China Mieville interview

is the new one, er, "in the bas-lag universe"?

No, it's basically this actual planet, but a very odd country here.

haha: http://tristram.wikispaces.com/Handlingers?f=print

is the cover any less hideous in reality?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41XgIIutNRL._SS500_.jpg

love this guy. thought PES, Scar and Iron Council were terrific, a breath of fresh air in a lot of ways, and in that order prob. am excited for new one whenever it comes out in paperback

lol, PES. one track mind.

Still not entirely sure this isn't AI generated.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GDfdXcuXQAAgvBB.jpg

Article about the celeb novel.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/13/keanu-and-co-how-celebrities-became-bestselling-novelists?

"“Publishing is always a collaboration,” says Seaman. “When I’ve edited a book, it’s always felt like a partnership. If people are making an argument for a ghostwriter to be on the cover, where do you draw the line? Because often an editor could have a really heavy hand in shaping a manuscript.” This is true: Raymond Carver’s stories were cut to pieces by editor Gordon Lish to create the minimalist voice for which Carver then became celebrated."

Are there that many examples like Carver?

the manuscript for lord of the flies was famously rejected many times until charles monteith at faber told golding to cut off the whole first half (why they're on the island = nuclear blasts) and the last section (what happened after they got home); i think there were many other edits also

someone shd research and write a book abt this (v interesting) topic

then i could be copy-editor and make the book readable lol (i don't do fiction tho)

I've got this Library of America Carver doorstop, but haven't started it yet:

In gathering all of Carver's stories, including early sketches and posthumously discovered works, The Library of America's Collected Stories provides a comprehensive overview of Carver's career as we have come to know it: the promise of Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? and the breakthrough of What We Talk About, on through the departures taken in Cathedral and the pathos of the late stories.
But it also prompts a fresh consideration of Carver by presenting Beginners, an edition of the manuscript of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love that Carver submitted to Gordon Lish, his editor and a crucial influence on his development. Lish's editing was so extensive that at one point Carver wrote him an anguished letter asking him not to publish the book; now, for the first time, readers can read both the manuscript and published versions of the collection that established Carver as a major American writer. Offering a fascinating window into the complex, fraught relation between writer and editor, Beginners expands our sense of Carver and is essential reading for anyone who cares about his achievement.

to return to the "publishing is a collaboration" commentator, she is in my opinion more right than wrong (tho the valence varies greatly with budget set aside, and i suspect secret-partner-style editors are somewhat thinner on the ground currently): anyway i googled "novels saved by editors" and came up w/a pretty solid list of canonic authors whose editors did a good deal of recasting work at some point

for example the new yorker's gus lobrano (whose name i mainly know from admiring side-mentions in books abt the in-office world of the new yorker, and who nevertheless doesn't get his own wikipedia entry)*: the new yorker was of course famously interventionist and rewriterly in its heyday (when this overlapped with US canonicity), and the rewrites introduced for the magazine presumably largely survived into the book versions of the same material

*fvck poets, WE are the unacknowledged legislators, poets never stop getting acknowledgment

Did Lish continue to edit Carver's stories like that, or did Carver just start writing them Lish-style?

Best revenge against the poets - edit them after they're dead:

https://alexanderadamsart.wordpress.com/2015/09/07/changes-to-posthumously-published-poems-by-charles-bukowski/

https://i.makeagif.com/media/2-10-2018/sb5MG0.gif

Are there that many examples like Carver?

I've always heard that Pound's edits to The Waste Land are transformative. Re: Carver/Lish, it's a very intense story -- Carver has letters begging Lish not to cut stuff he likes, but Lish was probably right about how to make these stories something that would garner Carver a real rep.

That xpost LoA Carver collection not only includes Beginners, the manuscript that became What We Talk About..., and that finished product as well, its Notes on the Texts recounts the editing process , incl. long quotes from Carver's letters---think there might be a collection of their correspondence already published?---can't take anymore time with this tonight.

So many thats, and the its, what the hell? Sorry.

need an editor