Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1989
ISBN-13:9780679723059ISBN:0679723056
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Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date Published: 1989-06-01
ISBN-13:9780679723059ISBN:0679723056
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780679723059. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780679723059ISBN:0679723056
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Description: Very good; Collectible. 1981 Collins (UK) hard cover-1st edition 1st printing-tears at top of dust jacket-owner's name inside cover-minor staining to page edge-otherwise cover and binding fine contents clean-enjoy. read more
Description: New. In his second collection of stories, as in his first, Carver's characters are peripheral people--people without education, insight or prospects, people too unimaginative to even give up. Carver celebrates these men and women. read more
"Two things that were on my mind as I read this for maybe the dozenth time:
1. Carver is so often extolled for the verisimilitude of his dialogue, but it's not really there, is it? Even the most moving lines (especially those, actually) I can't imagine anyone uttering outside a Carver story. Not without serious affectation, anyway. Carver himself said the same of Hemingway, that no one actually spoke like Hemingway characters - until they read Hemingway. He was right, of course. And I have noticed that people, after reading Carver for the first time, tend to develop certain tics (overuse of the word "thing", awkward repetitions, proclivity toward polysyndeton and hyposyllabia, other tics found in Carver that Carver probably picked up from Hemingway). And not just in writing, but everyday speech. That this happens enough to notice is pretty remarkable.
2. How much better Cathedral is. "What We Talk About..." is far and away the best story in this collection, and nearly everything in Cathedral is that good. I blame Gordon Lish, who seems to have systematically edited out the possibility of redemption from the entire collection - except the title story, of course, which is a big part of why it's the only story of Cathedral-level greatness. Of course, even there you find a clear sense of fragility and hopelessness in both couples. But the frailty of their love only draws them closer to one another, and if their love is doomed, it is at least survivable. Either way, there's hope. Not so much in the stories where women get killed. There's a lot of those.
"What more could anyone say about Raymond Carver. Just reading him makes typing every new word painful. Did that need to be typed? Did. That. ?
Not for everyone, and not to be read all at once (one story a week, like a strong, bitter pill, is about right. But a pill is medicine, right?)
Don't read if you always need shiny, happy stories. Just don't. For those that find that reductive, also don't read if you need angst and suffering and sorrow and think the world is an operatic "bad place". Just don't.
The world. That's what it is. Part of it, of course. Nobody can write about the dirt under their feet, holding them up. You can't wash water, you can't see your own eyes. You write about the world around you, not under you. No one can cover everything.
A writer that should be read by EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT EVER WANTS TO WRITE SHORT FICTION, EVER. Not because he's the king, or he's got the secret, or "the right approach". There is no "right approach". But once you read him, and if are honest, you'll always have him at the back of your mind, saying "isn't that too much? couldn't you say it simpler?" And maybe he won't always be right, or applicable, but he'll always be there and he'll help you know bad writing when you see it. And you'll curse him for it, maybe.
A cornerstone writer. Whether you like him or not."
"I'll announce the cliche of my loving this book before you beat me to it.
I'm an overeducated, mock-contemplative early-twenty-something with a penchant for strong male voices (despite my feminist leanings) and a distaste for anything too sentimental. I was raised in the tradition of "Show, Don't Tell" and hold this closer than even my favorite teddy (whose name is Atticus.) My middle name is "Minimalism." My other middle name is "Ooh, that sounds pretty."
With that out of the way, yes, of course I loved this volume, and probably for the reasons you'd expect.
Raymond Carver's name should be in lights. Everyone who likes this book is going to tell you that one of Carver's strengths is his knack for understatement. I'm guessing what they're getting at is Carver's ability to keep all the mechanics of his stories imperceptible beneath the surface, with maybe a few out-of-character exceptions (the alcohol device in the title story being one). There's also the fact that Carver seems to accomplish things in the span of one page that so many authors would kill many more trees (and possibly small children, and maybe even a puppy or two) to achieve; see the opening page of "Tell The Women We're Going" to see what I mean. How many authors can convincingly sum up the entire personal history of two characters in only one paragraph?
Beneath the tightness of each story there seems to be a distinctive pulse. Not the rhythm of the language. Rather, the kind of pure life energy that all artistic works strive for (or at least they should.) When stories took turns ("for the worst" is implicit), what startled me more than each outcome was often the fact that I was so moved by them each. It's because of this pulse that characters who existed for only 3 or 4 pages still seemed to walk off the page and become real. And that's probably what will make these stories linger in my memory.
People often seem to speak of "Raymond Carver's America" when they're trying to grasp these stories. I don't know what that means, or if Raymond Carver's America is anything like mine. Whatever it is, it's tortured and beautiful. And I like it."
"Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a masterpiece of short stories. The stories though sparse in length makes one reevaluate how he/she views life experiences of others. Carver takes what seem as inconsequential life experiences and weaves them into power packed encounters. (The Third Thing That Killed My Father)exolores the relationship between a mute man and his friend which is revealed for what it is when the mute dies in a flood. (The Bath) is the story of a husband and wife's handling of a situation when son in a coma. This story seems unfinished, yet I was not frustrated as it lends itself to allowing my imagination to flow. This story was rewritten by Carver as The Cathedral and also made into a movie. All of the stories are minimal yet powerful in the expression of human emotion."
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