Will more Raymond Carver amount to less?

The recent announcement that we may be about to see a "new" collection of Raymond Carver's stories - or Carver as he really intended to be - and the resulting brouhaha, raises some interesting questions.

Of course, these stories, which made up Carver's first, acclaimed collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? won't really be new. Most of them will be the versions that existed before the legendary editor Gordon Lish got his red pen to them. Lish emended them so comprehensively that some critics have come to believe that he was actually Carver's collaborator in the creation of what have become landmark short stories, a form sadly in decline since Carver's apotheosis as a writer in the 80s.

I for one don't buy into the idea of Lish as a true collaborator. There is no debating the fact that Carver, his life and experiences on the margins of American life, were the source material for all of his tales. The fact that Lish had his hand in does not make him a collaborator any more than someone who makes suggestions about any artist's work - even those who toss in a line here and there.

The more interesting issue is whether or not we really need this "unadulterated" Carver. I maintain that we do, if for no other reason than to determine for ourselves what Carver truly intended to say and if it differed in significant ways from the "Lish" versions. Did the changes the redoubtable editor imposed upon Carver change the work for the better, and if so, how? Were the original ideas significantly modified? If yes, then perhaps Lish is owed more of Carver's reputation than we thought, and that means a full-scale reevaluation of the author is in order.

A side-by-side reading of the versions - which is apparently intended by Carver's executor, his second wife, Tess Gallagher - will perhaps reveal much. Or it won't reveal much at all.

Chances are good that the earlier versions will come across merely as rougher drafts of the finished pieces, analogous to the Beatles' working drafts on the Anthology series. The artist - and Carver fan - in me is interested reading that earlier material, in order to see how it was ultimately crafted, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

I want to read them, then, but I do also wonder about what's fuelling the republication. This of course is nothing but speculation on my part, but I have to wonder whether the income from the Carver estate hasn't fallen to the point where Tess Gallagher could do with a few dollars more. Why else procure a new agent and attempt to strike a deal for the "new" Carver collection for what will surely be a nice payday?