Ray Carver's poetry is truly expansive and exceptional. In contrast, his short stories,尽管非常出色, seem to pale a little for me.

And yet, they are still outstanding. The twenty-two stories collected here were written throughout the 1960s and 1970s. They began when Mr. Carver was roughly 25 years old and ended around the time he turned 38.

Many of them are short, with just a few exceptions. Here's what most of them have in common: a married, working-class couple who work apart, drink together, and have an unusually stiff formality with each other.

Ray Carver's first marriage ended by 1982, but he got married young and was with his wife for more than two decades. From his perspective, it was a partnership degraded by poverty and often fueled by alcohol. However, it's still interesting to me to wonder about his perception of marriage as such a formal agreement between two people.

For some couples, it has been like this for centuries. It wasn't that long ago that a married couple on a TV program couldn't be shown kissing or sleeping in the same bed. Public displays of affection were rare, and marriage partners often addressed each other as “Mr.” and “Mrs.”

The fictional spouses Carver presents often fumble around each other. They are like strangers in the dark, rarely using each other's first names. I was confused by a phone call between a husband and wife in “Put Yourself in My Shoes.” I couldn't even tell that the two characters were married because they were so formal on the phone!

So, there's this divide, this division between the genders. (It was the 60s and 70s, and all the couples depicted here were heterosexual.) Always strangers in a strange land.

But interestingly, where there is division, there is also tension. It doesn't take much for these couples to get confused, agitated, or for a situation to blow up in their faces.

The story from this particular collection that will stay with me for a long time is called “The Idea.” In it, a married couple becomes an unlikely pair of voyeurs when they discover their next-door neighbor often peeps at his own wife. The peeping Tom and his wife create an exciting connection with this scenario, while the awkward neighbors next door stuff themselves, awkwardly, with snacks and cigarettes after realizing their own inability to connect. It's brilliant how much is conveyed about the psychology of marriage in just five pages.

This was a great addition to my 70s project, and I'm grateful to my sister, who shares my love of reading, for sending it to me for Christmas!

Just as Flannery O'Connor's stories occur at a crucial turning point in her characters' lives, Raymond Carver's are centered around a make-or-break moment. You know, it's the "breaking" that holds significance for Carver, the breaking that he seizes through his unwavering lens. His stories, which are truly concise, often just 6-8 pages long, bring us directly into the broken heart. And at the end, we are left to imagine or envision what follows. What comes next isn't as vital as the breaking, the crisis, which can either lead to change or healing, or serve as a signpost for more of the same.

Published in 1976, this is Carver's first collection. Earlier this month, I read "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" (my review here). In those pages, I discovered a new favorite writer. "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please" (oh, how I love this title) was also a delight, although I found this debut collection slightly uneven, perhaps a bit less accessible than his later work.

Despite certain challenges, Carver rewards a close reader with scattered Easter eggs that shed light on deeper meaning. For instance, in "What's In Alaska?", the casual gathering is filled with phallic symbols (hookah pipe, bottles of cream soda, popsicles). The foreshadowing of the "U-No" (you know) bars indicates that the main character will uncover something important. Then the imagery of the cat eating the mouse, which is revisited at the end, is a grim vision of a cuckold and the man who defeats him.

Including the above, these are my favorite stories out of the 22:
* "Fat" - A waitress is touched and transformed after serving an obese man.
* "They're Not Your Husband" - An unemployed salesman makes his wife lose weight after hearing people make mean remarks about her figure.
* "Jerry and Molly and Sam" - A man abandons the family dog, believing it will help solve his problems.
* "Why, Honey?" - A mother lives in fear of her son, who is now a powerful politician.
* "Are These Actual Miles?" - A couple who have lived the high life and now face bankruptcy are forced to sell their convertible.
* "Signals" - A couple on the verge of separation go fine dining in the hope of reconciliation.
* "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?" - A man asks his wife to tell him what really happened at a party two years ago, and the truth stings.

Each of these stories is told in his signature minimalist style. They are laid bare - scars, flaws, and ugliness there for all to see in the harsh light of day. Documenting the tsunamis of everyday life, these stories demand to be read with attention - every word on the page is significant, otherwise it wouldn't be there.

Oh, Raymond Carver. What a master at capturing glimpses of life, the beauty and tragedy we all experience when it "breaks". It doesn't get much better than this.

4.5 stars

These stories are uniformly bleak, presenting piercing vignettes that delve deep into the disappointments and insecurities of working class people.

The relentlessness of the raw pain on display here is extremely stark. At times, it is very, very difficult to continue reading as the emotions are so intense.

However, that being said, these are some of the most beautifully written stories you are likely to come across. The language and the way the stories are crafted are truly remarkable.

Even if you need to take some time to recuperate in between finishing one and starting another, it is well worth the effort. Each story offers a unique perspective and a powerful exploration of the human condition within the context of the working class.

It is a collection that will leave a lasting impression and make you think about the lives and struggles of those who often go unnoticed in society.

3 and a half stars, rounded up because it demands a re-read in the future.

In my experience, American realism is about minimalism, simplicity, and directness. And while Carver’s prose is clean, minimalist, simple, and direct, his stories truly are anything but. My husband strongly recommended his work to me, and I picked up his first published collection (instead of the more famous “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”) because the title made me smile. That smile did not last long; it was quickly replaced by a slightly puzzled frown. What the Hell did I get myself into with these short stories?

Each of these short stories seems to contain more than one tale. There’s the story on the surface, the one that meets the eye, and then there’s something else going on in the murky waters below. I’d get to the end of one short story and get the urge to start again from the beginning, because I felt like I had missed a crucial detail. I was also stunned that none of them really give the reader any kind of resolution. So they linger in the mind like a weird taste at the back of your tongue, while you try to figure out what might have happened to these characters after the final word of their story.

Those stories capture something of the American working-poor life, the ever-looming squalor, the lack of refinement in the characters’ lives. The glimpses into the lives of those people Carver gives us are deliberately unhappy. He wants to make the reader uncomfortable, ill at ease, if only so they get a taste of what these people’s entire existence was like. There is disappointment, sadness, jealousy, loneliness, despair, bitterness, and secrets on almost every page. People who wish they had their neighbours’ lives, a husband who reacts in all the wrong ways when someone makes a nasty comment about his wife, a kid desperately trying to escape his parents’ fighting, a man finally facing his wife's infidelity.

So why read this if it’s so goddamned sad? It’s a valid question. Because the Spartan prose is beautiful, because the sad settings and sad characters are somehow distilled into something almost universal, like a snapshot of an authentic American experience. Carver’s voice is unsettling, but strong and moving. There is also a surprisingly dark humour that runs through those stories, the kind that will make you cringe more than laugh.

It also occurred to me that stories like that could not be set anywhere else than in the Rust Belt or North West. It doesn’t matter that they were written over forty years ago, the locality is palpable in the writing. There is a sort of resiliency, a hardness that only comes from seeing the world around oneself turn into a trap. The way a certain part of the Mid and North West of the United-States that turned from land of industrial prosperity into a wasteland of broken promises.

I will definitely be reading more Raymond Carver.

Despite the fact that the characters appear on stage and interact without any preamble, without us having any previous knowledge of their character or their life, it is amazing the ease with which Carver manages to make me inhabit the skin of his helpless characters and face the vital conflict that he presents in each story in the first person. For this very reason, the lack of an explicit ending is appreciated, which would only serve to transform us from protagonists to mere spectators.

Carver's writing style is truly unique. He has this ability to draw you in immediately and make you feel as if you are right there with the characters, experiencing their joys and sorrows. The way he presents the conflicts is so raw and real that it makes you question your own values and beliefs. His stories are not just about the characters, but about the human condition as a whole.

I absolutely adore Carver. His works have had a profound impact on me and have made me see the world in a different light. I highly recommend his stories to anyone who is looking for a thought-provoking and emotionally engaging read.

**EVERY STORY TELLS A PICTURE**

Robert Altman directs Andie MacDowell, Bruce Davison, and Lyle Lovett in perhaps the top episode. Each excuse is good for rereading a story by Carver. They are short and can be read quickly. And, there's nothing to be done: every time I immerse myself in one of his stories (a few words are enough, even less than a line, because he catapults me elsewhere), I wonder in what other way a story can be written. There is only his way, it is perfect, without flaws. Then, of course, maybe when I pick up those of Dubus, I ask myself the same thing.

What a shock, what a turmoil, what a revolution it must have been almost fifty years ago (forty-six) the publication of his first collection! No one wrote like this, I believe. And Carver has the ability to make you believe that writing like him is easy, is a small feat, is within everyone's reach. In fact, on the fourth page of the Einaudi edition it is written: "With the publication in 1976 of 'Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?', Raymond Carver's first collection, an irreversible turning point was imprinted in the idea of the short story and, soon, in the entire American literary landscape."
Then, there has been talk of minimalism, one of the most insipid and ridiculous literary currents, and perhaps even completely invented. And, in my opinion, it has been talked about more by us than overseas - if nothing else, by us surely for a longer time. And, in short, with this mania for minimalism, an attempt has been made to cage it, to stick a label on it, and, as we know, with the label everything seems less special, less unique.
I read his stories and I say to myself, but what ugly people, full of flaws, meanness, stinginess, aridity, misery, they are small, small people. Then, I realize that they resemble all those I know, they also resemble me, and even the person I am in love with. And so, yes, of course, Carver talks about me, about you, about her. He talks about us. But above all, he talks to me.
Gatsby had taught us that the American dream can hide a great illusion, or perhaps, it is precisely a great illusion. But another fifty years have passed, and Carver's antiheroes tell us that happiness tout court is at best an illusion. So too God. There is no trace of happiness, of a dream, let alone of God in these bars, in these kitchens and bedrooms.
This has been a rereading, as I have already said. Not complete, I skipped from one story to another: I privileged those that were incorporated into Altman's film (Neighbors, Collectors, They Are Not Your Husband, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, Jerry and Molly and Sam - I report them with the original title because in Italy there have been more translations and more editions, I know those of Minimum Fax, Garzanti, and Einaudi, and the titles change from one to another: for example, Collectors is Creditori for Garzanti and Collettori for Einaudi). I am fascinated by Altman's cinematic operation, which transferred everything to Los Angeles, instead of northern California, the states of Oregon and Washington, where Carver sets his stories - a brilliant and complex adaptation, hats off. And I am always fascinated by rereading Carver, as you can see.
The book is dedicated to Maryann, the first wife, married at eighteen.
In practice, it is Hemingway's theory of the iceberg.

La locandina del film.

Carver's stories had a profound impact on me, initially making me feel uncomfortable and gradually leading to a deep sense of sadness.

They all seemed to be like a sunset in a small town, with the air filled with the smell of damp soil and the yellow grass shining like gold in the sunlight.

Don't ask me to explain it, but even those stories that took place on cold, winter nights gave me the same feeling.

I had never expected that such short stories could be so complete, so rich in meaning and human emotions.

The titular story, in particular, was a masterpiece on its own. It managed to capture the essence of life and the complexity of human relationships in a concise yet powerful way.

Carver's writing style was simple yet evocative, making it easy for readers to immerse themselves in the stories and experience the emotions along with the characters.

His works are a testament to the power of short fiction and its ability to touch the hearts and souls of readers.

You can utilize this book as an antidote to Donald Barthelme.

And then, in case you become overly minimal, you can incorporate a bit of Barthelme back into the equation. It's like a cocktail.

I simply can't envision those two getting along in the realm of short story writer heaven.

I bet the Minimalists and the Postmodernists engage in vicious football matches every Sunday.

It's brute strength and singleness of purpose pitted against fancy footwork and sneering.

Regarding the note on Short Cuts by Robert Altman, a movie crafted from Carver stories: surprisingly, nay, amazingly, it's great.

In true Altmanesque style, all the stories and characters intertwine and interact with each other.

With one single exception (the story of the cellist, which isn't by Carver, the only one), it all functions splendidly.

Might even be Altman's finest moment. Certainly one of Tom Waits'.

Here's a summary - might prove useful...

“Fat” - A waitress serves a rotund man and is deeply affected by the encounter.

“Neighbors”* - A couple house-sitting for neighbors gradually usurps their neighbors’ lives. They start to relish the sensation of voyeurism and begin to hope: One remarks, “Maybe they won’t come back.”

“The Idea” - A couple spies on a man who spies on his own wife from his garden.

“They’re Not your Husband”* - An unemployed salesman makes his waitress wife diet when he realizes that other men consider her overweight.

“Are you a Doctor?” - A woman accidentally dials a doctor, it’s a wrong number. She implores him to meet her and he complies.

“The Father” - A mother, grandfather, and daughter discuss the new baby’s features. “But who does Daddy look like?”

“Nobody Said Anything” - A boy endeavors to impress his constantly bickering parents by catching a large fish.

“Sixty Acres” - A Native American accosts two young kids shooting ducks on his land. He lets them go. He decides to lease some of his land.

“What’s in Alaska?” - Two couples get stoned on marijuana and LSD one evening.

“Night School” - A man is unemployed and living with his parents. He meets two women in a bar and discloses, “I’d say you’re kind of old for that.”

“Collectors”* - A vacuum salesman demonstrator arrives at the home of an unemployed man. He pointlessly goes through his sales spiel.

“What do you do in San Francisco?” - A postman observes the young couple who move in next door. They seem to break up rather swiftly.

“The Student’s Wife” - A night of insomnia.

“Put yourself in my Shoes” - Returning from an office party, a couple is interrogated and insulted in a strange encounter with their landlord and his wife.

“Jerry and Molly and Sam”* - A man is driven to madness by the family dog and decides to dispose of it by dumping it on the outskirts of town. He soon has a change of heart.

“Why Honey?” - Letter from the mother of an apparently pathological liar who has become President of the United States. “I should be proud but I am afraid.”

“The Ducks” - At work, the foreman suddenly expires, so everyone is sent home. At home, one man fails to seize the opportunity to have sex with his wife.

“How About This?” - A couple comes to inspect her father’s deserted place in the country. Maybe they will relocate there.

“Bicycles, muscles, Cigarettes”* - A man quits smoking. He calls at the house of a friend of his son where a dispute is ongoing over a missing bike. He and the accused boy’s father engage in a fight.

“Are These Actual Miles?” - An unemployed man’s wife goes out to sell their car and doesn't return until dawn.

“Signals” - A couple in a flashy restaurant appears to be attempting to determine if they still have a future together. “I don’t mind admitting I’m just a lowbrow.”

“Will you please be quiet please?”* - The story of Ralph and Marian, two students who marry and become teachers. Ralph becomes fixated on the idea that Marian was unfaithful to him once in the past. Ralph gets drunk and feels his whole life transforming once he discovers the truth.

*used in Altman's movie Short Cuts

This is a collection of strange and disturbing short stories. Each story has a weird title, an elusive meaning, and a rather abrupt ending. Raymond Carver has a unique way of showing us the inner lives of his characters.

He uses their physical actions and short bursts of conversation, but very little actual description of what the character is going through. It's all about the way the stories make you feel. Most of the stories involve a random happening in the life of an individual or a couple and their feelings about it.

Think about those short breaks from work. Maybe you're standing in the corridor smoking a cigarette, wondering about things. Or you visit a bar and sit alone at a table, drinking a beer and thinking to yourself. Or perhaps you just lie in bed on a morning, stare at the fan, and let your thoughts run wild. Those short gaps in our busy lives when we take a moment to sit back and ponder - that's what these stories are about.

The characters are mostly working class or middle class people, and Carver delves deep into the innards of their souls. Some of the stories are really brutal, and there is a certain cruelty in the way Carver describes the problems of the characters. The following stories stood out for me:

Fat - A young woman tells her friend about the gluttonous behavior of a fat patron at the restaurant where she works. Her boyfriend's reactions to the fat patron and how it affects her life are also part of the short story.

The Ducks - I liked its atmospheric and erotic qualities. A man comes home after his work is cancelled. His wife tries to have sex with him, but his mind is elsewhere.

What's in Alaska? - Two couples meet up to smoke a water pipe. During their rambling conversations, the main character Jack sees his wife hugging the other man. The story had a creepy ending.

They're Not Your Husband - A man hears two men make a lewd comment about his overweight wife, who is a waitress. He then tries to make her lose weight.

And here it is... the best collection of short stories I've ever read. It's truly a remarkable find.

Where has Carver been all my life? Why did no one introduce me to his work fifteen years ago? I deeply regret that it took me this long to discover him. Now, I'm determined to get my hands on everything Carver has written as soon as possible.

How on earth can a writer pack so much power into super-short stories, often just ten pages long? It's truly astonishing. Each story is a standalone masterpiece, filled with authenticity and a sense of reality. And yet, they all feel like small, perfect dreams of sadness. All the characters seem to be mourning themselves, hurting in the most beautiful way.

I've already re-read several of these stories, and I know I'll be tucking this gem away to re-read again and again.

Some of the standouts include:

“They’re Not your Husband” - The imagery in this story is so vivid and palpable, it's truly delightful. I loved this twisted and cruel tale. It felt like a movie, a TV show, or a full-length novel. I wanted to stay in that diner and watch the dysfunction unfold for hours over a slice of pie.

“Nobody Said Anything” - This story is filled with such melancholy.

“Collectors” - Oh, the strangeness! Is there anything more lonely than a door-to-door vacuum salesman? I don't think so.

“Jerry and Molly and Sam” - Trapped, trapped, trapped. This story felt like a mini Yates story.

The writing is haunting and soaked in a sense of foreboding. It's heart-breaking and wonderful all at the same time.

This has been an incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable year for me, a passionate reader for over two decades. I've discovered new authors to idolize and fallen even more deeply in love with my long-standing heroes. I've experienced the intense joy of revisiting much-loved works and have immersed myself in genres that I now can't live without.

Unfortunately, the initial awe I felt when introduced to the raw beauty of Raymond Carver in January (his mastery of the medium has forever changed my interest in and opinion of short stories for the better) took a backseat as I became increasingly enamored with the way post-modernism shattered everything I thought I knew about my bookish taste.

It was a pure delight to return to the terse, hyper-realistic world of Carver's deceptively short and tightly structured snapshots of life. My initial wariness of short stories stemmed from reading too many underdeveloped or overly dramatic examples. However, Carver is the master of packing years of quiet suffering into an eight-page story, building agonizing suspense in just a few lines, and making the reader feel every painful pang of his characters.

That might not sound terribly delightful, but it truly is. Because none of these fictional feelings that evoke real-life responses can come close to the conflicted bliss of losing oneself in page after exquisitely crafted page of brilliant, profoundly disquieting storytelling. Neither the desire for a story to end so the characters can be relieved of their misery nor the growing knot in my stomach while reading some of these stories could prevent me from wallowing in Carver's words with nerdy abandon.

I wasn't as universally drawn to the characters in these stories as I was with "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." There seemed to be more domestic strife involving children (which I can't relate to) in this collection, and the instances of people being less than kind to animals (which I can't handle) automatically turned me off a little. But that's really where my minor complaints end.

Most of these stories felt like those moments of stark clarity right before chaos erupts, when a carpet stain or an isolated section of tablecloth pattern becomes your entire field of vision because it's the only thing holding your world together with its desperate normalcy. They capture those moments that become significant not for what they are but rather for what they presage. And I love how so many of these taciturn tales begin like an establishing shot before slowly zeroing in on the heart of the matter with an intimidating combination of misdirection, backstory, and realism to emphasize the rising action that's typically outside the scope of these stories.

Carver shows (not tells!) that there's so much more to a story than the traditional climax, that sometimes the rising action is more indicative of the resolution than anything else. There are countless directions the narrative can take as Carver keeps fine-tuning its path, usually arriving at an ending drenched in hopelessness and only one logical, deftly implied conclusion. It's a morbid celebration of how all these tiny moments combine to form the bigger picture and determine the trajectory of a life.

The juxtaposition of the stories' unusual focal points (chopping wood, aimless wandering, awkward small talk) against very relatable troubles (children's skirmishes that require adults' intervention, unhappy marriages, occupational dissatisfaction, feeling like the American Dream is always just out of reach) is the best kind of understatement. Even with my favorite literary device being expertly executed repeatedly, what I found particularly interesting was that all these little details about everything but the very unhappy elephant in the room offered such a vivid contrast between the way people lived in the '60s and '70s compared to the way we live now. So much has changed in the world, yet absolutely nothing has changed about the human condition. I'd be willing to bet that Carver's legacy will include the way his writing serves as both a time capsule of human sadness and provides irrefutable evidence that quiet misery is a major linking factor in modern society because we've all been intimately acquainted with any five emotions tearing through these pages at some point in our pasts.

Raymond Carver's first book I started with was "Cathedral". I didn't like "Cathedral" that much. I remember saying that our novelists are better and I prefer Behçet Çelik more. But I knew that the foundations of American fiction were solid: Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne. A nobody like me talking about these names will not find many fans. For this reason, when I had this book in my hand, I wanted to give Carver a new chance.

This book, like "Cathedral", is full of married couples, but there are other things too. In this regard, it was satisfying for me. I like short stories. The gaps and transitions in short stories are also my favorite parts. Also, the content must touch on my life and emotions. Then I like the story more and find it more sincere and warm. I couldn't catch these emotions much in "Cathedral". It was different in this book. For example, there were many people visiting in this book and a sincere atmosphere was experienced during the visit. Instead of saying "Hey friend, pour yourself a drink", it was more like "Let me make you a cup of tea." After seeing the people smoking hookah in the story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", I confessed that I would not be surprised if a golden day was arranged in the next story.

Also, our tragicomic state as a generation that technology and production relations have isolated, atomized and damaged is also shown in some stories. Clara prolonged her conversation with Arnold, whom she had never met and dialed by mistake, more and more. In another story, our hero, who has lost his job, his wife and his car, engages in a conversation with two talkative women who are wandering around the bar in a bar. Despite the artificial expressions on the women's faces, our hero is happy with these moments...

In addition to this, there were stories in some situations that are often encountered in real life but that no one would think of fictionalizing. For example, the problem of buttocks enlargement. A situation that happens to many people and causes embarrassment.