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A review by joreadsalot
What We Talk about When We Talk about Love by Raymond Carver
4.0
“When we had big plans and hopes? You remember?”
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This is a collection or short stories, or rather of short episodes, glimpses of the violent instances when something apparently 'small' happens and derails entire lives. I admit, I was a bit naive and too influenced by the cover and title and expected something more optimistic, but nothing came. Instead, Carver shows us the nasty side of life, full of regrets, partners cheating, accidents, abuse and brutality.
.
There are many possible influences we can see in Carver’s writings - you can almost see him as a student of Hemingway’s, both in his tendency of being almost always intoxicated and in his style, but essentially he wrote about the, often violent domestic abuse that both women and men resort to and the general state of unrest in America.
.
One thing I really appreciate is the editing work Gordon Lish has done, which you can see on slide 2. Even though the story itself comes from Carver undisputedly, this is a very good example how much editing matters, as often it makes the message more concise and perhaps it even makes it sound better.
.
This is a collection or short stories, or rather of short episodes, glimpses of the violent instances when something apparently 'small' happens and derails entire lives. I admit, I was a bit naive and too influenced by the cover and title and expected something more optimistic, but nothing came. Instead, Carver shows us the nasty side of life, full of regrets, partners cheating, accidents, abuse and brutality.
.
There are many possible influences we can see in Carver’s writings - you can almost see him as a student of Hemingway’s, both in his tendency of being almost always intoxicated and in his style, but essentially he wrote about the, often violent domestic abuse that both women and men resort to and the general state of unrest in America.
.
One thing I really appreciate is the editing work Gordon Lish has done, which you can see on slide 2. Even though the story itself comes from Carver undisputedly, this is a very good example how much editing matters, as often it makes the message more concise and perhaps it even makes it sound better.