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A review by sidneyterano
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I love the way Carver ends a story.
“Then he set to work — stitch after stitch — making believe he was waving like the man on the keel.”
“He started the car and put it into reverse. It was hard managing until he put the ashtray down.”
“I left soon after. But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying out a new life there with my wife, and how, in the barber's chair that morning, I had made up my mind to go. I was thinking today about the calm I felt when I closed my eyes and let the barber's fingers move through my hair, the sweetness of those fingers, the hair already starting to grow.”
“But he stays by the window, remembering. They had laughed. They had leaned on each other and leagued until the tears had come, while everything else — the cold and where he’d go in it — was outside, for a while anyway.”
“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.”
“He said, ‘I just want to say one more thing.’ But then he could not think what it could possibly be.”
“Then he set to work — stitch after stitch — making believe he was waving like the man on the keel.”
“He started the car and put it into reverse. It was hard managing until he put the ashtray down.”
“I left soon after. But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying out a new life there with my wife, and how, in the barber's chair that morning, I had made up my mind to go. I was thinking today about the calm I felt when I closed my eyes and let the barber's fingers move through my hair, the sweetness of those fingers, the hair already starting to grow.”
“But he stays by the window, remembering. They had laughed. They had leaned on each other and leagued until the tears had come, while everything else — the cold and where he’d go in it — was outside, for a while anyway.”
“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.”
“He said, ‘I just want to say one more thing.’ But then he could not think what it could possibly be.”