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: White Trash also suffers
Summary: 4 Stars
Besides its title being just wonderful, this book, alongside all the others written by Raymond Carver, is a raw chronicle of modern world, of a rootless time and of the lives that live in it. These lives by people from the suburbs, meeting in crossroads and malls, tragic in their own plainness, looking for a hope that will never show up. Carver tells us of the people that are never on a TV literary debate, that do not buy the last book "everyone intelligent people should read"; thousands of miles from our decadent postmodern litterary intelligentsia. If you think litterature only should deal with "people worthy of being portrayed", never read Carver. It is not surprising why Carver was born in the USA. His stories tell us of the futur of our societies, of those faces we cross -me included- in the supermarket and that we despise because they do not look as succesful as us, of how a world of over-consumption lead to some to a hell call alcohol (or drugs, or bulimy, or addictions, or violence). Carver showed us the hidden face of the world we refuse to see, but which lies next door, car even the white trash and the poor also suffers . Thank you so much, Mr. Carver, for letting me know.Book Review: Heartbreaking and life-affirming in powerfully spare prose
Summary: 5 Stars
The late Raymond Carver was simply one of the best American short story writers of the century. Though often (dis-)credited with inventing the "K-Mart school of writing" becasue of his lower class characters, Carver never succumbs to the excesses of minimalism, if that isn't a contradiction. He's spare but evocative--he can break your heart faster than any writer I know. Plus, one of the most insightful lines I know about alcoholism comes from Carver (this book, I believe): "Drinking's hard work if you're going to do it right." Carver is the Hemingway of the trailor court--or maybe the Beckett