Raymond Carver

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I read a collection of Raymond Carver short stories this weekend. The book arrived in the mail yesterday and I finished it today.

Carver captured all the mundane, inane, nutty interactions people have. He wrote about yard sales, bingo games, ordering birthday cakes, monkey business with the Avon lady, holidays with the ex, tossing the bum out of your house, asshole kids, nosy people. The stories are enchanting, but not obviously so. It sneaks up on you.

He actually wrote dialogue like real people speak. His characters are damaged and petty and noble. They are their own worst enemies.

Critics say he was a minimalist but I dont find his prose Spartan (laconic) at all. He was a poet, and poets make every word toil and mean something.

SO WHAT CAN YOU LEARN FROM CARVER?

How to use common actions to reveal personality and motives. How to create a story world.

 

[Verdad]

Hi, James. Got a link, so we can read a story or two you liked?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/english/courses/eng201d/asmallgoodthing.html

The original story is called THE BATH, and ends about halfway thru this version. Carver said the original story didnt seem finished, so he added to it.

 

[ShyIndependent]

.............

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SHY

The original story leaves you in suspense because it ends where the mom goes home to bathe.

His very first stories were brief to the point of almost being laconic. Entirely action and dialogue. I'll see if I can find a good example.

http://www.tesltimes.com/pmech.html

POPULAR MECHANICS

 

[ShyIndependent]

.............

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SHY

Most of his stories do the same. There isnt much sentimentality in his stories. All of them are a bit brutal. He acknowledges that ordinary life isnt very pretty.

http://www.misanthropytoday.com/cathedral-by-raymond-carver-weekend-short-story/

THIS IS A LONG STORY

 

[ShyIndependent]

............

 

[Verdad]

Thanks for the links. Just read all three. The first two gave me an idea of his style but didn't really knock me out, but Cathedral is a masterpiece. I recommend it to anyone who's got a few spare minutes to read.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

VERDAD

I like what Carver did with common human interactions. I know couples who killed children while struggling for physical custody of the child. I know women who used infants as shields from knife attacks.

I like how his stories flow. Trickle or torrent, theyre always going somewhere, and you sense it.

I like the odd-ball stuff he tosses into the stories that makes them seem real. Like when he inserted a jet passing overhead into the midst of a dialogue. Back in the 60s jets were loud enough to drown out conversation. He likes to play with disability, too.

Yesterday I read about a man who feels no pain or fatigue. He can toil till he drops or tolerate prolonged exposure to heat, cold, etc. as if it didnt exist. I'm thinking it will work well in a story, and Carver put the idea in my head.

But not all of Carver's stories are excellent as entertainment.

 

[Verdad]

You described him very well. He finds the story in surprisingly quotidian, which is to me, with my leaning toward fantastic, a particularly interesting lesson. He also sneaks up on you, just as you said, so you find yourself engrossed when you least expect it. This was particularly true for me with the first story, the one with the baker, which took a while to grow on me.

Like most contemporary readers, I appreciate sparser prose, but the sparseness of his gets so extreme it put me off at first. The staccato of the short sentences and the repetitive sentence structures kept distracting me in the baker story, and yet, again as you said, underneath there's a narrative pull that keeps you going and creates the flow. It catches you by surprise, too, when you realize almost too late that all those 'boring' sentences implanted a very vivid image in your mind.

I found this sparseness more agreeable in first person (in Cathedral) where, as a part of the narrator's character, it barely attracts any attention to itself, but the effect it creates in third person is unique too. It translated in my mind into a sort of an amateur-documentary camera, with all the grit that implies. "Brutal" is a perfect word for describing it, but never, in my opinion, misanthropic or cold.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

VERDAD

Carver joked that his style is suited for people with attention deficit disorder.

Critics agree that his style is subliminal.

And he damns without shouting or pointing a finger, as with the MD in the 1st story.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I ordered Carver's last collection of stories: WHERE I'M CALLING FROM, today. Plus two Truman Capote items: MUSIC FOR CHAMELEONS and CONVERSATIONS WITH TRUMAN CAPOTE.

 

[Verdad]

And he damns without shouting or pointing a finger, as with the MD in the 1st story.

Yes. He also gives you a lesson on how a lack of sentimentality makes the emotional impact that much stronger. In the baby story, the image of the mother's fingers being forced opened makes for a much more powerful moment than if he'd gone all out with violins and stuff.

(Your reading habits make me envious!)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

VERDAD

Here's a good book I found today. YOU CAN READ ANYONE by David J. Lieberman PHD. Its a pop-psychology book that details how people interact behaviorally.

Its NOT a body language primer so much as its a how people package what they communicate manual.

I'm thinking it will work well at revealing character, motives, and mood through subtle behaviors. The author details how people bluff at cards and love and intentions, etc. So its great for SHOWING. Especially how well he details playing POKER.

Mencken said that a rule of thumb for identifying great books is to gauge your satisfaction after reading the first 2-3 paragraphs. If youre not hooked, put it back on the shelf.

 

[DeeZire]

...Less is more.

I heard on NPR (I know - I'm a cliche) that RC's editor routinely cut 70% to 80% out of his stories. The article on NPR mentioned a book being released by RC's widow featuring complete versions of some of his stories. RC's editor came off looking a tad headstrong, acting as if he was a co-writer, rather than just an editor. In the linked article, it is purported that the editor even rewrote phrases and sentences, adding some of the "Kmart lingo" that peppered his stories.

Link to the article:

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/12/19/talking_about_editing_ray_carver/

Article about RC's widow publishing unedited versions of his work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/arts/17iht-20carver.7925948.html

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I've read interviews of Carver where he says he re-wrote his stories 15-20 times and expanded stories after they were in print.

Let me see if I can find the interview about THE BATH.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

From the Syracuse NY POST-STANDARD 23 November 1982

Carver called THE BATH 'unfinished business.' 'I wrote the story and I didnt go far enough with it.

'I saw a place to stop it and I stopped it, but the notion of what could have happened stayed with me.'

This doesnt seem like he's blaming his editor.

 

[Pure]

thanks,

jbj,

i read the cathedral, and was most impressed. while quotidian an' all, it really quite philosophical: is what we see, what is real. and there is the old observation of humans' privileging the visual; 'what it[he/she] looks like is most important.'

being into psychology, i'm intrigued by the intimacy of the two--it turns out-- more real relationships. robert and beulah, and robert and the narrator's wife. for the first, the narrator puzzles over a relationship where one can't see the other's face, expressions, clothing, not to say tears.

Carver does an excellent job, in his 'minimalist' way of showing the wife relation to Robert; it lives:

I saw my wife laughing as she parked the car. I saw her get out of the car and shut the door. She was still wearing a smile. Just amazing.

Being literotica-minded, i thought of a sexual connection, would it happen, etc. Of course that's beside the point, which is gist of the story. the narrator, despite any sex, barely knows his wife.

The central analogy is on the same lines: what's a cathedral; can the blind man know ["see"] it? in the end, the reader is suprised because the narrator understands something about the cathedral, eyes closed.

As far as 'showing' and 'telling,' Carver tells a few lines about Robert's appearance; the inessential. The kind of person R is, is nicely conveyed, e.g. that he's got a kind of equanimity, almost affability, and is not easily insulted. The surprise of the story is that Carver could have taken it in the direction of the baby story. straight conflict. "She's mine, my wife; i touch her and see her," vs, "She's a true friend and someone you hardly know, bub." Or "you can't understand the cathedral without seeing" vs. "you're inarticulate, bub, i 'see' it just fine."

it's a surprising gesture, one almost of 'grace', that Robert attempts, with apparent success, to bridge the gap, dealing with the narrator at the childlike level of drawing on crude paper.