
And here’s the same story, without any of the edits, as Gallagher would prefer.
September 17, 2008 at 12:22 am
Stet. « The Edge of the American West
[…] 17, 2008 in history and current events by ari I am, as I’ve noted before, fascinated by the process of being edited. I think this is so because writing, for me as for most […]