Fires. Essays, Poems, Stories

and reading plays about princes and dukes and the overthrow of kingdoms. Quests and the like, large undertakings to establish heroes in their rightful places. Novels with larger-than-life heroes.) But reading what Chekhov had to say in that letter, and in other letters of his as well, and reading his stories, made me see things differently than I had before. Not long afterwards I read a play and a number of stories by Maxim Gorky, and he simply reinforced in his work what Chekhov had to say. Richard Ford is another fine writer. He's primarily a novelist, but he's also written stories and essays. He's a friend. I have a lot of friends who are good friends, and some of them are good writers. Some not so good.
    INTERVIEWER
    What do you do in that case? I mean, how do you handle that—if one of your friends publishes something you don't like?
    CARVER I don't say anything unless the friend asks me, and I hope he doesn't. But if you're asked you have to say what you think, of course. But you try to say it in a way that it doesn't wreck the friendship. You want your friends to do well and write the best they can. But sometimes their work is a disappointment. You want everything to go well for them, but you have this dread that maybe it won't and there's not much you can do.
    INTERVIEWER What do you think of moral fiction? I guess this has to lead
    into talk about John Gardner and his influence on you. I know you were his student many years ago at Chico State College.
    CARVER That's true. I've written about our relationship in the Antaeus piece and elaborated on it more in my introduction to a posthumous book of his called On Becoming a Novelist. I think On Moral Fiction is a wonderfully smart book. I don't agree with all of it, by any means, but generally he's right. Not so much in his assessments of living writers as in the aims, the aspirations of the book. It's a book that wants to affirm life rather than trash it. Gardner's definition of morality is life-affirming. And in that regard he believes good fiction is moral fiction. It's a book to argue with, if you like to argue. It's brilliant, in any case. I think he may argue his case even better in On Becoming a Novelist And he doesn't go after other writers as he did in On Moral Fiction. We had been out of touch with each other for years when he published On Moral Fiction, but his influence, the things he stood for in my life when I was his student, were still so strong that for a long while I didn't want to read the book. I was afraid to find out that what I'd been writing all these years was immoral! You understand that we'd not seer each other for nearly twenty years and had only renewed our friendship after I'd moved to Syracuse and he was down there at Binghamton, seventy miles away. There was a lot of anger directed toward Gardner and the book when it was published. He touched nerves. I happen to think it's a remarkable piece of work.
    INTERVIEWER
    But after you read the book, what did you think then about your own work? Were you writing "moral" or "immoral" stories?
    CARVER I'm still not sure! But I heard from other people, and then he told me himself, that he liked my work. Especially the new work. That pleases me a great deal. Read On Becoming a Novelist
    INTERVIEWER
    Do you still write poetry?
    CARVER
    Some, but not enough. I want to write more. If too long a period of time goes by, six months or so, I get nervous if I haven't written any poems. I find myself wondering if I've stopped being a poet or stopped being able to write poetry. It's usually then that I sit down and try to write some poems. This book of mine, Fires —that's got all of the poems I want to keep.
    INTERVIEWER
    How do they influence each other? The writing of fiction and the writing of poetry?
    CARVER
    They don't any longer. For a long time I was equally interested in the writing of poetry and the writing of fiction. In magazines I always turned to the poems first before I read the stories. Finally I had to make a choice, and I came down on the side of the fiction. It was the right choice for me. I'm not a "bom" poet. I don't know if I'm a "born" anything except a white American male. Maybe I'll become an occasional poet. But I'll settle for that. That's better than not being any kind of poet at all.
    INTERVIEWER
    How has fame changed you?
    CARVER
    I feel uncomfortable with that word. You see, I started out with such low expectations in the first place—I mean how far are you going to get