What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories by Raymond Carver Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories
Book Review: This is Gordon Lish, not Raymond Carver
Summary: 2 Stars
If you're really interested in reading Raymond Carver's work, choose anything he wrote after 1982. Take a look at Cathedral, or, even better, Where I'm Calling From, which is his definitive retrospective.So why is this book Gordon Lish's? Check out the New York Times article "The Carver Chronicles" by D. T. Max, published in late 1998. Up until the publication of Cathedral, editor Gordon Lish hacked, slashed, and rewrote the endings of Carver's stories. The stories Lish edited do not even resemble the later revisions by Carver. In many cases, as Max cites in his expose, Lish cut more than 50% of what Carver submitted, often adding bleak endings that were never there. Nearly every story in this collection suffers from Lish's bleak outlook. Carver was never the minimalist; Lish was.
This collection may be worthwhile to some folks who want to see the relationship between an editor and a writer, or it may be useful to diehard Carver fans who want to see the changes Carver made in his later collections. Otherwise, unless you want to read Gordon Lish stories, stay away from this book and read Carver's later work.
Book Review: As minimalist as he gets
Summary: 4 Stars
Any true Carver fan will tell you that he is a "precisionist", not a "minimalist." That said, I still think this is the most minimalist of Carver's books.Part of that is because of ruthless editors. I recently read that, despite Carver's protestations, many of the stories here were cut mercilessly. Some of this shows through later in his fiction -- "The Bath" is clearly a cut-back edition of "A Small, Good Thing", published in Cathedral, and a longer version of "So Much Water So Close to Home" can be found in "Where I'm Coming From."
Enough. You want to know about this book, not mumbo-jumbo about Carver and his other books. Carver is in fine form here, and his ability to portray pain, suffering, desperation, humor and hysteria in just a few pages is powerful.
Carver writes the blue collar, alcoholic, separated or divorced character so much and so well you begin to assume these things about this characters, his stories. Here is the working man's writer, and the writer's working man.
My favorites in this book are "Why Don't You Dance?", "Gazebo", "Everything Stuck to Him", and, of course, the title piece.
His writing is so well-executed it changes my patterns of thinking -- I wander with a Carver-esque grimness, loneliness. He doesn't just write about love and desperation, he writes them directly -- a distinction I can't really explain.
All that to say here is wonderful writing.
An example:
"My friend Mel McGinnis was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and sometimes that gives him the right.
The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were Mel and me and his second wife, Teresa--Terri, we called her-- and my wife, Laura. We lived in Albequerque then. But we were all from someplace else."
--- if you'd like to discuss Carver with me, this book, my review, or anything else, e-mail me at williekrischke@hotmail.com. i'd love to hear from you.
Book Review: A Poignant and Realistic Look at Life
Summary: 4 Stars
This books title is apt not only for the story it is named for, but for the collection as a whole. Carver's world is one of broken dreams, harsh realities, and misplaced desires. His stories center on ordinary working class Americans and what goes on behind their closed doors. He deals with topics such as divorce, domestic abuse, infidelity, and alcoholism. Grim as that may sound, these provocative stories leave the reader to conclude that what may seem like an end, is really the start of a new beginning. In other words, these people are ridding themselves of their baggage. Bottled up feelings and frustrations are exposed for the first time. Carver sticks to the basic premise that the biggest problem in relationships today is the inability to communicate effectively. He demonstrates this among his characters, while accurately portraying male and female points of view. Carver's words are not poetic or beautiful. He doesn't use extensive vocabulary. He keeps it simple. Although you won't get the lyricism of Chekhov or Maupassant here, what you will get is something that is likely to be personally meaningful and uplifting in a rare sort of way.Book Review: What we talk about when we talk about a fantastic book
Summary: 5 Stars
Raymond Carver is the most incredible story teller of all time. I have read and re-read this book many, many times, and each time I enjoy it more than the time before. The story that shares the name of the book is the single best short story that I have ever read and I have read gaggles of short stories. The characters that he describes are interesting and so well- developed that you will look at everyone you ever meet with new perspective. You will see that there is the potential for profoundness in even the most seemingly simple situation. The language he uses, the situations he illustrates, and the dialogues presented are perfectly synchronized, so much that you forget that you are reading and find yourself totally submerged in the experience and the thought provoking world that you have entered.Book Review: Not so good
Summary: 2 Stars
To those who say they "levitated" when reading a Raymond Carver story, Marlon Brando--when told his acting could "capture moments"-- said to the PLAYBOY interviewer: "A prostitute can capture a moment. A prostitute can make you think nirvana has arrived on the 12:30 plane, and it ain't necessarily so." Above all, Carver is writing for other writers. I would bet anything most of the people praising this book below are writing students, writers, or professors. It's incestuous writing, with all the meta-fiction cliches for the coverted. Hemingway--to his eternal credit--in a letter to a publisher, said, "My stories are intended to appeal to high brows and low brows BOTH." Hemingway, of course, wrote brilliant stories. Truman Capote is a famous writer, but his short stories get little attention. I implore you to read Capote's short stories before you inflict Carver upon yourself.