What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories by Raymond Carver Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.73 You Save: $6.22 (48%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.50 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories
Book Review: The One True Thing
Summary: 5 Stars
I happened upon Carver completely by accident. My roommate had left behind a xerox of "A Small, Good Thing" and I started reading it, and I was so changed by it, so hurt, I decided to look up more works by this 'nobody' named Raymond Carver. I did not know how revered and influential he was. Since then, he's become one of my favorite writers. And the reader from L.A. below obviously has a personal axe to grind with Carver. I do not believe anyone would post such an ugly opinion about a dead writer unless it was vindictive.Book Review: Carver: An American Chekov
Summary: 5 Stars
What the LA "reader" does not mention is that the Gottlieb connection is highly controversial -- more of an interesting theory than a fact. Even so, why criticize a young author for being influenced -- even molded -- by an editor? The author/editor relationship is complex, contentious, controversial -- and, in this case, extremely rewarding. If Gottlieb shares any credit for shaping Carver into a short story writer who can be mentioned in the same breath as Chekov and Hemingway, then I say, "Thanks a lot, Bob!" Nothing happens in the stories? C'mon, LA reader. Carver captures that unique American disconnection and emotional emptiness as well as any author imaginable. And he still manages to be funny! (Similarly, the movie "American Beauty" does a better job of being Carveresque than Altman's "Short Cuts" did.) This book is essential reading -- although "Where I'm Calling From" offers a more complete look at his entire career.Book Review: The most important book of the late 20th Century
Summary: 5 Stars
Please discount the inane ramblings of the "reader" from Los Angeles. He/She exposes his/her true colors with the complaint that "nothing happens" in these stories. I suppose he/she should stick to Daniel Steele or Tom Clancy. For the rest of you truly intelligent, literary people, this is one collection of short stories you cannot live without. Carver is able to express more emotion with his "minimalist" approach than most authors could ever dream of. One does not have to be overly verbose to tell a story. But don't take my word for it. Read all of Carver's books for yourself.Book Review: Dreadful
Summary: 1 Stars
Read the August 9, 1998 issue of "The New York Times Magazine" and you'll see that Raymond Carver is only nominally the author of these stories. His wife provided him with the plots of many of these stories, and his editor Robert Gottlieb edited them so severely that Gottlieb was usually more the author than Carver was. In fact, if many writers had been in Carver's position, they would be literary stars, too. Carver was unsuccessful, when Robert Gottlieb--a friend--became the fiction editor of "Esquire." He told Carver to send him some of his fiction, that he published in "Esquire." IT WAS CARVER'S CONNECTION TO GOTTLIEB THAT GOT CARVER BEFORE THE PUBLIC EYE, NOT HIS EXCELLENCE AS A WRITER. Because--on top of the fact that Gottlieb provided access to a major national magazine that few writers have--how many writers would Gottlieb have rewritten into acceptable prose, to the degree he did with Carver? And the stories are uneventful tedium. Nothing happens in them. If you are of the school of minimilist fiction, where plot-devices are vulgar to you, then this is your dream book. But to all who are not intellectual conformists, the emperor ain't wearing no clothes. Read Turgenev instead, and read a true master of the short story.Book Review: Martini-land
Summary: 5 Stars
Here it is, folks; this collection of short stories, Carver's best in my mind, will squeeze emotion out of you. His minimalist fiction is the perfect blend of true love and hard life, the vodka and vermouth in the true fiction martini. This book is the real deal. Read it, and ask yourself, though it be fiction, is there any truth to it?