More Musing on Editing Another's Work
Dec. 26th, 2007 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat[Posted on this earlier in a flocked post - but continue to be fascinated, so have decided to post more on the topic.]
Just finished reading "Life and Letters: Rough Crossings - the cutting of Raymond Carver" in Dec 24 &31st issue of the New Yorker, otherwise known as the Winter Fiction edition.
The article discusses the relationship between Raymond Carver and his long-time editor, Gordon Lish (of Esquire and later Alfred A. Knopf).
Here's an excerpt: "Editing takes a variety of forms. It includes the discovery of talent in a relatively obscure literary magazine or in a 'slush pile' of unsolicited manuscripts. It can be a matter of financial and emotional support in difficult times. And once faced with a manuscript, an editor ordinarily tries to facilitate a writer's vision, to recommend changes- deletions, additions, transpositions- that best serve the work. In the normal course of things, editiorial work is relatively subtle, but there are famous instances of heroic assistance: Ezra Pound cutting T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' in half when the poem was still called 'He Do the Police in Different Voices'; Maxwell Perkings finding structure in Thomas Wolfe's 'Look Homeward, Angel' and cutting it by sixty-five thousand words."
But...in the case of Raymond Carver - Lish appears to have encroached on the author's work, often trimming more than forty percent of it. Lish's editing created a style that may not have been Carver's own.
"The critic Michael Wood wrote that Carver had "done what many of the most gifted writers fail to do: He has invented a country of his own, like no other except the very world, as Wordsworth said, which is the world of all of us.' Wood also wrote, ' In Mr. Carver's silences, a good deal of the unsayable gets said.' Many of those silences were the result of Lish's editing."
"In Tess Gallagher (Carver's lover and companion) view, Lish's work encroached upon Carver's artistic integrity. 'What would you do if your book was a success but you didn't want to explain to the public that it had been crammed down your throat?"
And here's two excerpts from letters Carver sent to his editor, Lish regarding Lish's edits of his work:
Dated July 14, 1980 - Regarding two stories Lish edited: "My greatest fear is, or was, having them too pared, and I'm thinking of 'Community Center' and 'The Bath' both of which lost several pages each in the second editing. I want that sense of beauty and mystery they have now, but I don't want want to lose track, lose touch with the little human connections I saw in the first version you sent me. They seemed somehow fuller in the best sense, in that first ed. version. Maybe I am wrong in this, maybe you are 100% correct, just please give them another hard look. That's all."
Dated August 11, 1982
"I'm not the same writer I used to be. But I know there are going to be stories in these 14 or 15 I give you that you're going to draw back from, that aren't going to fit anyone's notion of what a Carver short story ought to be - your's, mine, the reading public at large, the critics. But I'm not them, I'm not us, I'm me. Some of these stories may not fit smoothly or neatly, inevitably, alongside the rest. But, Gordon, God's truth, and I may as well say it out now, I can't undergo the kind of surgivical amputation and transplant that might make them someway fit into the carton so the lid will close. There may have to be limbs and heads of hair sticking out. My heart won't take it otherwise. It will simply burst, and I mean that."
"I love your heart, you must know that. But I can't write these stories and have to feel inhibited - if I feel inhibited I'm not going to write them at all - and feel that if you, the reader I want to please more than any, don't like them, you're going to re-write them from top to bottom. Why, if I think that the pen will fall right out of my fingers, and I may not be able to pick it up...."
"You understand I'm not saying, or even remotely thinking, that these new and year-old stories are beyond criticism, or that they won't need editing. Not true. Not true in either case..."
In the letters - Carver's begging his editor to work with him as opposed to rewrite his stories or ghost write. Taking his stories essentially away from him. The letters read like a one-sided tug of war or struggle. Making me wonder to what degree do editors and publishers fall victim to their own egos and own desire to be part of a creation, to leave an indelibable mark or stamp on someone else's work? To ghost write as opposed to edit? I've lost count of the number of young editorial assistants I've spoken with who want every book they read to read like James Patterson, Edith Wharton or what they think sells. Change the plot. Change the style. Change the characters. To the point that the story loses the authorial intent - begging the question is the story the author's or produced by assembly? So when students go to study it later, the authorial intent is misunderstood. One wonders after reading these letters if Carver's intent has been misunderstood? Or on the other hand, if without Lish's edits, if Carver would have even been read by the number of people who've read him. If his stories would have lasted or recieved positive reviews?
Don't get me wrong - I value a good editor. Some books I've read, I cringe at the poor editing job. Stephen King's last few books as well as Ann Rice's ached for editors. But, editing is an art. It's hard to do. And the one thing you don't want to do as an editor is put the writer inside a straight jacket or change their work in a serious way. Writing is about communication. From what I've read of these letters, I'm not sure Gordon Lish was a good editor, even though he obviously furthered Carver's career.
To see a line by line comparison of Raymond Carver's "Beginner's" and Gordon Lish's edit - go to www.newyorker.com.
Just finished reading "Life and Letters: Rough Crossings - the cutting of Raymond Carver" in Dec 24 &31st issue of the New Yorker, otherwise known as the Winter Fiction edition.
The article discusses the relationship between Raymond Carver and his long-time editor, Gordon Lish (of Esquire and later Alfred A. Knopf).
Here's an excerpt: "Editing takes a variety of forms. It includes the discovery of talent in a relatively obscure literary magazine or in a 'slush pile' of unsolicited manuscripts. It can be a matter of financial and emotional support in difficult times. And once faced with a manuscript, an editor ordinarily tries to facilitate a writer's vision, to recommend changes- deletions, additions, transpositions- that best serve the work. In the normal course of things, editiorial work is relatively subtle, but there are famous instances of heroic assistance: Ezra Pound cutting T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' in half when the poem was still called 'He Do the Police in Different Voices'; Maxwell Perkings finding structure in Thomas Wolfe's 'Look Homeward, Angel' and cutting it by sixty-five thousand words."
But...in the case of Raymond Carver - Lish appears to have encroached on the author's work, often trimming more than forty percent of it. Lish's editing created a style that may not have been Carver's own.
"The critic Michael Wood wrote that Carver had "done what many of the most gifted writers fail to do: He has invented a country of his own, like no other except the very world, as Wordsworth said, which is the world of all of us.' Wood also wrote, ' In Mr. Carver's silences, a good deal of the unsayable gets said.' Many of those silences were the result of Lish's editing."
"In Tess Gallagher (Carver's lover and companion) view, Lish's work encroached upon Carver's artistic integrity. 'What would you do if your book was a success but you didn't want to explain to the public that it had been crammed down your throat?"
And here's two excerpts from letters Carver sent to his editor, Lish regarding Lish's edits of his work:
Dated July 14, 1980 - Regarding two stories Lish edited: "My greatest fear is, or was, having them too pared, and I'm thinking of 'Community Center' and 'The Bath' both of which lost several pages each in the second editing. I want that sense of beauty and mystery they have now, but I don't want want to lose track, lose touch with the little human connections I saw in the first version you sent me. They seemed somehow fuller in the best sense, in that first ed. version. Maybe I am wrong in this, maybe you are 100% correct, just please give them another hard look. That's all."
Dated August 11, 1982
"I'm not the same writer I used to be. But I know there are going to be stories in these 14 or 15 I give you that you're going to draw back from, that aren't going to fit anyone's notion of what a Carver short story ought to be - your's, mine, the reading public at large, the critics. But I'm not them, I'm not us, I'm me. Some of these stories may not fit smoothly or neatly, inevitably, alongside the rest. But, Gordon, God's truth, and I may as well say it out now, I can't undergo the kind of surgivical amputation and transplant that might make them someway fit into the carton so the lid will close. There may have to be limbs and heads of hair sticking out. My heart won't take it otherwise. It will simply burst, and I mean that."
"I love your heart, you must know that. But I can't write these stories and have to feel inhibited - if I feel inhibited I'm not going to write them at all - and feel that if you, the reader I want to please more than any, don't like them, you're going to re-write them from top to bottom. Why, if I think that the pen will fall right out of my fingers, and I may not be able to pick it up...."
"You understand I'm not saying, or even remotely thinking, that these new and year-old stories are beyond criticism, or that they won't need editing. Not true. Not true in either case..."
In the letters - Carver's begging his editor to work with him as opposed to rewrite his stories or ghost write. Taking his stories essentially away from him. The letters read like a one-sided tug of war or struggle. Making me wonder to what degree do editors and publishers fall victim to their own egos and own desire to be part of a creation, to leave an indelibable mark or stamp on someone else's work? To ghost write as opposed to edit? I've lost count of the number of young editorial assistants I've spoken with who want every book they read to read like James Patterson, Edith Wharton or what they think sells. Change the plot. Change the style. Change the characters. To the point that the story loses the authorial intent - begging the question is the story the author's or produced by assembly? So when students go to study it later, the authorial intent is misunderstood. One wonders after reading these letters if Carver's intent has been misunderstood? Or on the other hand, if without Lish's edits, if Carver would have even been read by the number of people who've read him. If his stories would have lasted or recieved positive reviews?
Don't get me wrong - I value a good editor. Some books I've read, I cringe at the poor editing job. Stephen King's last few books as well as Ann Rice's ached for editors. But, editing is an art. It's hard to do. And the one thing you don't want to do as an editor is put the writer inside a straight jacket or change their work in a serious way. Writing is about communication. From what I've read of these letters, I'm not sure Gordon Lish was a good editor, even though he obviously furthered Carver's career.
To see a line by line comparison of Raymond Carver's "Beginner's" and Gordon Lish's edit - go to www.newyorker.com.
