Poor Pound - ouch! (2 Viewers)

Buk said it himself (paraphrasing) "Do you think Hemingway or Camus had this problem?"
Hemingway yep - but only when he was dead and only the posthumous stuff. Never heard of anyone going through The Old Man and The Sea and snipping the ends of the sentences.
Yeah, Martin - not really editing but circumcising. Or do I mean "castrating"?
 
No doubt this has been mentioned before, possibly even in this thread, but Raymond Carver's stories were heavily edited, to the degree that what we think of as his sparse, tight style is really the editor's style. This fact came out recently, long after Carver's death, and was a big scandal. Carver may have been on board with this, or merely tolerated it -- I forget which -- but he certainly knew about it.
 
That's quite different, isn't it.

We know that when Bukowski became aware of the edits in Women (which weren't even major, just idiotic) he made Martin revert them. So any comparison to Carver is meaningless.

We don't have to speculate, we know that Bukowski did not approve of Martin's edits.

And Martin knew that dead men can't complain. Which only makes what he did all the more cowardly and vile.
 
Lish editing Carver, and fundamentally changing the work, did become the "Carver style" we've read. It also ended their friendship. It's every bit as heavy-handed as these Buk edits -- but Lish was at least a pretty damn good editor. Without debating who was "right," or which versions are "better" -- it was done while Carver was alive. My sense of it is that Carver trusted Lish, and that it was collaborative (initially).

These edits of Bukowski's work cut out the heart of the original texts. And reasons why don't matter. I don't think there can be a debate about which versions are better -- because it's not even a question! The edits are so much worse in every instance I've seen. Probably it began as a good, and helpful thing: "I'll just clean up the typos..." but quickly hurtled into this horrific situation we see today.

I think what makes an editor great is questions -- collaborating with the writer with questions. Could this be tightened up some? Is there an opportunity here to connect to the theme again? Did you consider something like this here? But it should only ever be a collaboration.

Anything changed without conversation or consent just ain't right, dawg.
 
These edits of Bukowski's work [...] Probably it began as a good, and helpful thing: "I'll just clean up the typos..." but quickly hurtled into this horrific situation we see today.
The evidence suggests that the butchery began immediately, with the first collection that was put together after Bukowski's death, Bone Palace Ballet, and was in full swing by the following book, What Matters Most.

That What Matters Most link says it all. Everything was changed.
 
Hard to tell at this point, but I don't recall seeing many yellow stickers at the H. Library. I think that was probably S. Harrison's doing.
 
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Thank you MJP, I just typed his name in the search bar and found a lot of threads that I am going to read.
But just in case I get lost in all those posts, was everyone certain at the time that his manuscripts were authentic?
 

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