John Gardner, Raymond Carver Carver wrote thankfully of Gardner "giving me the key to his office so I would have a place to write on weekends," or explaining "the difference between saying something like, for example, 'wing of a meadow lark' and 'meadow lark's wing,'" or "drumming at me the importance of using -- I don't know how else to say it -- common language, the language of normal discourse, the language we speak to each other in." Jay McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City, etc.) was in turn a student of Carver's, and he tells this amusing anecdote from Carver's classroom: ''This class is called Form and Theory of the Short Story but all we do is sit around and talk about the books. Where's the form and the theory?'' Ray looked distressed. After a long pause, he said, ''I guess I'd say that the point here is that we read good books and discuss them.... And then you form your own theory.'' Then he smiled.
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