ABSTRACT
The article analyzes the published work of North American writer Raymond Carver (1938-1988), with an emphasis on the absence of aesthetic and social traditions in the background of his fictional universe. It looks at the debates and disagreements between Carver and his editor Gordon Lish over his second collection of short stories-now known as Beginners-as an expression of different forms of dialogue with literary tradition. In Carver’s writing there is a dearth of sociocultural references, both on the part of the author and his characters, while Lish emphasizes historical heritage through rupture and fragmentation of the text. This paper introduces the categories of the “beginner” (Carver) and the “initiated” (Lish), which serve not only to clarify the differences between both writers, but also to offer a typology for analyzing temporal and historical components of fictional texts.
Keywords:
Raymond Carver; Gordon Lish; historicity; American short-story; 20th century American literature