What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Raymond Carver

This is a great collection of short stories from Carver. They have his trademark sparse style and sense of realism and the characters are detailed and believable. The stories are simple but touch on serious and universal themes, developed without excessive prose and with strong dialogue. There are often some oddities that give the stories nice specificity and the sense of place in all of them is excellent. And the characters’ personality quirks make them stick in your mind long after you’ve put the book down.

This is one of those books and one of those American writers like Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald that I never read at the time. Not old enough; not interested or more likely, not mature enough to appreciate them. So as a consequence American culture, American mores and in particular a wide range of post-war American social and economic policies with the prime purpose I suspect of reinforcing the belief that individuals are responsible for their own destiny have rather passed me by. And I am not now interested in catching-up. It’s a series of [17] short stories. Can’t remember the last collection of short stories I read; was it Olive Kitteridge [Elizabeth Strout]? . . . [which I adored], so I am not against fiction in this format. All the reviewers refer to his pared-down writing style as if it is to be admired. One reviewer refers to the similarities between Carver and the singer/actor and songwriter, Tom Waites. Not a Tom Waites fan. They seem to have booze in common. So anyway, this is a novel comprising of bleak vignettes about men mostly blue collar, mostly drunks, mostly in broken or almost broken marriages in the American Mid-west in the sixties. It is an attempt I think to blend the particular and the universal, moving away from a straight narrative retelling in search of a larger truth. As I said it is very lean, which I do quite like although this is too big a dose for me: I think writing a short story well is pretty difficult.

As most readers who are interested in Raymond Carver will know, 'Beginners' is essentially the collection of short stories that were published under the title 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Love' - but published here in their 'original' versions, i.e before his editor, Gordon Liss, got to work on them. This is a fascinating companion piece to that better known collection. Carver is well known for his minimalist style - spare, elliptical and very finely wrought. For anyone interested in the processes of writing, rewriting and editing, looking at examples from the two collections alongside each other is very revealing; but 'Beginners' is far more than an academic exercise. In these more extended, 'original' versions, the stories are rich and insightful; well worth reading, even if you have never encountered Carver before. Very highly recommended.

This slim paperback doesn’t look particularly impressive at first glance but it has had a significant influence on generations of writers since its publication in 1981 while also securing Carver a place in American literature. There is much to admire here particularly the lean, pared-to-the-bone prose that reduces storytelling to the barest number of words. This is more difficult than is commonly believed and every aspiring writer can learn something from Carver’s minimalist text. This simplicity of style disguises a complexity of meaning and grasping the message behind these stories is trickier than you might expect. Most left me with that baffled feeling you get when you fail to understand the punchline of a joke and I suspect that Carver does this on purpose to force the reader to think through what they’ve just read. There are a couple of exceptions to this formula where the shock-ending payoff really hits home and for me these are the standouts. Overall be prepared for a quick easy read followed by some long hard work trying to make sense of what just happened.

Raymond Carver is a writer I like. He writes about the human condition wonderfully. If you like your fiction more action based, you might not enjoy his work—you may find it dull.

I enjoyed almost all of these stories, both the subject matter and Carver’s writing style. For a similar and excellent collection of American short fiction from the same period (early 1980s), I would recommend Liars in Love by Yates.

Fascinating, well written stories about complex relationships. Challenging and heart rending some of them.

Arrived quickly & in good condition

Amazing short stories

This book, just as the following mentioned book, contains short stories about the behavior of ordinary human beings, like you and me. The autor is known as the "American Chegov" and was in my opinion one of the best story tellers in the western world I enjoyed both books very much and provided good value for the money.

This was a gift for a friend, I read this book years ago. I really like Carver so I would recommend it. The delivery was extremely slow tho.

Não restam duvidam de que Raymond Carver é um escritor necessário — mesmo não sendo o tão apregoado minimalista que dizem ser. Porém, quando adquiri Beginners e What do we talk about when we talk about Love (original e mutilação), estava muito mais interessado na sua luta — não com as palavras, mas com seu editor, mistura de copidesque estilista e açougueiro, Gordon Lish, que, sem cerimônias e escrúpulos, transfigurou, por exemplo, o excelente conto A small, good thing, de 26 páginas, num resíduo de apenas 9, com o título The bath. Um massacre, felizmente reparado. carlos loria

Un muy buen libro que es exitoso en explorar la temática cotidiana de la que muchos autores ya no hablan. Asimismo, tiene una reflexión acerca de la naturaleza subjetiva del amor nunca antes vista.