What We Talk About When We Talk About Writing

Any fan of Raymond Carver knows the title of this post is taken from one of his signature stories, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love."

Or is it his story? Or his title?

I just got around to delving into a December issue of The New Yorker that explores this.

Fascinating stuff.

The article prints a series of heart-wrenching letters between Carver and his editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Gordon Lish.

Lish suggested the famous title. He also evidently cut up to 40% of some of Carver's early stories. The stories were critically acclaimed and famous for being minimalist ("Kmart realism"). But it appears the minimalism came from Lish. Later, Carver began to insist on something more expansive, and the letters chronicle this struggle between writer and beloved editor (and an editor who was instrumental in success); between authenticity and artifice.

The New Yorker elicits an intriguing literary debate by printing the expanded version, you might say the unedited version, of the now-classic "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," as urged by Carver's widow, the poet Tess Gallagher. The expanded story is called "Beginners" (Carver's title). Let's just say the story is markedly different. I don't quite know what I feel, or think, since I'd have to re-read the edited, famous version, and I haven't yet done that. (It would make for a challenging lit class to compare the two versions.) [BULLETIN: After initially posting this, I discovered The New Yorker provides the two versions, complete with edits! Here it is. Very cool! Decide for yourself.]

A few personal connections and observations:

1. Carver wrote many of the letters while he was here in Syracuse, while on the faculty of Syracuse University.
2. During this time, the 1980s, I was living in New Jersey. Around 1984 or -85, I met Gordon Lish by the copier, while I was working for the Random House School Division (no longer exists). My boss and publisher, Charlie Selden, knew Lish pretty well, so I used that as an excuse to introduce myself.
3. I wrote a memoir-essay piece about baseball, fathers, and sons and shared it with Gordon. He was very positive about it and encouraged me to send it to The New York Times Magazine, for a column they ran in those days, called About Men. (The piece wasn't accepted; they had already selected something similar, but the rejection was also very supportive.) Charlie Selden assured me that Gordon Lish would not have said such good words about my writing if he didn't mean it. Cool.
4. Once, several years later, I spied John Updike coming into the building at 201 East 50th Street. I engaged him in conversation and got his autograph in the lobby. It was Gordon Lish who interrupted me and Updike, whereupon I bowed out.

Editing is intimacy. Carver says frequently that Lish was closer to him than a blood brother.

Alas, blogging lacks editing, lacks that other eye, that elbow-to-elbow challenging, critiquing, and nurturing.

For that, we are all the poorer.