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iL.'s avatar

Wonderful review, Tom. “Carver is a master of compression, and of finding just the right detail to render the emotions in a story real. In that, he is a great teacher” a great observation, something that resonated when i read his writing although haven’t articulated before. Knowing what to put in and leave it out is a great skill. Thanks for the food for thought

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

Hey, thanks a lot Ilan.

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

Thanks for your comment, Ilan. For sure the silences are as important as the notes. ;)

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Donna McArthur's avatar

Thanks for this excellent essay Tom. In Troy's intro he says this is the book club for which we don't have to read the book and your essay proves that point. The effort and detail you gave us is appreciated.

What I felt reading about Carver's work was exactly what you touched on at the end of the essay - even though words don't convey enough about the big emotions like love, anger, frustration or whatever, we still must try to communicate them. Sometimes it's in the space between the words, or after the words, that the depth of meaning lands for us.

Now, when I get a chance to read Raymond Carver, I will be able to do so from a different place. Sure, it's a place of having lived quite a few decades and having gone through some hard times but it's also from the place of having read your words which offer a wider perspective.

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

Wow, such a thoughtful comment, thanks so much. What you describe is exactly what the first entry in Troy’s series did for me: it challenged me to return to a book I had read years ago by helping to focus my attention on it. In retrospect, I almost wish I had chosen Carver’s other collection, Cathedrals, or even Where I’m Calling From, but hey, they’re all pretty good.

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Donna McArthur's avatar

Cathedrals seems like an interesting title for his style of writing. I look forward to checking that one out.

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Jonathan Foster's avatar

I've never read Carver as a male writer or a minimalist. For me he's always been about the effects of class and pain and struggle and inequality. How hard it is to express yourself, how all the agony of poverty and lack of opportunity creates anger and pain and aggression towards your own people, how the capacity to love is perverted by the powerful external constraints. All his characters are exhausted and broken and poor and struggling and unable to express the their true nature because of their circumstances. I've always seen Carver as a class voice and and a reminder of the myth of the American dream. Of course he was writing like this in the 80's when class was being twisted into yet another myth.

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

What a great comment, Jonathan, and I accept your analysis completely … well, almost completely. I totally buy the class analysis of Carver’s aesthetics, but for me it’s a particularly male variant.Now, I’ll say I was looking for masculinist interpretations at the time, and god knows we find what we’re looking for.

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Jonathan Foster's avatar

I don't mean to suggest he's not also coming from a (particularly American) masculine perspective, it's just I've never thought of it like that. Really interesting post, thanks so much Tom.

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

That's the beauty of talking to others about writing, isn't it: we all get to see the world through another's eyes. It's funny, one so rarely gets comments that contest or complicate a position, especially in a super respectful way, so I was really happy to have yours. It made me think. Thank you.

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Jonathan Foster's avatar

Absolutely, talking about writing and reading it :) And thank you too Tom I really enjoyed your writing and will certainly read more.

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Mike Turner's avatar

This is one of the greatest American short stories… I still think about it from time to time and don’t know just what to make of the ending. Just that it’s so good

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Michael Edward's avatar

“Don’t give me princes, spies, and heroes—I’ll never be one—but rather, people facing the kind of challenges, triumphs, and tragedies that we might need a writer’s lens to understand.”

— loved this from you Troy.

And I loved the back story Tom shared about not getting to study Carver academically, but by doing so being able enjoy him all the more. :)

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Jeffrey Streeter's avatar

"When I read Carver as a young man, the hard lives and compromises of his characters felt exotic, their reactions to their lives sad and confused but also oddly compelling. But now I’ve lived through my own hard times and compromises, I’ve treated people I love in ways that could not have felt like love, and I have, in my own way, stood on a rooftop and thrown rocks into the distance." Nice. This essay teases out very well how a man throwing rocks into the distance stands for so much and for so little.

I remember enjoying Carver when I came across him in Granta and bought a couple of his books. The books are gone, and his prose is a memory of a memory for me. But maybe it's time for me to go back to him. Or get on the roof.

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

If you do go back and read him, I’d love to hear how it hits you. I was amazed how “dated” his work felt, how “from another era,” so I had to really work to put myself back into a position to appreciate him again. But yeah, that guy on the roof … pretty powerful.

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

This was one of the passages that hit me hard, too - and that perfectly succinct amount of personal detail to illustrate his point is … right out of Carver. :D Thanks for commenting, Jeffrey!

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Yi Xue's avatar

"... we’ve got to live words like “love” for them to mean anything at all."

I love it!

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Nathan Slake's avatar

Fantastic read, Tom. Thank you. Especially loved your ending and what you captured about what Carver means to you:

"Language, implies Carver, is not futile, but it ultimately falls short of comprehending the mysteries of life and love. Try as we might, words fail. Our deepest feelings are ultimately inexpressible … we can only feel them. And yet somehow, Carver helps us feel what his characters feel."

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

Nathan, thanks a lot, I really appreciate that.

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Kimberly Warner's avatar

“Language, implies Carver, is not futile, but it ultimately falls short of comprehending the mysteries of life and love. Try as we might, words fail. Our deepest feelings are ultimately inexpressible … we can only feel them. And yet somehow, Carver helps us feel what his characters feel.” Brilliant reflection!

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Jen Zug's avatar

Came here to quote the same lines! ❤️

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

It’s what we’re all trying to do as writers, isn’t it? To use these fragile constructs, words, to approximate the complexity inside.

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

Yep!

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

Wow, I’m so glad you liked that! I think I worked that whole darned essay just to get that line.

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

It was a revelatory statement for me too.

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Kimberly Warner's avatar

In that reflection, your words absolutely did NOT fail.:)

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Terry Freedman's avatar

Great post, Tom. You've reminded me that I haven't read Carver in a long time, and my copy of Cathedral, which I bought a few years ago, is still in pristine condition (I read only a couple of the stories in it). I have now resurrected What we talk about... and his essay on the priciples of a story. @Sharronbassano suggested a while ago that I write one of my experiments in style in the manner of Carver, and it was then that I realised in horror that I hadn't read enough of him to feel confident in doing so. I resolved to rectify that, and of course promptly forgot. Your article reminded me, so thanks for that.

Funnily enough, I was going to write (again) about male emotionality and its largely minimalist nature. I prefer it, so I like the minimalist approach that Carver uses. I think it's true to life, in much the same way as I think the Scottish writer, Alan Spence, was being realistic in a short story called Its Colours They Are Fine. A man is out with his mates, all of them slightly the worse for drink, and hopeless at showing any vulnerability:

"... Then he shook hands lingeringly with each of them, telling them they were the greatest.

'Ah fancy some chips!' said Robert.

'Me tae', said Billy."

The story ends a few paragraphs later with this:

"And he hurled his bottle, arching, into the air, into the terrible darkness of it all."

which reminded me of Carver's rock-throwing scene.

You've given me plenty to think about here, Tom and, unfortunately, caused me to add even more to my already teetering TBR list. Thanks a bunch.

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

I think you've BOTH given us a lot to think about! 😂 "Largely minimalist nature" - hoo boy, I could write a novel. Oh.

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Terry Freedman's avatar

I will no doubt repeat this in a post of my own, but a few days ago we watched an episode of a detective series called Ridley. The main character is Detective Inspector Ridley, who recently had to retire on health grounds. He has visited someone in prison who had wrongly confessed to killing his wife and daughter. Ridley tells him he'll be out soon. The prisoner says that he will end up being killed because he grassed up the members of a gang. Ridley tells him that won't happen, because he's arranged for him to be put into witness protection.

Prisoner: What, you did that for me despite everything that's happened?

Ridley: I did it for you BECAUSE of everything that's happened.

Ridley gets up to leave. As he reaches the door, the prisoner says, "Ridley". Ridley turns around and the prisoner gives him an almost impercepotible nod. Ridley gives him a barely perceptible nod back.

My wife: What on earth goes on in men's heads?!

Me: All we need is a barely perceptible nod; no need for emoting all over the place!

😂

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

I’ve worked to teach my wife the nuances of what I call the “cool guy nod.” It speaks volumes! Looking forward to reading what you’re up to Terry.

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Terry Freedman's avatar

I like it: the cool guy nod that speaks volumes. You've totally nailed it, Tom! I'd be interested to know, given your changed and then changed back view of Carver, do you still agree with what you wrote about masculinity all those years ago?

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

That implies that I remember it! Honestly, I think I’ll go back and peruse the book I wrote on it and see if I’d stand by it. When I went to get my PhD I switched my focus from lit—which was descending into madness, in my opinion—to history, which is a very different form of thinking and argument. So my book on masculinity is a historical argument, not literary interpretation. For what it’s worth!

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Terry Freedman's avatar

I’m interested in hearing your views on how ‘literary thinking’ differes from ‘historical thinking’. In a future post perhaps?

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M.E. Proctor's avatar

A friend gave me "What we talk about..." as a birthday present. It must have been somewhere in the eighties. I remember being irritated by the stories, then picking them up again as Tom did. To me Carver belongs to this group of writers like Richard Ford and Pete Dexter that are quintessentially (woof, got that word in!) masculine. They touch something (tap onto something) that goes down to the core in male readers. Not that women can't appreciate, but It feels different for some reason, like we're missing a point ... Purely personal comment here! (NB I enjoyed Pete Dexter's Spooner immensely!)

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

Wow, I don’t know Pete Dexter at all (though I think I’ve read all of Ford’s work). I’m as straight white male as they come, but all these guys can irritate me too, so I totally get it.

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M.E. Proctor's avatar

Looking forward to catching up on your posts Tom.

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

I'm always on the fence with men ("I'm off men - I miss men - I'm back on men!") Most of my life I've felt like a different species from everyone, though, so I'm a very democratic alien. 👽

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M.E. Proctor's avatar

Ahahah! By the way the old friend who gave me the Carver is gay. He gave me the book because he loves his writing so much. On the other hand, my husband is also over the moon with Carver, definitely a guy thing all across the board, lol.

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

I do think there’s something quite universal about feeling like you can’t express what’s inside you, isn’t there?

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

I was just saying in reply to a comment on another post that it's def a recurring theme in my own writing.

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Skylar Lyralen Kaye, fae/they's avatar

Thanks for this! While I rarely now read straight white cis male writers, Carver and his predecessor, Ernest Hemingway, taught me so much about minimalism and a clean, spare look at what hurts.

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

There's so much more diversity now, thank goodness, we don't have to read anything we don't want to. :)

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

It’s fantastic that we can see the world through the eyes of so many different types of writers, I totally agree.

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Annette Marquis's avatar

I loved this in your intro, Troy, “Don’t give me princes, spies, and heroes—I’ll never be one—but rather, people facing the kind of challenges, triumphs, and tragedies that we might need a writer’s lens to understand.” Although I read true stories of heroines, I’m not into fantasy—give me true stories that inspire and I’m hooked. And, Tom, I appreciate your take on Carver. I’ve never read much of him, but he was an interesting character. Sad he died so young. And, yes, I am often disappointed when I read a beloved book years later, but it certainly becomes a window to our younger selves.

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

Of course, my earliest reading loves were fantasy, but my tastes have changed a lot from the days of The Hobbit and The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet. 🤣 And yes 50 is much, much too young, and just 7 years after his breakout.

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

Great work, Tom! Really appreciate the introduction to this iconic American writer, and the personal spin on how we never really read the same book twice. Thanks!

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Tom Pendergast's avatar

Thanks Troy, for the kind words and the opportunity to touch some new readers. Is it too late to edit some more? There’s some fat there I’d like to cut out … 😁

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Terry Freedman's avatar

it doesn't need anything cutting out, unless you're channeling Carver

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

Agreed :)

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Terry Freedman's avatar

by the way, I started work on my essay yesterday, in the form of thinking about it. I do that for a while, then it all comes gushing out as a perfectly formed literary masterpiece. Chortle!

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Mr. Troy Ford's avatar

*snort* yes that's how it always goes for me too 👻

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