Reviews - What We Talk about When We Talk about Love / Beginners (A Vintage Short)

1.96k reviews for:

What We Talk about When We Talk about Love / Beginners (A Vintage Short)

Cierto que habla de relaciones donde posiblemente se iniciaron por o con amor. El resto son diálogos pasajeros, casuales sin motivo u objetivo. Bueno, salvo el relato que da título al libro. Que puede parecer interesante. Pero no profundiza, no crea debate.

Creo que Carver busca que cada uno le de sentido a cada relato. Relatos cotidianos de gente simple.

crullo's review against another edition

4.0

Always an airplane read for me. And always a great one. I love pretending the passengers may be the characters.

6syllables's review against another edition

4.0

From 1981 in my quest to read one book from every year of my life. Loved this short story collection. Hope I find more from Carver

sophipolitain's review against another edition

3.0

slow-paced

alexandra_isabelle's review against another edition

2.0

“They had laughed. They had leaned on each other and laughed until the tears had come, while everything else—the cold, and where he'd go in it—was outside, for a while anyway.”

Idk if I love minimalism but still had some beautiful lines

squid_vicious's review against another edition

4.0

I am almost always late on the bandwagon; I’m not sure how I do it, but I often tend to miss new shows, bands or books by a few years, and then I get around to them, get super excited and everyone else is like “yeah, we know…”. Case in point: I recently started watching “Shameless” (the American version) and got very emotionally invested in it – and I can’t find anyone to talk about Fiona’s terrible decision-making or Ian and Mickey’s adorable relationship with, because everyone else who cares just finished season 10… This is pretty typical for me.

Watching this show about a family living below the poverty line in Chicago made me think of the Carver short stories I had read last year (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2797350187): the squalor, the bitterness, the stress of survival, the strange sources of joy and comfort. The short stories and the show both brought up sadness, an outraged urge to rant about social inequalities and a bitter laugh at the maddening circumstances the characters are mired in. I think the ultimate difference is that while the Gallaghers try to find a modicum of meaning and purpose in their lives, Carver’s characters have given up and will simply pass the time boozing, playing cards and fishing until they die.

This collection was even better than “Will You Please Be Quiet Please”: while the earlier work of Mr. Carver left me feeling uneasy and a little shell-shocked, this one just tore through me. I think there might be a little blood on my shirt. How he managed to make bleak stories about people doing nothing so beautiful is truly awe-inspiring. And just like the stories I read last year, it wasn’t the vignettes themselves that hit me, quite so much as the aftertaste they left in my brain.

Many people have written stories about falling in love, and that’s all good, but few people dare to look at what happens after the credit rolls, when love becomes work, a challenge, or even sometimes a burden. The love Carver’s character have for each other is pretty fucked up, but it’s also visceral and upsettingly real. When you used to love someone and you don’t anymore, where did that love go? Can you love someone and hate them at the same time? I’ve asked myself those questions, and while I know that Carver might not have had the answers, he illustrated the universality of that anguish perfectly. He doesn't even give you the fight, or the reason behind the death of the love: just the fallout.

I love that those little stories are much more than just the words put on the page, that you have to work out for yourself what happened before the first line. I think it makes the blow more subtle but also more painful. I will be re-reading this one.

megancadigan's review against another edition

4.0

Short stories are nice like a 5 course meal is nice. Little snippets and nibbles of delicious things that never quite fill you up, but you feel content at the end. Carver is a master of the English language. Never an excess word in his stories. I really enjoyed his willingness to go deep into the darkest personal moments in relationships (the ones we all cover up and never talk about). Definitely liked the moniker story “What we talk about when we talk about love” the most. Overall a great read and quite cerebral. Minus one star because it wasn’t quite as engaging as the other books I read this year (but also is likely best consumed slowly, like a 5 course meal).