After reading McGann's Intro and Chp. 1 of "The Textual Condition," I couldn't help but be reminded of a New Yorker article I once read regarding Raymond Carver's relationship with his editor, Gordon Lish. You can read it here. Basically, Carver felt that Lish had edited his stories down too much, so that it felt like it was no longer Carver's authorial voice coming through the text, but Lish's.
Judge for yourselves by reading the differences between the "original" and the "edited" stories.
Raymond Carver's original story
The edited story
Understandably, this goes in a different direction than what I understand McGann is saying in this week's assigned reading, but I couldn't help but think that it might be applicable to our discussion tomorrow.
Wow. Those are two very different works. There are some other famous examples of extensive editorial interventions--like Ezra Pound's editing of Eliot's "The Wasteland"--and there's usually a certain code of silence around the editor-author relationship. I must admit I like the edited story better, but it's fascinating to see how much more emotive and even melodramatic Carver's original was. Thanks for sharing this, Dena.
ReplyDelete