Cathedral (Vintage Classics) by Raymond Carver (5-Nov-2009) Paperback

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.

Carver was a master of the really short short story, little glimpses of life that pass you by with the merest brush on the shoulder, leaving you with a shiver, a tear, or occasionally a smile. Few of the seventeen stories in this magnificent collection have a normal beginning or end; rather they are moments when a life, a relationship, comes briefly into focus, sometimes around a trivial event that nonetheless illuminates everything before and after it. When things happen, they are for the most part ordinary things: a young couple visit a yard sale; another pair get drunk and fight; friends arrange to go hunting or fishing; a young father cancels such a hunting trip to be with his wife and ailing daughter. But even the most ordinary experiences are significant. Although the sequence in the book is skillfully arranged to form an arc of cumulative intensity, it comes as a shock when one of the stories ends in brutal violence.

Not that Carver is a stranger to sadness or tragedy. Even the happiest stories in this collection end at best with a rueful smile; two of them, for example, close with a husband and wife embracing, impelled by a sudden awareness of the fragility of life around them, finding comfort in sorrow. Carver is a poet of the dispossessed; the people here are widowers, travelers, divorcés, couples in failing marriages, couples trying to scrape together a shaky start. Yet such is the depth of his understanding, even when writing of pain, that the collection as a whole brings warmth rather than despair; I found myself reading voraciously, wanting to know more of the fellow human beings who share Carver's world.

The title story is unusual in having more upscale characters -- a cardiologist, his friend, and their respective wives. It is also the most complex as it talks about different kinds of love, contrasting the past and present experiences of those present (all survivors from former marriages), gradually emphasizing love's power to destroy as well as to heal. This is seen also in "A Serious Talk," one of my favorite stories, in which Carver uncannily captures the well-meaning awkwardness of a man visiting his ex-wife and children at Christmas in his former home; although it appears it was she who betrayed the marriage, we have to watch helplessly as he puts himself in the wrong by resorting to frustrated violence. My other favorite is "After the Denim." An older couple find that their usual seats at their weekly bingo game have been taken by a pair of youngsters, whose cheerfully casual behavior puts the older man off his game; only when they return home do we learn the real reason for his displeasure -- a reason both sad and unbearably beautiful. But one could say that about this entire collection.

[This volume, incidentally, is the most notorious example of the work of Carver's editor, Gordon Lish, who cut Carver's manuscripts mercilessly, often to about half their original length, creating the minimalist style for which Carver became famous, but also removing much of his humanity. Several of the originals are now available in RAYMOND CARVER: COLLECTED STORIES, and Carol Skelnicka discusses the relationship at length in her recent biography RAYMOND CARVER: A WRITER'S LIFE. There is also a superb review of the Skelnicka in the New York Times, 11/19/2009 -- almost a mini-biography -- by Stephen King, who speaks with authority on Carver both as a writer and a fellow recovering alcoholic.]

Again, I might well be arriving late to the party, and maybe the food might all be gone, but I still feel it worth attending and seeing if I can't find something.
I found Carver via Murakami's 'Birthday Stories', where, having been impressed by 'The Bath', I decided to dig further and seek other works. Now, having read 'What we talk about...' I can only say three things;
i) Brilliant! Carver is a literary genius who occupies rare ground,
ii) Original. He re-wrote the short-story, he invented, re-invented the short-story,
iii) More! I want more! I want to read every word he wrote, I am thirsty for his world vision.
Carver's style, his vision, his world-view optimises what makes American literature great, and what is great American literature. After reading this I was reminded just how good modern American literature really is - there is not a country on this planet who has a definite modern style as beautiful, clean and expressive as America. People often say that Jazz is the only true American Art, but I disagree! To that I would also add the short-story! America has a rich and unchallenged history in the short story and it must surely be at least partly attributable to the likes of Raymond Carver.

Many readers have commented that 'nothing happens'... NOTHING HAPPENS? Things happen, lots happens, it's just, like life, things happen quickly - who could forget the three page masterpiece 'Popular Mechanics'? Where Carver's real genius lies is that he really is a master storyteller, that is to say he paints a sparse picture and challenges the reader to fill in the blanks, to use THEIR imagination to join the dots. He is not a spoon-feeder, rather he is like a Haiku poet, he strips everything down to the bare minimum and what is not said, but what is inferred is the point, that is what is most important. And that is his real strength and the expression of his pure genius. Anyone can babble on and on and on for pages, or tell as story like a drunk in a bar, very few can whittle an entire tree down to one single clothes-peg, Carver can, and did.

I used to hate Carver. "Nothing happens in these stories!" I would say. "What does it MEAN, for God's sake?!" It took me a while to realise that Carver's genius isn't for the grand epiphany, the convoluted plot, or the surprise ending. His genius is for moments of pathos; for moments of carefully observed humanity; for human foibles unflinchingly, but never unkindly, revealed. You really have to read him for yourself to understand, but here's an example: the story "Gazebo", which is one of my favourites from this collection. The story works because what 'the gazebo' means to the couple in the story is something most of us have felt: a dream of future happiness that is now lost to us; lost because we don't see how we might escape the banality of our own lives; lost because we fail to see how close we are to achieving it, if only we could slightly change the way we see things, or the way we live. None of this is overtly stated in the story - and that's Carver's genius. It is simply implied by juxtaposition. Thematic statements and grand epiphanies undermine so many stories (even some of Carver's earlier ones) because they are embarrassing. I don't mean embarrassing for the writer, I mean embarrassing for us, the readers: to have these slightly pathetic, vaguely shameful, and yet very human moments which are recognisably our own shoved in our faces feels like an accusation, and one we understandably reject. But to have them placed before us, gently, apparently undeliberately, so that we might see them for ourselves is wonderful. It engages OUR powers of observation and reflection, not just the writer's. We see ourselves reflected there in the story, and it's a private moment of self-revelation, of self-understanding. And more often than not, this is NOT a life-changing experience for us. No, the effect is much simpler, more realistic and more honest. It's a feeling of: "Oh, thank God. Other people feel this way, too. I'm not alone." It's a moment of empathy, not of explanation. Carver gives us this gift many times, and so well. Go read everything he's written. Especially if you're interested in writing your own stories. Carver's small body of work has as much to teach us about writing as it does about our lives.

It has been shown that people understand sentences even if the words have almost only the first and last letters: Hxre is a bqek rberew aoiut lxve. Raymond Carver's short stories are like that, zoomed out: missing most of the sentences, but the ones he writes are just enough. Be ready for stories of depression, tragedy, twisted love. It's not pleasant reading, but it's real. Still, you can smile. It will be an uncomfortable smile of recognition. But also an admiring smile as Carver gets it just right, over and over. The pictures he paints, from his striking opening sentences, rushing through to his unfinished endings, are as sharp as walking on broken glass.

The title story of this collection is Carver at his best: Human husks take the place of characters, and they are filled with copious amounts of alcohol. They inhabit a sparse and deliberate setting. And no great Carver story would be complete without inebriated reflections on the human condition. Other bright flashes in this collection include the pseudo-horror story "Tell the Women We're Going" and the oft-anthologized "Gazebo."

But too many of the stories in this collection feel incomplete. They are missing that narrative "click," that satisfying sound you hear at the end of a good story when a psychological latch locks something special in your head. Stories like "Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit," "A Serious Talk," "The Bath," and "One More Thing" seem to stop rather than end. Carver must have recognized this himself, because he re-writes "The Bath" as "A Small, Good Thing" for his follow-up collection, Cathedral, which is far superior to What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

This collection seems to have been assembled around the title story. The thematic commitment necessarily binds the stories, but also perhaps weakens the overall craft. The stories either tip-toe around or splash through the theme, darkening it or twisting it here and there, and then when the theme is used up, too many of the stories stop telling themselves. In the title story, this works well, by the majority of this collection falls flat.

Carver is still experimenting in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and I give him credit for bravely submitting his attempts to tell stories in a new way. He hits his stride with the title story and perhaps with "Gazebo," but it isn't until his collection Cathedral that Carver gets control of his craft.

I love good short stories. I especially love stories that get in and get out, without more words than the story needs. Here are some.

I had not read anything by Carver before, but I picked this up after seeing Birdman last year, and I am glad that I did. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I am very happy with what it turned out to be.

These are bleak, but honest and accessible stories, about the connections and spaces between men and women. The pacing, subject, and tone were exactly what I needed right now, in a book.

I already knew some poems of Raymond Carver, notably those gathered in "Where Water Comes Together With Other Water". Impressed by his style and his way to reach people's heart, I wanted to read a few of his short stories, and I chose that collection thanks to the enthusiastic reviews.
Well, well... I'm speechless, now! Frankly, never in my 30 years of life have I read with so much passion and excitement such a beautiful and desperate work. No author has touched me so deeply so far. In this collection, Raymond Carver will tear your heart apart, he will call the best that exists in you, he will make you sympathize and even empathize with his characters.
Just be warned: some stories are very hard to live. Mysterious, weird, crazy, dismal, gloomy, violent, ironic, cynical, all of them will make you react somehow, all of them will slap you at the end and I do say all of them!
No heroes with big muscles in these stories, no villains, just everyday women and men in tragic or disturbing situations that in practice we prefer to ignore because they disrupt our life, our comfort, our conformism.
Subsequently, you'll be invited to an uncommon yard sale ("Why don't you dance?"), a meeting with a severely maimed photographer ("Viewfinder"), a night in a motel held by a torn couple ("Gazebo"), a nocturnal walk in your gown ("I could see the smallest thing"), a drink with your father by the airport ("Sacks"), a tragic riding ("Tell the women we're going"), the terrible decay of your father's best friend ("The third thing that killed my father off"), a strange and riveting discussion about what love is ("What we talk about when we talk about love"), a moving reconciliation ("Everything stuck to him").
Despite their short length (most of them only count a dozen pages or even less), the stories never lost their impact. My 3 favorites are "The bath", "Popular mechanics" and "One more thing".
Whether you have already experimented parenthood or not, I guess everybody should be highly sensitive to "The bath". So, prepare your handkerchief. I don't have a son (not yet) but if I had one and it happened to him the same thing that happened to Scotty, I guess I would experiment the same awful anguish as his parents'. It's a very human story, far from naivety, touting and demagoguery.
"Popular mechanics" is disgusting and revolting. It's probably the shortest short story of the collection but what a blow in the face! It's so sad to see how life compels some people to behave in such an egoistic and criminal way. Omigod, you can prepare your handkerchief again!
Finally, "One more thing" concludes the book in a very funny way. The tone is grim but the mood is paradoxally jolly. All things considered, it creates such a contrast with the rest that it even makes me laugh. When you'll reach the very last line, you'll understand why the conclusion is so witty and can be applied not only to the story itself but also to the whole book.
Raymond Carver dares to dig in human mind and forces us to dig with him. In opposite with what you can see in some movies or books, he doesn't try to convince us that people are born good or evil. He shows us instead what true life is, he offers us a spitting image of what we are, or might be, within.
I've given this masterpiece 5 stars because I sincerely found the stories exceptional. Raymond is a writer America can be very proud of. He's maybe dead now but what he gave us in this collection deserves immortality.

A slender 135 page book of 17 often brief stories all focusing on the theme of love, how it changes over time, changes in meaning and focus, how the idyll is so far removed from the daily grind.
These are fantastically written stories that seem half complete (you almost feel you are intruding on something that everyone bar you know all about) yet merge into a whole to really illuminate Carvers theme. Each tale is written in a sparse, clipped style that is unique in the way it 'talks' to you.
I've not come across too many collections like this that explore a central theme (Patrick White's 'Burnt Ones' and Richard Yate's 'Liars in Love' and 'Eleven kinds of lonliness' are the only ones that spring to mind) but this easily comes out top.Very impressive indeed.

The question of authorship should be immaterial to the reading of this work. Do we care what was left out? Do we care who wrote which sentence? In the end, whatever the process that produced them, this collection contains some of the most tragically beautiful stories I've read. The prose is minimal, but masterfully minimal -- it feels like the stories form the briefest of forays across the skin of a giant animal, and though you can't tell exactly what the animal is, or where it is going, you know there is something vaguely wrong, deep down below. The style Carver employs means that the smallest of incidents become important in mysterious ways, as if each part of the story, no matter how seemingly insignificant, contains part of the clue to the whole. But because of the sparse nature of the work, the clues never sum to a complete solution -- I feel like these stories reside somewhere between the tiny fictions we invent for people we glance at in the street, and fully-fledged realism which doesn't leave us room for imagination. Carver takes this space and with deft touches makes it seem both familiar and strange. Can't say enough about him. If you aspire to writing short stories, this will either set the bar for you or make you want to give up...

And afterwards, I went back and noted in the blank space at the end of each story the setting, main characters, conflict and conclusion. After one story I wrote: 2 active characters, 1 other. Time - late at night. Setting - yards of neighbors. Conflict #1--2 men over a fence; #2-- wife & husband in bed; #3-- slugs eating the roses. Conclusion: open-ended. For me, this was a good way to learn what elements constituted the stories, and for one learning how to write such, a helpful exercise.

I simply adored each story ... but grew to avoid this collection the more I read.

Carver has a way of tearing down each person, removing any sense of security and hope. Reading it once is fascinating. Twice and you begin to see what he's getting at. Three times and the pattern sets in. And then story after story? Ugh. I found myself returning to this collection less and less. It's all too hopeless. Too insecure. Too depressing to the human condition.

The stoic, bare prose of Raymond Carver's short fiction bears the stamp of a true craftsman, as well as an artist who knows the meaning of pain. These stories are a remarkable aesthetic accomplishment, one of the best collections of the period; they are both simple and intriguing in their cool and stark economy of form. Like Hemingway, Carver had the gift of creating a world through brief and beautiful glimpses. Never does he insert any clunky ideology or literary affectations. These stories are elegant, clean, and self-contained. They will also break your heart.

Raymond Carver is one of my all-time favorite short story writers. This brief collection gives some of his best, and some of his lesser works. My favorite stories here include the title story, "So Much Water So Close To Home," and - perhaps my favorite - the quasi-horror story, "Tell the Women We're Going." Carver's lean style captures the feel of the America in which he is writing; his characters are usually suburban and lower-middle-class. They are cynical and frequently disillusioned by love - yet there is still hope coming through.

Some of these stories don't feel finished though. They stand merely as slices of life. ONE of them definitely isn't finished: the story, "The Bath," would later be expanded into one of his most famous stories - "A Small, Good Thing."

The stoic, bare prose of Raymond Carver's short fiction bears the stamp of a true craftsman, as well as an artist who knows the meaning of pain. These stories are a remarkable aesthetic accomplishment, one of the best collections of the period; they are both simple and intriguing in their cool and stark economy of form. Like Hemingway, Carver had the gift of creating a world through brief and beautiful glimpses. Never does he insert any clunky ideology or literary affectations. These stories are elegant, clean, and self-contained. They will also break your heart.

Raymond Carver is one of my all-time favorite short story writers. This brief collection gives some of his best, and some of his lesser works. My favorite stories here include the title story, "So Much Water So Close To Home," and - perhaps my favorite - the quasi-horror story, "Tell the Women We're Going." Carver's lean style captures the feel of the America in which he is writing; his characters are usually suburban and lower-middle-class. They are cynical and frequently disillusioned by love - yet there is still hope coming through.

Some of these stories don't feel finished though. They stand merely as slices of life. ONE of them definitely isn't finished: the story, "The Bath," would later be expanded into one of his most famous stories - "A Small, Good Thing."

Raymond Carver is the most incredible story teller of all time. I have read and re-read this book many, many times, and each time I enjoy it more than the time before. The story that shares the name of the book is the single best short story that I have ever read and I have read gaggles of short stories. The characters that he describes are interesting and so well- developed that you will look at everyone you ever meet with new perspective. You will see that there is the potential for profoundness in even the most seemingly simple situation. The language he uses, the situations he illustrates, and the dialogues presented are perfectly synchronized, so much that you forget that you are reading and find yourself totally submerged in the experience and the thought provoking world that you have entered.

Reading this collection of short stories was like taking a walk on the dark side of human nature, made all the more scary and powerful by Carver's masterful, minimalist style. He hones right in on the essence of the character's lives and spares the reader any gratuitous drama. The result is a feeling of undeniable bleakness. Yet, similar to Hemmingway's style, the strong characters find their strength in a certain type of resignation.

What I liked most about this book is how I found myself clearly wanting to distance myself from the bleakness of these character's lives, yet, I was maddeningly unable to. That's the beauty of Carver's minimalist style; he hones the truth down to its barest form, so that a reader can't avoid finding a sliver of it within. And that's the true scare-factor of this book; Carver demonstrates beautifully the fine line all of our lives traverse, and how we must be vigilant, aware, and beware in every moment.

What the LA "reader" does not mention is that the Gottlieb connection is highly controversial -- more of an interesting theory than a fact. Even so, why criticize a young author for being influenced -- even molded -- by an editor? The author/editor relationship is complex, contentious, controversial -- and, in this case, extremely rewarding. If Gottlieb shares any credit for shaping Carver into a short story writer who can be mentioned in the same breath as Chekov and Hemingway, then I say, "Thanks a lot, Bob!" Nothing happens in the stories? C'mon, LA reader. Carver captures that unique American disconnection and emotional emptiness as well as any author imaginable. And he still manages to be funny! (Similarly, the movie "American Beauty" does a better job of being Carveresque than Altman's "Short Cuts" did.) This book is essential reading -- although "Where I'm Calling From" offers a more complete look at his entire career.

Here it is, folks; this collection of short stories, Carver's best in my mind, will squeeze emotion out of you. His minimalist fiction is the perfect blend of true love and hard life, the vodka and vermouth in the true fiction martini. This book is the real deal. Read it, and ask yourself, though it be fiction, is there any truth to it?

What we talk about when . . . is a collection of stories that speak mountians of truth about love. Love is often viewed as a pure and simple emotion; however, Carver suggested it can be evil and complex as well. The romantic ideals are thrown aside as Carver shows us the truth. A wonderful collection of short stories digging deep in the human condition of emotions. His minimalist writing style lends the reader to believe every word written and to be opened up to the stories truth. You cannot read this collection without being changed and most likely wiser to the truth of being a human.

Despite other reviews calling Raymond Carver 'the Hemingway of the trailer court', I am reminded of the quote by Nabokov concerning Hemingway...."Hemingway...bah! he writes books for boys!" Raymond Carver wrote about adults for adults... and, more to the point, the circumstances in which men and women find themselves when they are caught in ethical, mystical, and problematic situations that cry for release from the heart-wrenching tasks of showing compassion, friendship, and love in the willingness to choose, when faced with difficulty and despair.

Please discount the inane ramblings of the "reader" from Los Angeles. He/She exposes his/her true colors with the complaint that "nothing happens" in these stories. I suppose he/she should stick to Daniel Steele or Tom Clancy. For the rest of you truly intelligent, literary people, this is one collection of short stories you cannot live without. Carver is able to express more emotion with his "minimalist" approach than most authors could ever dream of. One does not have to be overly verbose to tell a story. But don't take my word for it. Read all of Carver's books for yourself.