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A review by nutskito
What We Talk about When We Talk about Love by Raymond Carver
1.0
I hated this collection with a burning passion and I do not understand how anyone could enjoy it.
The writing is so bare-bones that it leaves *everything* to be desired, to a point where the author fails at doing the very bare minimum story-telling. The language used creates no atmosphere and even less reasons to care about anything that's unfolding, reminding me of Hemingway but somehow even more devoid of description. I am already not a fan of Hemingway's style as it is, so reading this collection of stories felt about as pleasant as eating sandpaper.
As always I will be rating each story on a /5 scale and giving my short, mostly spoiler-free thoughts. The following reviews were written directly after I finished each story, so, for this one, I am working without the benefit of hindsight. I do not care to spend another second thinking about this collection so I will not be giving my structured thoughts.
Story #1: Why Don’t You Dance?
I’m not sure what the aim of this story was besides, “potentially depressed old man finds solace in a couple’s youthful love.” I kind of hate how simplistic the dialogue was. As in, this feels like a collection meant to encapsulate human nature and certain parts of the human experience in regards to love, but that becomes really difficult to relate to when the characters don’t really feel like characters and lines of dialogue and action aren’t strung together in a way that flows and feels natural. Events just hard-cut from one to another and that makes for a very jarring reading experience. I hope this collection improves.
Rating: 1/5
Story #2: Viewfinder
This one had so much potential to be good but just went nowhereeeeeee.
Uuugghhhhhh.
The dialogue felt a lot more natural than the previous story but still read more like what an alien’s interpretation of what humans sound like is. It’s just not strung together at all, I feel like I’m listening to someone tell a story that happened to them years ago and they only remember around 2/3 of it and they forget why they were telling the story in the first place like halfway through. Give your stories a rhythm and a point, I beg you.
Rating: 1.5/5
Story #3: Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit
OK, AGAIN, it’s just the same shit as before of “person telling a story that they only remember 2/3 of”! This one is SO all over the place. The story just felt so aimless besides “Hey, here's two unhealthy relationships.” OKAY, AND??? People read books to learn something interesting, and they especially read slice-of-life type books to have it make them see x common thing in a whole new light. This one is just straight up stating what happened and then refusing to elaborate. There is that element of “you’re supposed to draw a conclusion for yourself”, I guess? But the stories don’t give you nearly enough to understand what’s happening, let alone draw your own conclusion about any of it.
Rating: 1/5
Story #4: Gazebo
What a drag. This one had potential to be good if the author didn't make it a melodramatic mess by writing such crappy dialogue. The female lead felt very r/menwritingwomen and I had to reflexively recoil from the ereader on multiple instances due to how unnatural her writing felt. I guess this one at least had a point? If the “human experience” these stories were meant to explore is just “people have extramarital affairs and it feels like crap” then wow is the human experience boring as shit, apparently. This man just does constant setup without execution, and that’s being real generous because the setup isn’t all that goddamn impressive either.
Rating: 1.5/5
Story #5: I Could See The Smallest Things
Lost it at the first fucking paragraph. WHY IS THE WRITING SO BLAND??? The lack of description other than: “She got up and did x. There was an x in the window. It was dark out.” just makes me so deeply irritated. It would be fine if there was a point to it, but there's just no atmosphere to the environment and the author gives me no reason to care about any of the characters. How is this man so revered? It reminds me of that one quote from SATC. My version of that would go something like this: “So they get a medal for correctly describing an action in a story? “I got up and tossed this book into the garbage can.” Tadaaa!”
This one was only good in comparison to the other moldy bread adjacent stories I’ve read so far. The point of this one was also kinda meh. I get what the author was going for but it just fell flat because of a pure lack of any substance other than: This was better than the rest, but that is certainly not high praise, or praise at all really.
Rating: 2/5
Story #6: Sacks
“Extramarital affairs suck 2: electric boogaloo”. This was so similar to "Gazebo"... Like the author had these two stories about extramarital affairs in mind, couldn’t pick which one he liked most and just went with putting both of them in the collection without changing a thing. Out of the two I definitely prefer this one, because it had a slightly more emotionally mature cheater but even then they were both so painfully boring and had the exact same point to make about affairs. Can we please stop with/spice up the cheating stories? I beg.
Rating: 2/5
Story #7: The Bath
There was a child in this one. This one was so forgettable, okay, Raymond gives me no reason to care about anything that's happening!
Rating: 1/5
Story #8: Tell The Women We’re Going
Third time around, same old shit, same old fucking shit. Except this time there’s two of them and one gets roped into it because the other’s a bored and careless sex maniac I guess. Men, amirite? At least this one has a story? I think??? Whatever, I hate my life, there’s like eight more goddamn stories left, but I might as well finish this.
Rating: 1.5/5
Story #9: After The Denim
I’m starting to feel like either I’m not understanding the point or this man is just writing his stream of consciousness without any planning or structuring or anything, because this one was just another mildly-amusing story you’d hear about and tell one of your friends over coffee and then promptly forget about. A lot of these “human experience” explorations are so banal and cliche that just reading them makes me fall asleep, and I’m already running on **0 hours of sleep**. You are exhausting me, Raymond.
Rating: 1/5
Story #10: So Much Water So Close To Home
Murder? Sex? I don’t understand this one again??? This one is the most enticing one out of all of them, I guess, but still pretty fucking bland for a story involving **murder**. GIVE ME SOMETHING INTERESTING, PLEASE!
Rating: 1.5/5
Story #11: The Third Thing That Killed My Father off
Enticing title, please don’t be boring.
Update: it was boring.
Rating: 0.5/5
Story #12: A Serious Talk
WHAT IS GOING ONN???? I don’t understand. This book is gonna be the end of me and it is legit only 150 pages, I will pour this hot coffee in my eyes.
LITERALLY A PAGE LATER:
“I can’t take any more. You tried to burn the house down.”
WHAT-
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ONNNN?!
I am so sick of this “piece the already incredibly shallow message of this story with 2 sentences of elaboration” crap! JUST WRITE A REAL STORY, STOP PERFORMANCE ART-ING LITERATURE.
Rating: 0.5/5
Story #13: The Calm
Despite the fact that I generally don't care for stories involving hunting (I have very little interest in the subject), I actually found this one really enjoyable, perhaps the most enjoyable thus far. For the simple reason that I love the overall barber/hairdresser experience of getting to chat about random topics and having a laugh or bonding over something simple with a person you see every 3 months or so and have very limited contact with. It’s also such a weirdly sensual experience, having someone run their fingers through your hair, shampoo and condition it, and snip snap a perfect style on your head. It’s one of those universal experiences that you can get a lot of relatable material out of, because most everyone can relate to it or has something either enjoyable or dreadful associated with it. Not totally my type of story still, given all the hunting chatter and displays of weird toxic masculinity, but I can definitely see your average Joe really enjoying this one.
Rating: 3/5
Story #14: Popular Mechanics
This one was just that one John Mulaney stand-up where he tells the story of King Solomon and the the baby. That’s it. That’s this entire ridiculous story. Also, where the fuck are the quotation marks, why did they just randomly disappear in this one specific short story?
Rating: 0.5/5
Story #15: Everything Stuck To Him
Why have we become so obsessed with hunting all of a sudden??? First it was fishing, now it’s hunting. Anyway, I can’t believe this story commends this man for doing the bare fucking minimum. This story really says 'Good job for not being a shit person.'
Also what happened to the quotation marks.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE QUOTATION MARKS, RAYMOND?!
I will-
UGH!
Rating: 0.5/5
Story #16: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
SEE THESE ARE THE TYPES OF STORIES I WAS LOOKING FOR! Just simple explorations of love through various circumstances, BUT, NO, instead we had to get this bleak, pretentious, “it’s actually really deep guys, trust me” bullcrap!
God damn it AGAIN. The story ended without any resolution AGAIN. It started off so good as an actual STORY, with CHARACTERS, and it ended abruptly with no sense yet again. I am so exhausted. The best one out of the collection, yes, a good story about love even, but still falls so flat! I’ve come to the conclusion that I just hate this man’s style. It’s reminiscent of Hemingway but if you made it even MORE bare-bones somehow. As a fan of puzzles, you’d expect me to enjoy having to dig deep into the sparing language to find out what’s really beneath the covers, but these words just feel so utterly devoid of purpose other than to make you think that there’s a purpose. Best story in this collection but even more disappointing than the last ones because of just how little it cares about any closure.
Rating: 3/5
Story #17: One More Thing
I wish there were no more things but go ahead.
““Keep your nose out of this,” L.D. said. L.D. said, “I can’t take anybody seriously who…” WHO EDITED THIS. WHAT IS THIS STRUCTURE. HOW IS THIS SO ACCLAIMED. I am so exhausted.
Rating: 0.5/5
Apparently these stories were heavily edited down and the original manuscript was published under the title “Beginners”. All I'll say is that the editing down definitely shows, but people still give high praise to this collection, even as it stands with the unfinished tales, so I'm not sure what to make of it really. As of right now, this whole notion that “these short stories end abruptly and are relatively uninteresting because it’s exactly what the human experience is like” just seems like a pretty unimpressive way to justify bad storytelling. I’m pretty disappointed actually, I was expecting to really enjoy this collection.
Thank god this damn thing is over though. 1/5 for this one. I never wanna touch this damn book again, I am removing it out of my ereader the moment I get home.
The writing is so bare-bones that it leaves *everything* to be desired, to a point where the author fails at doing the very bare minimum story-telling. The language used creates no atmosphere and even less reasons to care about anything that's unfolding, reminding me of Hemingway but somehow even more devoid of description. I am already not a fan of Hemingway's style as it is, so reading this collection of stories felt about as pleasant as eating sandpaper.
As always I will be rating each story on a /5 scale and giving my short, mostly spoiler-free thoughts. The following reviews were written directly after I finished each story, so, for this one, I am working without the benefit of hindsight. I do not care to spend another second thinking about this collection so I will not be giving my structured thoughts.
Story #1: Why Don’t You Dance?
I’m not sure what the aim of this story was besides, “potentially depressed old man finds solace in a couple’s youthful love.” I kind of hate how simplistic the dialogue was. As in, this feels like a collection meant to encapsulate human nature and certain parts of the human experience in regards to love, but that becomes really difficult to relate to when the characters don’t really feel like characters and lines of dialogue and action aren’t strung together in a way that flows and feels natural. Events just hard-cut from one to another and that makes for a very jarring reading experience. I hope this collection improves.
Rating: 1/5
Story #2: Viewfinder
This one had so much potential to be good but just went nowhereeeeeee.
Uuugghhhhhh.
The dialogue felt a lot more natural than the previous story but still read more like what an alien’s interpretation of what humans sound like is. It’s just not strung together at all, I feel like I’m listening to someone tell a story that happened to them years ago and they only remember around 2/3 of it and they forget why they were telling the story in the first place like halfway through. Give your stories a rhythm and a point, I beg you.
Rating: 1.5/5
Story #3: Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit
OK, AGAIN, it’s just the same shit as before of “person telling a story that they only remember 2/3 of”! This one is SO all over the place. The story just felt so aimless besides “Hey, here's two unhealthy relationships.” OKAY, AND??? People read books to learn something interesting, and they especially read slice-of-life type books to have it make them see x common thing in a whole new light. This one is just straight up stating what happened and then refusing to elaborate. There is that element of “you’re supposed to draw a conclusion for yourself”, I guess? But the stories don’t give you nearly enough to understand what’s happening, let alone draw your own conclusion about any of it.
Rating: 1/5
Story #4: Gazebo
What a drag.
Spoiler
An extramarital affair where the guy regrets his actions, wow, how original.Rating: 1.5/5
Story #5: I Could See The Smallest Things
Lost it at the first fucking paragraph. WHY IS THE WRITING SO BLAND??? The lack of description other than: “She got up and did x. There was an x in the window. It was dark out.” just makes me so deeply irritated. It would be fine if there was a point to it, but there's just no atmosphere to the environment and the author gives me no reason to care about any of the characters. How is this man so revered? It reminds me of that one quote from SATC. My version of that would go something like this: “So they get a medal for correctly describing an action in a story? “I got up and tossed this book into the garbage can.” Tadaaa!”
This one was only good in comparison to the other moldy bread adjacent stories I’ve read so far. The point of this one was also kinda meh. I get what the author was going for but it just fell flat because of a pure lack of any substance other than:
Spoiler
“slug = shitty husband”.Rating: 2/5
Story #6: Sacks
“Extramarital affairs suck 2: electric boogaloo”. This was so similar to "Gazebo"... Like the author had these two stories about extramarital affairs in mind, couldn’t pick which one he liked most and just went with putting both of them in the collection without changing a thing. Out of the two I definitely prefer this one, because it had a slightly more emotionally mature cheater but even then they were both so painfully boring and had the exact same point to make about affairs. Can we please stop with/spice up the cheating stories? I beg.
Rating: 2/5
Story #7: The Bath
There was a child in this one. This one was so forgettable, okay, Raymond gives me no reason to care about anything that's happening!
Rating: 1/5
Story #8: Tell The Women We’re Going
Third time around, same old shit, same old fucking shit. Except this time there’s two of them and one gets roped into it because the other’s a bored and careless sex maniac I guess. Men, amirite?
Spoiler
Also this one has murder. Just for no reason. Okay? “Don’t let your friends’ shit behavior influence you (and murder random girls who refuse to sleep with you): the story.” Ah, yes, truly the staple of the human experience.Rating: 1.5/5
Story #9: After The Denim
I’m starting to feel like either I’m not understanding the point or this man is just writing his stream of consciousness without any planning or structuring or anything, because this one was just another mildly-amusing story you’d hear about and tell one of your friends over coffee and then promptly forget about. A lot of these “human experience” explorations are so banal and cliche that just reading them makes me fall asleep, and I’m already running on **0 hours of sleep**. You are exhausting me, Raymond.
Rating: 1/5
Story #10: So Much Water So Close To Home
Murder? Sex? I don’t understand this one again??? This one is the most enticing one out of all of them, I guess, but still pretty fucking bland for a story involving **murder**. GIVE ME SOMETHING INTERESTING, PLEASE!
Rating: 1.5/5
Story #11: The Third Thing That Killed My Father off
Enticing title, please don’t be boring.
Update: it was boring.
Rating: 0.5/5
Story #12: A Serious Talk
Spoiler
“On the way, he saw the pies lined up on the sideboard. He stacked them in his arms, all six, one for every ten times she had ever betrayed him.”WHAT IS GOING ONN???? I don’t understand. This book is gonna be the end of me and it is legit only 150 pages, I will pour this hot coffee in my eyes.
LITERALLY A PAGE LATER:
“I can’t take any more. You tried to burn the house down.”
WHAT-
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ONNNN?!
I am so sick of this “piece the already incredibly shallow message of this story with 2 sentences of elaboration” crap! JUST WRITE A REAL STORY, STOP PERFORMANCE ART-ING LITERATURE.
Rating: 0.5/5
Story #13: The Calm
Despite the fact that I generally don't care for stories involving hunting (I have very little interest in the subject), I actually found this one really enjoyable, perhaps the most enjoyable thus far. For the simple reason that I love the overall barber/hairdresser experience of getting to chat about random topics and having a laugh or bonding over something simple with a person you see every 3 months or so and have very limited contact with. It’s also such a weirdly sensual experience, having someone run their fingers through your hair, shampoo and condition it, and snip snap a perfect style on your head. It’s one of those universal experiences that you can get a lot of relatable material out of, because most everyone can relate to it or has something either enjoyable or dreadful associated with it. Not totally my type of story still, given all the hunting chatter and displays of weird toxic masculinity, but I can definitely see your average Joe really enjoying this one.
Rating: 3/5
Story #14: Popular Mechanics
This one was just that one John Mulaney stand-up where he tells the story of King Solomon and the the baby. That’s it. That’s this entire ridiculous story. Also, where the fuck are the quotation marks, why did they just randomly disappear in this one specific short story?
Rating: 0.5/5
Story #15: Everything Stuck To Him
Why have we become so obsessed with hunting all of a sudden??? First it was fishing, now it’s hunting. Anyway, I can’t believe this story commends this man for doing the bare fucking minimum. This story really says 'Good job for not being a shit person.'
Spoiler
Aww, your child is literally fucking tearing its vocal chords out from screaming and crying and when your wife begs you to stay home and take care of him you only realize last second that you should probably NOT go on a hunting trip and instead stay and take care of yOUR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD?? WOW, WHAT A MAN. Fucking amazing. Best father of the year award winder, ladies and gents. Ugh.Also what happened to the quotation marks.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE QUOTATION MARKS, RAYMOND?!
I will-
UGH!
Rating: 0.5/5
Story #16: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Spoiler
“Can you imagine? I’m telling you, the man’s heart was breaking because he couldn’t turn his goddamn head and see his goddamn wife.”SEE THESE ARE THE TYPES OF STORIES I WAS LOOKING FOR! Just simple explorations of love through various circumstances, BUT, NO, instead we had to get this bleak, pretentious, “it’s actually really deep guys, trust me” bullcrap!
God damn it AGAIN. The story ended without any resolution AGAIN. It started off so good as an actual STORY, with CHARACTERS, and it ended abruptly with no sense yet again. I am so exhausted. The best one out of the collection, yes, a good story about love even, but still falls so flat! I’ve come to the conclusion that I just hate this man’s style. It’s reminiscent of Hemingway but if you made it even MORE bare-bones somehow. As a fan of puzzles, you’d expect me to enjoy having to dig deep into the sparing language to find out what’s really beneath the covers, but these words just feel so utterly devoid of purpose other than to make you think that there’s a purpose. Best story in this collection but even more disappointing than the last ones because of just how little it cares about any closure.
Rating: 3/5
Story #17: One More Thing
I wish there were no more things but go ahead.
““Keep your nose out of this,” L.D. said. L.D. said, “I can’t take anybody seriously who…” WHO EDITED THIS. WHAT IS THIS STRUCTURE. HOW IS THIS SO ACCLAIMED. I am so exhausted.
Rating: 0.5/5
Apparently these stories were heavily edited down and the original manuscript was published under the title “Beginners”. All I'll say is that the editing down definitely shows, but people still give high praise to this collection, even as it stands with the unfinished tales, so I'm not sure what to make of it really. As of right now, this whole notion that “these short stories end abruptly and are relatively uninteresting because it’s exactly what the human experience is like” just seems like a pretty unimpressive way to justify bad storytelling. I’m pretty disappointed actually, I was expecting to really enjoy this collection.
Thank god this damn thing is over though. 1/5 for this one. I never wanna touch this damn book again, I am removing it out of my ereader the moment I get home.