What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories

I've been using this book in literature classes in Japan, and I have to say that these stories have lost none of their power in the twenty-odd years since they first appeared in book form. Carver was a master at presenting the disillusioned and the lost in terse, understated, colloquial English that still is as crisp and fine as when it was first minted. Like Hemingway, Carver developed a method to freight the simplest words and sentences with a depth of meaning that can skew the whole story in an unexpected way, even in the very last sentence. This takes craft and talent, both qualities that Carver exhibits in the highest degree.Some may find his choice of subject matter rather limited. His characters, too, often exhbit the same strengths and the same weaknesses (booze for instance)--and this may signal a kind of narrowness of vision to some. Certainly Carver does not have the breadth of a Tolstoy or a Doestoyevsky, or even of a Faulkner or a Hemingway--yet these limitations, I would argue, are also his greatest strengths. Though he does not have a universal sweep, Carver knows his territory well, and mines his subject in all kinds of fascinating ways.All in all, this book is a fine introduction to Raymond Carver's work.Carver's a champ in my book and I predict that some of these stories will find their way into the American canon right next to Melville, Poe, Emerson, and all the rest. What a chuckle for Ray when he looks down from his writer's heaven and notices the gold stamping on the spine!

The collection of short stories What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver is essential reading for short story writers. I say this because what he did seems to be the constant source of bad imitation.You could easily say his stories are about nothing - as I have heard said before. However, this would be inaccurate. Carver's stories are simply about people and the mundane everyday. His stories are minimalist to the extreme - which is what he is known for - and yet Carver still manage to create an entire world in them. Carver's stories are filled with small holes, but the familiarity of his stories allow the reader to automatically fill in the blanks. (I am left thinking about the amazing things many verbose fantasy writers could learn from Carver's more "literary" form of world creation)My favorite story of the bunch is "I Could See the Smallest Things." The story is a perfect example of Carver's writing. It takes place in a brief moment in time. Nothing happens except the passing of life. I would recommend you all to check it out.Many of the other stories are equally fantastic. There are really no complete duds in the bunch. If you are at all interested in the short story, I would go read a few of these quick gems in a bookstore or online somewhere and see if its for you. Carver is not a writer I would read everyday - I enjoy things a little more out there - but I am sure I will read more of his stories and books to satisfy my sporadic reality based literary fiction cravings.Check out other reviews by me on my Amazon profile or at my books blog [...]

If you like stories where something happens, characters find fullfillment, love and success, characters talk things out and get somewhere----this book is not for you. I like those books, but I like this too---in certain moods, usually when I'm taking things a little on the dark side. Carver is a master short story writer, but these are minimalist, very sad stories about people at the end of some tether or other. I can only read a few a night, and often reread them so I can stop reading for the action and read for Mr. Carver's beautiful language.Especially interesting is the title story, what we talk about etc. In the story two couples sit down and start talking about love. One of the women talks alot about her ex-boyfriend, an abusive guy who she couldn't seem to stay away from. They're drinking, of course---de rigeur and the source of most trouble in Carver stories. They talk and drink, and as they talk, the rooms darkens---but nobody turns on the lights. I think it's a metaphor for how we live. Nothing is easy. We can color love with all kinds of pretty hearts and flowers colors, but it's really hard to keep that bright outlook in the face of what it takes to love somebody, every day, the right way.If you've been happily married for 30 years, this probably won't mean alot to you. But for the many people who have experience with creating their own misery at some length, it can be a resonant read. I wouldn't know anything about that, of course......Not for everyone, but pretty darn good.