LITERARY SLUGFEST: Carver vs. Gogol

In the interest of furthering both literature and head-to-head competetion, two of our absolute favorite things, we're proud to bring you this first installment of SLUGFEST, a semi-regular column comparing two pieces of media with something in common. Sometimes it will be movies, sometimes albums, sometimes literature, and sometimes a mixture of all these things, like a suicide at the Burger King drink machine. Today it's literature, two masters of short fiction and their best collections:

Tales of Good and Evil
by Nikolai Gogol

VS

Where I'm Calling From
by Raymond Carver

ROUND ONE (narrative voice): At first glance, you may see little similarities between the Father of Russian Literature and the Founder of so-called (insultingly so, I think) K-Mart Fiction, but then you're just not looking close enough. Both men dealt with the common people in the same way as Dante, Shakespeare, and Cervantes before them; they spoke to them, as them. They understood their topic and their class so well that their work became more than mere fiction, it became a mirror to the times, a mirror to the people who made the times. Gogol and Carver were quiet observers, content to let the story tell itself. Any moral lessons or judgements passed were inferences from the reader, not bold implications from these two masters of truth and subtlety. But every round has a winner, and in terms of who better landed his punches when it came to defining the world around him, I gotta give it to Carver by a slight margin. His characters breathe easier, in my opinion, they exist sooner, reveal themselves more through action and dialogue than description. Some of the realest people I've read have been Carver characters. Sugar Ray gets round one.

ROUND TWO (narrative style): Some of you might think that Carver is the shoe-in here, but let's see what happens. It's true that Carver's style - like Hemingway's, or Faulkner's - is instantly recognizeable, while Gogol's, though just as exquisite and masterful, is more traditional, classical. Carver is stark and gritty, while Gogol is melifluous and lush. Both styles serve their respective contents, both illustrate an author who knows his language and his character's language inside and out. But for me, and you can call me a purist, I prefer the graceful hooks of Gogol to the swift jabs of Carver. All tied up after two.

ROUND THREE (legacy): Carver, for a period that perhaps is still occurring, was the most imitated writer in MFA programs here in the United States. Everyone was going to be the next Carver. As yet, no one is. But then there's Gogol, coming out of his corner with a supporting quote that has been attributed to Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Turgenev: "We all came out from under Gogol's Overcoat." The quote references the short story by that title, and is meant to demonstrate the impact Gogol had not only on Russian literature, but the short story in general. Nobody wrote them like Gogol before, and everyone writes them like Gogol since. Including Carver. KO.

WINNER: Nikolai "Pretty Boy" Gogol, Tales of Good and Evil