What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a remarkable 1981 collection of short stories penned by the American writer Raymond Carver. The title story within this collection delves into the complex nature of love through the experiences of four friends - Mel, Teresa (Terri), Laura, and Nick.

Set in Mel's house, around a table with a bucket of ice and a bottle of gin in the middle, the friends engage in a profound discussion about love. Terri, who has endured an abusive relationship, believes that the abuse she suffered was a form of love. Her former boyfriend, Ed, would beat her and drag her around the living room, yet she insisted that he loved her. Mel, however, vehemently refused to accept that such behavior could be considered love.

The collection also includes other captivating stories such as "Why Don't You Dance?", "Viewfinder", "Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit", and many more. Each story offers a unique perspective on different aspects of life and human relationships.

Raymond Carver's writing style is characterized by its simplicity and directness, yet it manages to convey deep emotions and complex ideas. His stories often explore the ordinary lives of ordinary people, revealing the hidden depths and struggles that lie beneath the surface.

Overall, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a thought-provoking and engaging collection that invites readers to reflect on their own understanding of love and the many forms it can take.

In the midst of an insomnia that takes hold of me, I read these beautiful stories on the Kindle. With a quick breath. The images, the mastery that Carver has, which always disturbs us and makes us reflect. How lovely Carver is.

Carver's stories are like little gems that shine in the darkness of my sleepless nights. Each word is carefully chosen, each sentence crafted with precision. His ability to capture the essence of human nature and the complexity of relationships is truly remarkable.

As I turn the pages, I am drawn into the lives of his characters, sharing their joys and sorrows, their hopes and fears. I find myself lost in his world, a world that is both familiar and strange.

Carver's writing is a reminder that even in the smallest of moments, there is beauty and meaning. His stories teach us to look beyond the surface and to see the hidden depths within ourselves and others.

In the end, as I put down the Kindle and close my eyes, I am left with a sense of wonder and a newfound appreciation for the power of words.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to watch Jindabyne, a movie that was based on Carver's story 'So Much Water So Close to Home'. I was truly captivated by it. It had such an impact that it left me feeling numb and a bit disoriented.

In the past ten years, I have picked up Carver's works and read them more than five times. However, initially, I didn't really appreciate his writing. I thought it wasn't that good. But as time went by, I realized that reading Carver is closely related to the right age and a kind of circular understanding.

When you reach a certain stage in life and can understand the marginal psyche of people whose lives you can easily identify with, that's when you start to truly appreciate Carver. He is not a writer who offers a smooth and easy reading experience. I once read somewhere that he described his stories as a skeleton architecture. This, I believe, is why his voice remains so strong.

I don't think this collection of his works will ever become outdated. There is a certain depressing and black minimalism that pervades his stories, often drowned in booze. You may despise most of the characters because they are flawed and yet, they remind you of yourself and the many people around you. It's a strange and powerful feeling.

As I mentioned earlier, this has probably been said countless times before, but Raymond Carver really is an amazing short stories writer. His works have the ability to touch our hearts and make us think about the human condition in a profound way.

A collection of short stories was first published in 1981, yet it feels as if it's a couple of decades older. These are heavily edited versions of Beginners, which I had reviewed HERE). The comparison between the two versions of these stories shows that Stephen King's claim that "The editor is always right" isn't necessarily true. See my review of On Writing, HERE).

Each story offers a vivid look at people during a troubled time in their lives. One of the early stories contains the line "Booze takes a lot of effort if you're going to do a good job with it", and one might expect that to summarize the collection. However, they are more diverse than that. Most of the stories deal with recent or impending loss, whether it's a partner, child, friend, or home. Often, the situations are made worse by problems with drink and fidelity. There are few truly likable characters, more references to fishing than one might anticipate, misogynistic elements, and not much humor. Nevertheless, they were captivating to read.

A few stories are truly disturbing (for example, a brutal and senseless murder), but there are also insights and questions. Where does love go when it dies? How do you come to terms with the violation of the sanctity of your home? Can there be love if there is also violence? How does a functional family fall apart? Some of the characters are eager to explore these issues openly (such as "There was more to it, and she was trying to get it talked out" and "We'd reached the end of something, and the thing was to find out where new to start"), but others are victims of circumstance or simply go with the flow without thinking.

The stories are very short, and some were included in Robert Altman's 1993 film, Short Cuts, including The Bath (beginning with a boy's birthday cake) and Tell the Women (the grisly one).

I've written a full review of the original, longer version of The Bath, called A Small, Good Thing, HERE).

Overall, I would rate them 3.5 stars, but I'm feeling generous, and since Carver is highly regarded, I rounded up.

What do any of us truly know about love? In my view, we're mere novices in the realm of love. We claim to love one another, and indeed we do, and I have no doubts about it. I love Terri, and Terri loves me, and you all love each other too. You understand the kind of love I'm referring to now. There's physical love, that impulse that draws you to someone special, as well as the love for the other person's being, their essence, so to speak. There's carnal love, and well, call it sentimental love, the day-to-day concern for the other person. But sometimes, I struggle to account for the fact that I must have loved my first wife as well. But I did, I'm certain of it.

I have perused this volume on numerous occasions, and this time I listened to it. So, it holds great significance for me. In a previous life, in the eighties, I obtained an MFA in short fiction. At that time, the preeminent living short story writer, or at least the most stylistically influential one, was Carver. He himself, a minimalist, seemed to have been influenced by Ernest Hemingway. And perhaps by noir fiction as well: very simple, straightforward prose. Carver was particularly a working-class fiction writer, an alcoholic penning about booze and its effects.

"Drinking's funny. When I look back, all of our crucial decisions were made while we were drinking. Even when we discussed having to cut back on drinking, we'd be seated at the kitchen table or out at the picnic table with a six-pack or whiskey."

And people on the verge of serious breakdown:

"We opened our eyes and turned in bed to take a good look at each other. We both knew it then. We'd reached the end of something, and the task was to figure out where to begin anew."

Grace Paley wrote a story collection titled Enormous Changes Happening at the Last Minute, but this is Carver, and the changes for him are cataclysmic. Booze, divorce, yet with stripped-down language:

"All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to correct me if you think I'm wrong. I want to know. I mean, I know nothing, and I'm the first to admit it."

"There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I loathe her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I'd like to know. I wish someone could tell me."

Devastating. Clueless. Lost. Drunk. Sad.

And elegant: "The light was draining out of the room, going back through the window where it had come from."

Besides the title story, I have a fondness for many stories, including

"Why Don't We Dance?" about a man going through a divorce who takes all the furniture from his house and arranges it on the front lawn just as it appeared inside the house. A young loving couple sees it, assumes it's a yard sale, she sits on the bed, and then the man comes home with booze and suggests the couple dance, right there on the street.

"Why don't you kids dance? he decided to say, and then said it. 'Why don't you dance?' "

Surreal, devastatingly sad, and sadly hilarious.

"Viewfinder": "A man without hands came to the door to sell me a photograph of my house."

"The Bath": On his birthday, young Scotty is walking to school when he is struck by a car and knocked unconscious. "The Bath" is a precursor to "A Small, Good Thing," one of Carver's most renowned stories, which was published in Cathedral. It is much shorter than "A Small, Good Thing" and concludes on an ambiguous note as Scotty's mother returns home from the hospital to take a bath, which is where this version of the story derives its name.

"So Much Water Close to Home": At breakfast, Claire discovers that her husband Stuart and his three friends had found the body of a girl washed up on the river shore upon arriving in the afternoon for their annual camping trip. Instead of immediately reporting the body to the police, the four enjoy their vacation fishing, eating, and drinking whisky as they sit by the fire, ignoring the body still in the water downstream a bit. When Stuart talks to Claire, this leads to a reconsideration of their relationship.

This collection is astonishing, yet it is also spare and minimalist, and as I understand it, highly influenced by Carver's editor and teacher Gordon Lish. These are excellent stories as they are, though later collections have more complete, unedited versions. But yes, do read this wonderful collection!

My head is really hurting.

I'm supposed to be writing my thesis, but the math involved in crunching the data is giving me a major headache. It really shouldn't be this hard. It's supposed to be easy math. I feel like I'm dumber than I used to be. Instead of working on my thesis, I'm going to procrastinate and share an old review I wrote 12 years ago for another website that I haven't written a single thing on in about 12 years.

After reading MFSO's review, I wanted to comment on a line I really like in the first story of this book. Instead of looking for the book and typing out the line, I found this old review that mentions it.

The old review

About 11 years ago, I read a couple of Raymond Carver books on the recommendation of a friend. I hated them at the time. I thought, what's so great about very short stories where all the characters seem to chain smoke constantly, drink hard liquor, and watch their lives fall apart? I ended up selling one of the books to a used shop for a dollar and kept the other one only because I loved the title, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

A couple of months ago, I had an allergic reaction to the excessive verbosity of writers like Rick Moody. This, coupled with my interest as a struggling writer to see how one can write effectively and minimally, made me pick up Raymond Carver again and put him on my to-be-read pile of books. This time, when I read Raymond Carver, I didn't focus on the repetitive drinking and smoking but on the writing itself and saw the simple genius in these pages.

Take this example from the beginning of the title story of the collection:

My friend Mel McGinnis was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and sometimes that gives him the right.

The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were Mel and me and his second wife, Teresa—Terri, we called her—and my wife, Laura. We lived in Albuquerque then. But we were all from somewhere else.

On a quick reading, this might not seem like much. In the story, this is about as much space as Carver gives to the general background of the characters and setting. But looking at the passage, every single word is filled with meaning hidden behind the simplicity of the words. Carver never uses big words; he writes with everyday language. The language of people who go to work every day, have pitiful lives, find solace in a stiff drink after work, and are more likely to watch a sitcom than ever pick up a book. Going back to the passage I picked (sorry if this is starting to sound like a school paper), look at the line (my favorite in this passage), "We lived in Albuquerque then. But we were all from somewhere else." In saying nothing really, this line reveals to me a transient loneliness that gives a fleeting sense of solidarity in the afternoon drinking. (2015 interjection: holy shit was that pretentious) In the verb tenses Carver chooses, he places this one moment in time as one that may never be again. I shouldn't go on and on about this point, though.

The stories are filled with Carver's ability to choose a short phrase or sentence that can capture the entire mood of a scene.

The themes that Carver chooses are slightly limited. In this collection, there are mostly stories about loneliness. The loneliness of married people, the ways that the disappointments in life eventually catch up and leave an emptiness, and the hopelessness of a life that needs to just be lived even after the thrill of living is gone (yeah, just like John Cougar Mellencamp). In these stories of hopelessness are the small moments of tenderness that make life worth going on for, and it's these moments that give the collection a bittersweet feeling without any syrupy sentimentality.

Raymond Carver was a master. He created a body of work that is unique in American literature. It's possible to compare him to Hemingway, except that the comparison falls apart once you move beyond the simple language both authors use with razor-sharp precision. The closest writer Carver reminds me of is a stripped-down version of the Russian short story master Anton Chekhov.

Vou assumir uma posição diferente da maioria e confessar, sem complexos, que me soube a pouco. I found "O Banho" and "A Terceira Coisa que Matou o Meu Pai" to be quite good. However, some other short stories seem to suspend themselves forever at the beginning of an idea or just when the idea was starting to make sense. It's as if they lost their momentum or got stuck in a rut.

Nevertheless, it is still a reading that is worth it. Despite the flaws in some of the stories, there are enough interesting and well-written ones to make the collection as a whole worthwhile. The author's unique perspective and writing style add an element of charm and intrigue. It's a book that makes you think and reflects on various aspects of life and human nature.

Even though not every story was a home run, the overall experience of reading this collection was positive. It's a reminder that even in a collection of works, there can be a mix of strengths and weaknesses, but that doesn't necessarily mean the entire thing should be dismissed.

“Drinking has a strange allure. When I reflect on it, it seems that all of our crucial decisions were made while we were under the influence. Even when we discussed the need to cut back on drinking, we would be sitting at the kitchen table or outside at the picnic table, with a six-pack or a bottle of whiskey in hand.”

― Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

This collection consists of 17 short stories, each averaging around 6 - 8 pages, exploring different aspects of love, its loss, and the role of alcohol. I might have awarded one too many stars to some stories and perhaps accidentally omitted a star when I should have included it for several others. I'm not entirely certain. I do know that after reading this collection, Carver's stories lingered in my mind for a week. They are sharp, concise, and devastating. Just when you think you've become accustomed to the pull and gravity of one story, he abruptly abandons it and begins another, leaving the previous one stuck in your throat.

I'm not sure if the minimalist style is more attributable to Carver or his editor, Gordon Lish. I recall reading somewhere that the struggle over the length of some of these pieces was intense. Later, Carver's wife republished most of these stories in the original "directors cut" collection called Beginners.

Think of this collection as a portrayal of middle-class white people, their drinking habits, and the messiness of their relationships.

1 "Why Don't You Dance?" - ★★★★
2 "Viewfinder" - ★★★
3 "Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit" - ★★★★
4 "Gazebo" - ★★★★★
5 "I Could See the Smallest Things" - ★★★★★
6 "Sacks" - ★★★★★
7 "The Bath" - ★★★★
8 "Tell the Women We're Going" - ★★★★★
9 "After the Denim" - ★★★★★
10 "So Much Water So Close to Home" - ★★★★
11 "The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off" - ★★★★★
12 "A Serious Talk" - ★★★★★
13 "The Calm" - ★★★★
14 "Little Things" - ★★★★
15 "Everything Stuck to Him" - ★★★★
16 "One More Thing" - ★★★★★
17 "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" - ★★★★★

I started reading Raymond Carver's stories very late, mainly because of my own procrastination. And I chose "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" as the first book. Honestly, I don't know what to say. It has always been difficult for me to say something about writers and their books, and it becomes even more difficult when it comes to Carver. No matter from which perspective you look at the book, you will find a comrade by your side. If the story is mediocre, more elaborate, ordinary but delicious, mysterious and impactful... All of these seem appropriate to describe these stories. But for the first time when reading a story, I felt something else. For example, when reading Cortazar, I sometimes get angry. I say that, for example, his mediocre stories are in contrast to his great reputation. Or on the contrary, I am reading something extraordinary and my heart is filled with joy. But there is no room for such dilemmas in Carver. There is a strange magic in his stories. In all of them, he gives you a tiny gift. He makes people feel the hidden emotions of very ordinary people that they cannot catch and hold on to in the face of life. I say "makes people feel" because he doesn't express them, doesn't pour them out. Carver just tells the story. But all those silent and powerful emotions imprisoned within the heroes of that story gradually become the emotions you also possess. It is impossible to know the characters and identify with them, but it is strangely very likely that you will find something of yourself in a tiny behavior of that character. And I also said that there are very ordinary people in the stories; we all make decisions in our ordinary lives that will not conform to that ordinariness. We add a turning point to our destiny. Generally, writers elaborate on those turning points delicately. But Carver makes you feel whether that turning point will come in the future or has already ended in the past. He makes you think that there is a mistake in this matter, but there is also a certain truth within every mistake.

Anyway, as you can understand, I liked the book. I can't tell you exactly what I noted down, but I held on to some things, like listening to music or saying the nicest things.

I wish everyone a good read.

4.5 stars

"This is awful. I don't know what's going to happen to me or to anyone else in the world."

I'm truly not convinced that this was an opportune moment for me to peruse these rather joyless, and perhaps even disturbing, tales. To be quite honest, I wasn't in the proper state of mind to immerse myself in such darkness. I might have plucked the above quote from "Gazebo", one of the seventeen shorts within this collection, but it neatly encapsulates the sentiment I felt upon turning the final page. The paradox here, though, lies in the fact that I adored nearly every single story. I'm not certain what that reveals about me, as by nature I don't relish feeling despondent. There's something about Raymond Carver's writing, with its candor and concise prose, that completely threw me off kilter.

"The two kids were very much in love. On top of this they had great ambitions. They were always talking about the things they were going to do and the places they were going to go."

As I was reading this, I was simultaneously witnessing a young, first love crumbling into pieces. I recall that as a child, my grandmother would always say "Ain't love grand." I unearthed the lyrics to some old song from the 1920s, and I'm fairly certain this is the version she was echoing. I used to believe her when she spoke those words. Well, it turns out that love is far more intricate than "Just wait until you strike it, there's really nothing like it." It doesn't necessarily become any simpler with practice and experience either. Raymond Carver was well aware of this. For the most part, his characters lead arduous lives. Lives torn asunder by alcoholism, violence, infidelity, disease, and sheer monotony. How did these men and women descend to such depths? Did the alcoholism precede the unhappiness or vice versa? Did boredom pave the way for infidelity? We don't always know how they arrived there, but we most definitely witness the damaging aftermath of such destruction.

These stories are concise, to the point, and jarring. The dialogue is precise and genuine. People really do talk like this! I swear I was seated at that table along with those two couples throughout the eponymous story, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." I'm mentally preparing myself for the next Carver work that I retrieve from my bookshelf.

"... it ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love."

Raymond Carver's collection of short stories is a captivating exploration of the human condition. Each story is a snapshot of a life, filled with pain, joy, and everything in between. The characters are complex and relatable, and the themes are universal. Despite the often-dark subject matter, there is a glimmer of hope in each story. Carver's writing style is spare and powerful, and his use of dialogue is masterful. These stories will stay with you long after you've finished reading them.

Overall, I highly recommend this collection to anyone who enjoys reading short stories that are both thought-provoking and beautifully written. It's a must-read for fans of Raymond Carver and for anyone who wants to explore the depths of the human heart and soul.

When we talk about love, what are we really talking about? In fact, it's a beautiful question, and who could answer it so straightforwardly? There can't be just one answer, and Carver, in this collection of 17 short stories, shows us love in its daily facets, nothing out of the ordinary. And that's his strength. He tells of extremely simple moments using an unadorned, direct, minimalist writing style. Nothing out of the ordinary and yet nothing banal.

Each story is left hanging after a few pages, surely leaving you a bit dissatisfied, with the hint of that just-revealed sensation, a thousand questions to ask, but the narrator adds no considerations, lays out a base of details, and leaves us all the freedom to imagine, reflect, and finish the story.

That seemingly insignificant moment of life is isolated and becomes fundamental under the gaze of the reader who watches as if from the windowsill across the street.

Once you've finished reading, you don't understand what love is, of course, but perhaps you reflect a little more.

"In my opinion, we're all just beginners when it comes to love. We say we love each other, and maybe it's true, I don't doubt it. You know, what kind of love am I talking about? Physical love, that attraction that draws you to someone special, and also love for the other person's being, for their essence, so to speak. But sometimes I have great difficulty coming to terms with the fact that I must have loved my first wife too. But it's true, I know it's true."

Perfect in my opinion to read in snippets and bites on the tram, in waiting moments, without having to curse the 20 pages that are still left until the end of the chapter. About 120 pages of (really) short stories that I think can be really enjoyable. I wouldn't call it unmissable, but every now and then some stolen moment comes to my mind and makes me realize that yes, I liked it, not a little.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEmA2j2iE...

In friendship,

In affection,

In love,

In lust,

In perpetuity,

In memoriam.

Is this truly what we discuss when we speak of love? Carver's stories are concise, pared-down love stories. They are stripped of all but the essential words and the bare, often all-too-human framework upon which to build them. Some of his work doesn't even seem like a love story at all. Consider Hemingway, if he were to omit the toros, marlin fishing, and drinking. In fact, Carver is a landlocked Hemingway. You might find yourself wondering, where exactly is the love? However, Carver has skillfully crafted a body of work that tells of love in its numerous and multifaceted guises, without ever having to explicitly mention its name. Reading these stories might even provide a bit of illumination on the human condition. Bravo, Mr. Carver, bravo.