A free online link to the short story Cathedral is found here: https://www.thelondonmagazine.org/cathedral-b...

Review of the one story Cathedral:

How do people best communicate? By touch? This is a question that the story Cathedral makes us ponder. Communication is the crucial means through which a thought, an idea, or a message travels from one individual to another. When we think of communication, words are often the first thing that comes to our minds. However, we can also visually read another person's disposition. And as the story beautifully shows, through one person's touch of another, communication is passed as well.

This is a very good short story. The author has keenly observed how individuals behave. His words then paint a vivid and pin-perfect picture of what he has seen. As we read his words, we understand without the need for any additional explanation. I really like this lack of explanation. It makes the story more engaging and allows the readers to draw their own conclusions. It shows that sometimes, the simplest of words and the most basic forms of communication, such as observation and touch, can convey the deepest and most profound meanings.

Nella speranza che non mi sia sfuggito qualche codicillo locale per il quale sono previste pene corporali per chi non fa scintille per Carver.

I humbly and orderly withdraw to reflect on his (non) minimalism, on non-essentialism, on subtractionism, on linearism, on the lyricism of the next door.

On how easy and convenient it is to prefer the epigones to him after him. Because if there hadn't been him, there wouldn't be anyone now to prefer to him and things like that.

Carver's work is a unique exploration of the human condition. His use of simple language and spare prose creates a powerful and evocative effect.

By stripping away the unnecessary, he reveals the essence of his characters and their experiences.

His minimalism is not just a style, but a way of seeing the world. It forces us to look more closely at the details and to find meaning in the ordinary.

As I reflect on Carver's work, I am struck by its enduring power and relevance. It continues to inspire and challenge readers today, just as it did when it was first published.

This is the third collection of stories in Raymon Carver’s short life. It is the first one after his break with Gordon Lish, an editor who liberally shortened his previous stories. Now, these stories are all his as he wrote them, with minimal, if any, editorial interventions. One wonders what Lish found redundant in Carver’s writing. After all, it is crisp, minimalist, and spare, with not a single sentence or word wasted. The stories are also brilliantly simple, depicting a slice of everyday life, mostly in a working-class setting.

His previous two collections were known for their pervasive bleakness and tragic endings. However, this cannot be said for many of the stories included in Cathedral. To be sure, the realities presented are not happy. There are wrecked marriages, alcoholics who may or may not be recovering, numb, desolate or broken lives, losses, and loneliness. None of these is caused by poverty, as Carver’s stories are not political. Behind the terse sentences and simple colloquial dialogues, a reader is subtly led to the roots of these problems in the alienated and misplaced meaningful human relations, both interpersonal and within one’s own limited life.

In several stories, the endings are ambivalent, leaving the reader to contemplate possible futures, albeit with a hint of pessimism. But in a few others, Carver makes a powerful turn and subtly suggests an exit from such desolate and alienated conditions through connectedness with a kind stranger, which brings about an awakening and the acceptance of the new reality. And those are the ones that had the strongest impact on me, such as “A Small, Good Thing”, “Cathedral”, “Where I’m Calling From”, and “Fever”. There is a different ending in “Feathers”, and perhaps it is the story I enjoyed the most while reading it. It is more humorous and warmer than others until the concluding scene. Like most collections, it is somewhat uneven, with some stories shaped as less memorable sketches, like “Chef's House” or “Vitamins”. However, I cannot recommend it enough for those few stories that stunned me as deeply impactful masterpieces.

Raymond Carver is indeed one of the most influential writers of the late 20th century. This volume, which was published five years before his untimely death at the age of 50, has the makings of an American classic.

It contains some of his most renowned short stories, such as “Feathers,” “Chef’s House,” “A Small, Good Thing,” “Vitamins,” “Where I’m Calling From,” and the mysterious title tale.

I had read and studied a few of these stories before, but this was my first time reading the book from cover to cover. Here are several observations:

1. The Resonance During a Recession

I had forgotten the significant number of unemployed people in the book. Consider these opening sentences:

“Sandy’s husband had been on the sofa ever since he’d been terminated three months ago” (“Preservation”).

“I had a job and Patti didn’t. I worked a few hours a night for the hospital. It was a nothing job. I did some work, signed the card for eight hours, went drinking with the nurses. After a while, Patti wanted a job. She said she needed a job for her self-respect. So she started selling multiple vitamins door to door” (“Vitamins”).

“This old station wagon with Minnesota plates pulls into a parking space in front of the window. There’s a man and woman in the front seat, two boys in the back. It’s July, temperature’s one hundred plus. These people look whipped. There are clothes hanging inside; suitcases, boxes, and such piled in back. From what Harley and I put together later, that’s all they had left after the bank in Minnesota took their house, their pickup, their tractor, the farm implements, and a few cows” (“The Bridle”).

2. Diverse Characters

Carver is known as the poet of the working class, and many critics praise his diction for evoking the language of ordinary working people. However, it is surprising to find many professionals in these stories. For example, the father in “A Small, Good Thing” has an “advanced degree in business, a junior partnership in an investment firm.” In “The Compartment,” Myers is an executive who can afford to travel first-class. Carlyle, in “Fever,” is a high school art teacher.

3. Beautiful Construction

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the book’s title, Cathedral, Carver is a master at setting up plot and character. He knows when to use dialogue and when to provide exposition. “Chef’s House,” for instance, is only six or seven pages long, but it gives a perfect sense of the couple’s troubled past and a satisfying glimpse of their wonderful summer before their fortunes change. It is a model of economy and compression.

4. The Prevalence of Alcoholics

Like Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and his good friend John Cheever, Carver struggled with alcoholism. However, he managed to get sober and focus on his work. There is a theory that many of his stories resemble the confessionals in Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs.

5. The Peculiar Detail of Hands on Legs

I counted at least four instances where characters place their hands on other people’s legs. It’s a rather strange detail.

6. The Distinct Voice

Carver’s voice is so unique that it has been imitated by many and lends itself to parody. The language and cadences may seem simple, but there is much depth beneath the words. It is important not to read his stories too quickly, as there is often more than meets the eye. Additionally, despite some bleak themes, there is a lot of humor in his writing.

7. Forced Epiphanies

Carver’s narrators often have sudden revelations, usually on the penultimate page of a story. While the writing is fine, there is something slightly contrived about these effects. Carver sometimes spells things out a little too clearly, with a somewhat naïve attitude.

8. The Spiritual Aspect

Carver’s stories are not religious, but they do have a spiritual quality. This may be because his characters suffer so much. Their pasts are filled with drunkenness, violence, and abandonment. They are searching for something, whether it be redemption, grace, or a vision of happiness. The final lines of “Cathedral” capture this spiritual essence: “So we kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now.” These stories,看似简单,却蕴含着非凡的力量.

Today I read the 12 stories in the collection and I like to see them as episodes of a Netflix series. They gave me this cinematic impression, due to the setting (usually interiors), the characterization of the characters, and the construction of the (mini) stories. Maybe I'm influenced by the Altman film (Today's America), rewatched after almost 30 years, with its plot of Carver's stories, some of which are in this collection.

The common thread: life, the real one, of us "normal" people, the burden of living it on the shoulders of our fragilities, facing inevitable unforeseen events and failures, in precariousness, or in search of connection/communication with our peers.

Edward Hopper, Summer in the city, 1950

The stories that I find the most beautiful in the collection are:
- Pens; a dinner among friends/colleagues, including peacocks, and current and future children with some strangeness;
- At Chef's house; in a house on the California coast, Wes tries to detox from alcohol and rebuild the old relationship with Edna; for a short time, they succeed;
- A small but good thing; a baker prepares a birthday cake for a child; the child will have an accident; the final encounter between the baker and the parents goes straight into my personal reading memories box;
- The compartment: a night train in France, the father is going to find the son he hasn't seen in eight years, thinks back to the painful separation, with the temptation to skip the appointment;
- From where I'm calling; life in a rehabilitation community for alcoholics, J.P. and his partner review their lives, looking from the other side of the hill where Jack London lived;
- Fever; just left by his partner, the father finds himself having to manage two children; he will find a wonderful old lady to help and "cure" him;
- The bridle: a cross-section of the life of the community gathered in a typical American residence/motel, with a shared pool;
- Cathedral; a blind man meets again after many years the girl who was his assistant many years ago and with whom he has always been in touch while their lives passed by; the final marriage between the girl's partner and the blind man is fantastic.

Part of my existence wanted to help, but there was another part as well.

Career means a special death, a domestic death, a modern death and an American dream death. People are unhappy and people are sad. Houses are full of people, people are scared, empty and nothing.

This description presents a rather bleak and complex picture of life. It shows the internal conflict within oneself, with one part desiring to assist while another part remains passive or perhaps even reluctant.

The mention of different types of "deaths" related to career implies the various sacrifices and losses that people may experience in the pursuit of their professional goals.

The state of people being unhappy and sad, along with the description of houses being full yet also empty and scared, further emphasizes the sense of emptiness and discontent that pervades society.

Overall, this passage seems to be a reflection on the human condition and the challenges and contradictions that we face in our lives.

**"Catedral" - A Realistic Collection of Tales**

4,5*



Catedral is a collection of twelve realistic short stories that delve into the lives of ordinary people and the events of their daily routines. The writing style is dry and minimalist, yet in each story, despite their brevity, the author manages to build a progressive tension. I also found the contents, some more lunar and others more solar, to be quite original.



I liked all the stories, with my favorite being the one that gives the book its title. In this tale, a man welcomes a blind friend of his wife into their home. Initially, he is annoyed by the visit and seemingly uncomfortable with the sense of semi-exclusion he feels in the face of the intimacy between his wife and the blind friend. However, the two men eventually form a bond through the sharing, in an almost brotherly gesture, of the vision of what a cathedral looks like.



Here are the ratings for each story:


Penas - 4+


A casa de Chef - 4


Conservação - 4


O compartimento - 4+


Um certo conforto - 5+


Vitaminas - 3+


Cuidado! - 4


O sítio donde estou a telefonar - 4


O comboio - 4


Febre - 5


As rédeas - 4


Catedral - 5++

Although stories are not my preference when choosing a reading, I have been charmed by the pen of this author.

Each story is a small window that shows us a pessimistic reality, characters full of internal or external demons.

Highly recommended, my favorite has been "It Seems Silly".

This anthology, titled "PopSugar 2020 #11", offers a collection of tales that delve into the human psyche and the darker aspects of life. The author's writing style is engaging and vivid, making it easy for the reader to become immersed in each story. Whether it's the exploration of a character's inner turmoil or the描绘 of a dystopian world, each tale has its own unique charm. While some may find the themes a bit heavy, I believe that they offer a valuable perspective on the human condition. Overall, I would highly recommend this anthology to anyone looking for a thought-provoking and engaging read.

Admittedly, short story books have never really excited me. However, the reputation of "Cathedral" and its author in the genre, as well as the relatively short length of the work, convinced me to give the book a try. Having it sitting on the shelf gathering dust also played a part.

Raymond Carver, with his minimalist and dry style, taking the ordinary and its horrors as his theme, presents us with a collection of immersive stories that, with varying degrees of success, manage to perturb us with a realistic and visceral intrusion into the decadence of the ordinary: boredom and indifference towards work, drifting couples, midlife crises, drugs and alcohol as escape valves, doubt and helplessness...

One of its greatest successes lies in the fact that all the "stories" manage to create an atmosphere of tension. The reader has the continuous sensation that something is about to break irreparably, to explode into the air. It is the tangible and disheartening impression of imminent tragedy, of its implacability. Then, it is true that the stories do not end up being as conclusive and impactful as one might wish, and that it is even difficult to extract some kind of significant and useful reflection from them as a whole.

Overall, the work is not as impactful and memorable as one might expect. A book that is hard to get excited about, even if you try. However, it is worth valuing the sense of emptiness and coldness that it generates and transmits, its intrusion into the cracks of life that all of us, in some way, have experienced or unfortunately will experience. The crudeness of daily life, indeed. For me, it's 3 - 3.25 stars.

\\n  \\"Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.\\"\\n

My heart is firmly lodged in my throat after devouring this magnificent collection. I've dedicated a significant portion of my day to poring over these stories, as I simply couldn't fathom engaging in any other activity.

This marks both Carver's third collection and the third one I've had the pleasure of reading. This time around, his work emerged without the unforgiving editorial touch of Gordon Lish, as evidenced by the longer, more intricately detailed stories. It gives the impression that Carver was stretching his creative legs here, with truly remarkable results.

Some of the stories bear a semi-autobiographical resemblance, and many are cloaked in darkness. However, there are a select few that possess a softer, more affirming quality - a glimmer of light in the otherwise bleak landscape. They are all outstanding in their own right, but here are the ones that truly stood out for me:

* 'Chef's House' - A reformed alcoholic extends an invitation to his estranged wife to spend the summer with him in a rented abode; we witness the delicate balance of his sobriety.
* 'Preservation' - An unemployed man retreats to the couch, immobilized and trapped, while his wife despairs and labors - until the fateful day when the refrigerator malfunctions.
* 'A Small, Good Thing' - Parents grapple with the hit and run accident of their seven-year-old boy, finding solace in the most unexpected of places. (This is an expanded version of 'The Bath' found in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. I'm truly at a loss as to which one I hold dearer!)
* 'Careful' - An alcoholic man's ears become blocked, and his perception of acceptable behavior morphs with each swig from the champagne bottle.
* 'Fever' - One of the optimistic tales I alluded to earlier, this narrative explores how a newly single father, struggling to come to terms with the abandonment of his wife, realizes that even if love concludes on a sour note, it was still love.
* 'Cathedral' - My absolute favorite of the collection. A blind man imparts new ways of seeing to a sighted man. I was personally reduced to tears by this line on the final page: \\"It was like nothing else in my life up to now.\\"

A few nerdy tidbits to note: 'The Compartment' serves as a sequel to a previous Carver story, 'Put Yourself in My Shoes'. And 'The Train' is a continuation of John Cheever's story, 'The Five Forty-Eight'.

I find it truly impossible to express my feelings about Raymond Carver without becoming overly emotional and sentimental. But I will say that I felt a sense of belonging here, welcomed into the very essence of the lives vividly portrayed within the pages of his work, through his highly accessible prose, expertly guided by his deft hand, and entrusted with the contents of his heart. I'm profoundly grateful that Raymond Carver lived and wrote. There's a valid reason why he continues to be an influential figure, especially in the realm of the short story form.

Impresionante.

Carver es un genio. Su talento es simplemente asombroso.

Desde que comenzó a mostrar su trabajo, ha cautivado a miles de personas con su creatividad y originalidad.

Sus obras son una mezcla única de técnica y emoción, que logran tocar el corazón de quien las ve.

Carver no se conforma con lo convencional, sino que siempre busca nuevas formas de expresarse y desafiar los límites.

Su enfoque artístico es tan innovador que ha inspirado a una nueva generación de artistas.

Es un verdadero ejemplo de dedicación y pasión por el arte, y su legado permanecerá en la historia de la cultura artística.

My eyes are still closed.

I am in my house. I know that. But I don't feel like I'm in anything.

Reread in January/February 2021: Raymond Carver's books always feel like eating a perfectly cut slice of cake. The stories are impeccably restrained, and the characters are placed in a context that only takes place in the present. The past and the future are both insignificant. Only the things happening right now are twisting, tying knots, and turning and rolling their lives. And that's why sometimes it gives a really uncomfortable feeling, like that cake-cutting knife, after completing its task, has stabbed straight into the reader's heart.

Read in February 2014: Raymond Carver's short story collections published in Vietnam are all very strange to me. I don't like them very much, just enough, but there is something attractive in his writing style that makes me unable to skip any of his short story collections. I excitedly read them and want to reread them right after finishing. Maybe I have been charmed by his natural writing style with simple storylines.