Subject
Re: VN, Lish, Carver
From
Date
Body
To Stan, Jansy, Matt--
After I reported the VN incident from the Carver biography, I realized that I owned two influential Esquire anthologies, edited by Lish in the 1970s. The first of them, The Secret Life of Our Times (1973), contains VN's "A Russian Beauty," which, according to Wikipedia, appeared in the magazine in 1971. This would have been before the submission of the excerpt from LATH and indicates that Lish could exercise restraint when he thought it was called for. The most striking thing about the anthology is that it devotes 66 pages to a novella, "I Am Elijah Thrush," by the now shamefully neglected gay writer, James Purdy. This was a bold choice for the magazine at that time and shows that Lish's taste was not confined to a particular type of story or writing style--Purdy's baroque irony contrasting vividly with the two Carver stories in the anthology and also, of course, with "A Russian Beauty."
In searching the Esquire site, I came across a feature, published after Lish's time, that includes quotes from both VN and Carver:
-------
Esquire's 70 Greatest Sentences
http://www.esquire.com/features/70th-anniv/ESQ1003-OCT_SENTENCES_rev_?click=main_sr
Commonsense has trampled down many a gentle genius whose eyes had delighted in a too early moonbeam of some too early truth; commonsense has back-kicked dirt at the loveliest of queer paintings because a blue tree seemed madness to its well-meaning hoof; commonsense has prompted ugly but strong nations to crush their fair but frail neighbors the moment a gap in history offered a chance that it would have been ridiculous not to exploit. --Vladimir Nabokov, "How to Read, How to Write," 1980
He turns the empty glass in his hand, and considers biting off the rim. --Raymond Carver, "What Is It?" 1972
-------
In searching my hard drive for possible comparisons between VN and Carver, I stumbled on the following passage from an especially well-balanced discussion of the Carver-Lish-Gallagher affair:
-------
LOS ANGELES TIMES
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/27/opinion/oe-ulin27
Everybody owns Raymond
In the tussle over Carver's short stories, the question of which version is true, better or best misses the point.
by David L. Ulin
Vladimir Nabokov refused a request to see his revisions. "Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts," he said. "It is like passing around samples of one's sputum."
But others, such as Carver, Yeats, W.H. Auden and Walt Whitman -- who continually revised and expanded "Leaves of Grass" throughout his lifetime -- leave a published record of their drafts, proof that they never do stop while they are alive. For them, writing is ongoing, a reflection of the ebb and flow, the mutability, of existence itself.
-------
Assuming the quote from VN is accurate, some readers may think it relevant to the current debate about the publication of Laura. But the point I want to make is that since, for Carver, nothing was set in stone, he felt free, when he put together his selected works in 1986, to choose between different versions (as opposed to "rough drafts") of some of the stories. He did this at a time in his life when he was sane, sober, and financially secure. It's therefore significant that he chose to keep so many of the Lish-edited stories in what he intended as his main legacy. In my opinion, he made mostly wise choices, though I greatly prefer "The Bath" (Lish) to the longer version of the story called "A Small, Good Thing." Although I'm in the minority on this particular story, it's interesting to compare the telephone call at the end of "The Bath" with VN's use of the same device in "Signs and Symbols." And didn't VN himself publish different versions of some of
his own work?
In any case, with the publication of the Library of America Carver volume, we have, in addition to the Lished stories, the versions preferred by his second wife, Tess Gallagher. Ulin is right, surely, that too much can, and has, been made of the differences.
Jim Twiggs
________________________________
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
After I reported the VN incident from the Carver biography, I realized that I owned two influential Esquire anthologies, edited by Lish in the 1970s. The first of them, The Secret Life of Our Times (1973), contains VN's "A Russian Beauty," which, according to Wikipedia, appeared in the magazine in 1971. This would have been before the submission of the excerpt from LATH and indicates that Lish could exercise restraint when he thought it was called for. The most striking thing about the anthology is that it devotes 66 pages to a novella, "I Am Elijah Thrush," by the now shamefully neglected gay writer, James Purdy. This was a bold choice for the magazine at that time and shows that Lish's taste was not confined to a particular type of story or writing style--Purdy's baroque irony contrasting vividly with the two Carver stories in the anthology and also, of course, with "A Russian Beauty."
In searching the Esquire site, I came across a feature, published after Lish's time, that includes quotes from both VN and Carver:
-------
Esquire's 70 Greatest Sentences
http://www.esquire.com/features/70th-anniv/ESQ1003-OCT_SENTENCES_rev_?click=main_sr
Commonsense has trampled down many a gentle genius whose eyes had delighted in a too early moonbeam of some too early truth; commonsense has back-kicked dirt at the loveliest of queer paintings because a blue tree seemed madness to its well-meaning hoof; commonsense has prompted ugly but strong nations to crush their fair but frail neighbors the moment a gap in history offered a chance that it would have been ridiculous not to exploit. --Vladimir Nabokov, "How to Read, How to Write," 1980
He turns the empty glass in his hand, and considers biting off the rim. --Raymond Carver, "What Is It?" 1972
-------
In searching my hard drive for possible comparisons between VN and Carver, I stumbled on the following passage from an especially well-balanced discussion of the Carver-Lish-Gallagher affair:
-------
LOS ANGELES TIMES
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/27/opinion/oe-ulin27
Everybody owns Raymond
In the tussle over Carver's short stories, the question of which version is true, better or best misses the point.
by David L. Ulin
Vladimir Nabokov refused a request to see his revisions. "Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts," he said. "It is like passing around samples of one's sputum."
But others, such as Carver, Yeats, W.H. Auden and Walt Whitman -- who continually revised and expanded "Leaves of Grass" throughout his lifetime -- leave a published record of their drafts, proof that they never do stop while they are alive. For them, writing is ongoing, a reflection of the ebb and flow, the mutability, of existence itself.
-------
Assuming the quote from VN is accurate, some readers may think it relevant to the current debate about the publication of Laura. But the point I want to make is that since, for Carver, nothing was set in stone, he felt free, when he put together his selected works in 1986, to choose between different versions (as opposed to "rough drafts") of some of the stories. He did this at a time in his life when he was sane, sober, and financially secure. It's therefore significant that he chose to keep so many of the Lish-edited stories in what he intended as his main legacy. In my opinion, he made mostly wise choices, though I greatly prefer "The Bath" (Lish) to the longer version of the story called "A Small, Good Thing." Although I'm in the minority on this particular story, it's interesting to compare the telephone call at the end of "The Bath" with VN's use of the same device in "Signs and Symbols." And didn't VN himself publish different versions of some of
his own work?
In any case, with the publication of the Library of America Carver volume, we have, in addition to the Lished stories, the versions preferred by his second wife, Tess Gallagher. Ulin is right, surely, that too much can, and has, been made of the differences.
Jim Twiggs
________________________________
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/