Stephen King does a fabulous review of a new Raymond Carver biography and volume of Carver’s stores, restored after being eviscerated by Esquire‘s then-editor, Gordon Lish. (This isn’t the first time this issue has come up either; the NYT has made this charge before and the restored, Lish-less stories are VERY different.)
Whatever the truth, King (correctly) highlights what can happen to a writer’s work if you just can’t say no to an editor–or, rather, keep saying yes. As King writes: “a good editor should improve the writer’s work by doing a number of useful things: posing questions the writer should have answered and didn’t, suggesting places where thematic concerns can be reinforced to make a more pleasing whole, and pointing out (gently) infelicities of language. What an editor should never do is superimpose his or her own beliefs about style and story on the author’s work. An editor should be an expert midwife, not a surrogate parent.”
Heinlein once said that a writer should never rewrite except to editorial demand. Dean Smith gave me his own caveat to that Heinlein-ism: and you agree.
I have been fortunate to have a series of expert midwives. My Carolrhoda editor has been both exhaustive and thorough and, best of all, respectful. He has been, as King would have it, gentle–and gently unsparing when it’s counted.
Now, what’s also very interesting about the whole Carver debacle is that Lish is also a writer and very much alive. You have to wonder what’s going through his mind–and if he’ll have a response.
Well worth the read, folks.
Currently reading: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
