What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)

If you like stories where something happens, characters find fullfillment, love and success, characters talk things out and get somewhere----this book is not for you. I like those books, but I like this too---in certain moods, usually when I'm taking things a little on the dark side. Carver is a master short story writer, but these are minimalist, very sad stories about people at the end of some tether or other. I can only read a few a night, and often reread them so I can stop reading for the action and read for Mr. Carver's beautiful language. Especially interesting is the title story, what we talk about etc. In the story two couples sit down and start talking about love. One of the women talks alot about her ex-boyfriend, an abusive guy who she couldn't seem to stay away from. They're drinking, of course---de rigeur and the source of most trouble in Carver stories. They talk and drink, and as they talk, the rooms darkens---but nobody turns on the lights. I think it's a metaphor for how we live. Nothing is easy. We can color love with all kinds of pretty hearts and flowers colors, but it's really hard to keep that bright outlook in the face of what it takes to love somebody, every day, the right way. If you've been happily married for 30 years, this probably won't mean alot to you. But for the many people who have experience with creating their own misery at some length, it can be a resonant read. I wouldn't know anything about that, of course...... Not for everyone, but pretty darn good.

The collection of short stories What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver is essential reading for short story writers. I say this because what he did seems to be the constant source of bad imitation. You could easily say his stories are about nothing - as I have heard said before. However, this would be inaccurate. Carver's stories are simply about people and the mundane everyday. His stories are minimalist to the extreme - which is what he is known for - and yet Carver still manage to create an entire world in them. Carver's stories are filled with small holes, but the familiarity of his stories allow the reader to automatically fill in the blanks. (I am left thinking about the amazing things many verbose fantasy writers could learn from Carver's more "literary" form of world creation) My favorite story of the bunch is "I Could See the Smallest Things." The story is a perfect example of Carver's writing. It takes place in a brief moment in time. Nothing happens except the passing of life. I would recommend you all to check it out. Many of the other stories are equally fantastic. There are really no complete duds in the bunch. If you are at all interested in the short story, I would go read a few of these quick gems in a bookstore or online somewhere and see if its for you. Carver is not a writer I would read everyday - I enjoy things a little more out there - but I am sure I will read more of his stories and books to satisfy my sporadic reality based literary fiction cravings. Check out other reviews by me on my Amazon profile or at my books blog [...]

This short collection of stories is often sad,often depressing and often very disillusioning. But these are Carver's themes. He wants to explore a side of life that most everyone experiences but would rather shove in a remote corner of his or her mind and forget about. Carver writes in the language of common people experiencing the ramifications of lost love and trying mostly futilely to regain the magic and excitement of the initial experience of love. And he does a wonderful job of exploring and illuminating these themes. My favorite story from this memorable collection is "What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Love." The same title as the collection of stories. This story reminds me of the Eugene O' Neil play--"A Long Day's Journey Into Night" Like,the O'Neil play the characters sit around a table getting drunk and talking about relationships,behavior and other significant things in their lives. And as their drunken journey unfolds,they shed inhibitions,cast aside tact and discretion and lay bare many of their innermost thoughts. Carver's collection reads quickly because there are no complicated paragraphs or words that you need to grab a dictionary to understand. I've already read the collection twice,gaining a deeper understanding of the collection on the second reading. In the future I will be reading it again and then again and with each subsequent reading undoubtedly gaining more insight and understanding on the themes that Carver explores so well.

This is a great collection of short stories from Carver. They have his trademark sparse style and sense of realism and the characters are detailed and believable. The stories are simple but touch on serious and universal themes, developed without excessive prose and with strong dialogue. There are often some oddities that give the stories nice specificity and the sense of place in all of them is excellent. And the characters’ personality quirks make them stick in your mind long after you’ve put the book down.

Amazing short stories

This book, just as the following mentioned book, contains short stories about the behavior of ordinary human beings, like you and me. The autor is known as the "American Chegov" and was in my opinion one of the best story tellers in the western world I enjoyed both books very much and provided good value for the money.

This was a gift for a friend, I read this book years ago. I really like Carver so I would recommend it. The delivery was extremely slow tho.

Não restam duvidam de que Raymond Carver é um escritor necessário — mesmo não sendo o tão apregoado minimalista que dizem ser. Porém, quando adquiri Beginners e What do we talk about when we talk about Love (original e mutilação), estava muito mais interessado na sua luta — não com as palavras, mas com seu editor, mistura de copidesque estilista e açougueiro, Gordon Lish, que, sem cerimônias e escrúpulos, transfigurou, por exemplo, o excelente conto A small, good thing, de 26 páginas, num resíduo de apenas 9, com o título The bath. Um massacre, felizmente reparado. carlos loria