"First of all, Carver sucks. Second of all, despite being a militant maximalist, and as I suspect all maximalists do deep down, I actually love minimalism when it’s done stylishly, freakishly, when it ‘mak[es] strange"
have you ever read his "Beginners?" the versions of his stuff *before* Lish tossed them into the homogenizer? "What We Talk About" is much, much more like you're describing here — it's much more stylish, paced better, there's better description, etc.
Lish sucked, on numerous levels (not least of which his own work that's immensely forgettable, and only got critical praise because Lish was who he was — an asshole with a pen, unafraid to throw his own critics (or those of "his" writers) under the bus.
Carver himself though — legitimately brilliant, and underrated in terms of what his actual voice and style was; long overshadowed by Lish.
Or this one from "One More Thing:"
This is the Lish version of the ending:
"L.D. put the shaving bag under his arm and picked up the suitcase.
He said, “I just want to say one more thing.”
But then he could not think what it could possibly be"
This is Carver's original:
"L.D. put the shaving bag under his arm again and once more picked up the suitcase. “I just want to say one more thing, Maxine. Listen to me. Remember this,” he said. “I love you. I love you no matter what happens. I love you too, Bea. I love you both.” He stood there at the door and felt his lips begin to tingle as he looked at them for what, he believed, might be the last time. “Good-bye,” he said.
“You call this love, L.D.?” Maxine said. She let go of Bea’s hand. She made a fist. Then she shook her head and jammed her hands into her coat pockets. She stared at him and then dropped her eyes to something on the floor near his shoes.
It came to him with a shock that he would remember this night and her like this. He was terrified to think that in the years ahead she might come to resemble a woman he couldn’t place, a mute figure in a long coat, standing in the middle of a lighted room with lowered eyes.
“Maxine!” he cried. “Maxine!”
“Is this what love is, L.D.?” she said, fixing her eyes on him. Her eyes were terrible and deep, and he held them as long as he could."
"What We Talk About" is the worst offender — shortened by half, and stripped of anything that makes it "less readable."
If you (like me) think you don't like Carver, but have never really read his *actual* work (thanks to the generations of Lish's outsized and undue influence) — Beginners is worth a read.
there was a big scandal with him, once upon a time, and Beginners played into that.
he edited everything to death and he saw himself as some sort of ultimate arbiter of quality, and took a very heavy hand to every author he touched. some (like Nabokov) just wouldn’t have it. Others (like Carver) gave in. And what he was doing was some kind of literary faustian bargain. In exchange for them doing that, he’d give them an extra push and champion “their” work to his connections.
you can see how heavy-handed he was in his own work — it reads like the very sterile, brutalist minimalism Carver’s become known for, but without Carver’s heart and eye for emotional weight in scenes (Beginners shows that he wasn’t really just using movement and actions within the scenes like it seems in the Lish versions. He’s using the body language and movement to give more depth to exchanges in his scenes — something Lish missed entirely).
Carver was, in a way Mailer never managed, more directing his scenes through his cast’s actions to get more emotion, nuance, and subtext out of them.
Like yeah, Carver did need an editor. He’s a little prone to rambling in places, but a much, much lighter hand and a little encouragement to get more sense imagery into his stories would’ve refined him into something even better than people tend to remember him as today.
He (and arguably nobody else either) didn’t need Lish, though.
The New Yorker did a solid piece on him some years back, focusing on his cult of personality (in terms of his workshops he ran — described in his day as being “like a cult”), “Seduce the Whole World.”
i remember that NYer piece! will say that i do think lish occupied a necessary libidinal role in the literary ecosystem & that weirdly the absence of a cruel daddy everyone is trying to please has sort of led to drab whiny self-indulgent, self-infantilizing flabbiness in non-alt lit lit circles. that said lish is also lowkey laughable in this regard bc iirc he’s ALLEGEDLY the guy ottessa moshfegh easily seduced @ the age of 19 or w/e. comes off as a total rube & trick in that piece
Well done all, great stuff. My advocacy for minimalism is not a call to accept the idea wholesale, as an ethos, but rather used as a contrast to the onslaught of the max. This will create a flow meant to hypnotize the consumer (meant literally). The taste will always be in the fat, but maybe have a salad too.
I enjoyed the letters shared between himself and Henry Miller. That's all I've got. */exeunts*
"First of all, Carver sucks. Second of all, despite being a militant maximalist, and as I suspect all maximalists do deep down, I actually love minimalism when it’s done stylishly, freakishly, when it ‘mak[es] strange"
have you ever read his "Beginners?" the versions of his stuff *before* Lish tossed them into the homogenizer? "What We Talk About" is much, much more like you're describing here — it's much more stylish, paced better, there's better description, etc.
Lish sucked, on numerous levels (not least of which his own work that's immensely forgettable, and only got critical praise because Lish was who he was — an asshole with a pen, unafraid to throw his own critics (or those of "his" writers) under the bus.
Carver himself though — legitimately brilliant, and underrated in terms of what his actual voice and style was; long overshadowed by Lish.
Or this one from "One More Thing:"
This is the Lish version of the ending:
"L.D. put the shaving bag under his arm and picked up the suitcase.
He said, “I just want to say one more thing.”
But then he could not think what it could possibly be"
This is Carver's original:
"L.D. put the shaving bag under his arm again and once more picked up the suitcase. “I just want to say one more thing, Maxine. Listen to me. Remember this,” he said. “I love you. I love you no matter what happens. I love you too, Bea. I love you both.” He stood there at the door and felt his lips begin to tingle as he looked at them for what, he believed, might be the last time. “Good-bye,” he said.
“You call this love, L.D.?” Maxine said. She let go of Bea’s hand. She made a fist. Then she shook her head and jammed her hands into her coat pockets. She stared at him and then dropped her eyes to something on the floor near his shoes.
It came to him with a shock that he would remember this night and her like this. He was terrified to think that in the years ahead she might come to resemble a woman he couldn’t place, a mute figure in a long coat, standing in the middle of a lighted room with lowered eyes.
“Maxine!” he cried. “Maxine!”
“Is this what love is, L.D.?” she said, fixing her eyes on him. Her eyes were terrible and deep, and he held them as long as he could."
"What We Talk About" is the worst offender — shortened by half, and stripped of anything that makes it "less readable."
If you (like me) think you don't like Carver, but have never really read his *actual* work (thanks to the generations of Lish's outsized and undue influence) — Beginners is worth a read.
thank u for the rec! that’s crazy. lish shld be sued for medical malpractice
there was a big scandal with him, once upon a time, and Beginners played into that.
he edited everything to death and he saw himself as some sort of ultimate arbiter of quality, and took a very heavy hand to every author he touched. some (like Nabokov) just wouldn’t have it. Others (like Carver) gave in. And what he was doing was some kind of literary faustian bargain. In exchange for them doing that, he’d give them an extra push and champion “their” work to his connections.
you can see how heavy-handed he was in his own work — it reads like the very sterile, brutalist minimalism Carver’s become known for, but without Carver’s heart and eye for emotional weight in scenes (Beginners shows that he wasn’t really just using movement and actions within the scenes like it seems in the Lish versions. He’s using the body language and movement to give more depth to exchanges in his scenes — something Lish missed entirely).
Carver was, in a way Mailer never managed, more directing his scenes through his cast’s actions to get more emotion, nuance, and subtext out of them.
Like yeah, Carver did need an editor. He’s a little prone to rambling in places, but a much, much lighter hand and a little encouragement to get more sense imagery into his stories would’ve refined him into something even better than people tend to remember him as today.
He (and arguably nobody else either) didn’t need Lish, though.
The New Yorker did a solid piece on him some years back, focusing on his cult of personality (in terms of his workshops he ran — described in his day as being “like a cult”), “Seduce the Whole World.”
i remember that NYer piece! will say that i do think lish occupied a necessary libidinal role in the literary ecosystem & that weirdly the absence of a cruel daddy everyone is trying to please has sort of led to drab whiny self-indulgent, self-infantilizing flabbiness in non-alt lit lit circles. that said lish is also lowkey laughable in this regard bc iirc he’s ALLEGEDLY the guy ottessa moshfegh easily seduced @ the age of 19 or w/e. comes off as a total rube & trick in that piece
Have you read Flaubert? Sentimental Education has some exceptional maximalist prose that makes me want to throw up.
It’s a masterpiece and better than Madame Bovary?
Indeed it is.
Back to hunting all of you for sport.
To punctuate, HARK YE YET AGAIN, THE LITTLE LOWER LAYER, it is not a fucking MANIFESTO, if you PAY FOR IT.
My dude, it's a free post. They all are.
Also, do you have a manifesto I can get about manifesto qualifications? Happy to pay if needed.
xoxoxo
I like this
Well done all, great stuff. My advocacy for minimalism is not a call to accept the idea wholesale, as an ethos, but rather used as a contrast to the onslaught of the max. This will create a flow meant to hypnotize the consumer (meant literally). The taste will always be in the fat, but maybe have a salad too.
For completionism’s sake, linking my opposition to this series of essays here. https://open.substack.com/pub/fraterasemlen/p/against-the-neo-passeists-on-minimalism
Also: FdS would rather countenance telepathy than admit cognition & individual experience into investigation of language.