Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver was a man of few words. Often characterized by an economy that bordered on austerity, Carver’s stories were short and plainly written, and his terse prose lent itself perfectly to his favorite subject: working-class America. Aside from poetry, which was written in the same no-frills style, Carver devoted himself exclusively to short stories. What really set Carver apart from other authors, however, was his exploration of the dark side of Americana. In the simple lives of small town folk, Carver uncovered the violence, rage, and loneliness lurking just beneath the surface. Like many writers, his posthumous reputation has grown exponentially, and it is impossible to imagine any serious study of the short story that does not include the extraordinary work of Raymond Carver.
Raymond Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love"
Commentary by Karen Bernardo
Raymond Carver's short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" takes place in one sitting, or more precisely, one pre-dinner drinking bout. It is told in first person, with one of the four characters referring to himself as "I," but ironically this is the character about whom we know the least; he is merely the mouthpiece for the action, and all we know about him is that his name is Nick and he is married to Laura. His friend Mel is a cardiologist, married to Terri, and initiates the conversation of what love means. This conversation provides the central focus of the story.
Mel, Nick tells us, thinks "real love [is] nothing less than spiritual love." He cannot comprehend that his wife's abusive ex-husband, Ed, could possibly have loved her while he was dragging her around the room by her ankles. "That's not love, and you know it," Mel says. "I don't know what you'd call it, but I sure know you wouldn't call it love."
Terri, on the other hand, insists that it was. She has led a much less sheltered life and is also much less self-righteous than Mel; she understands that while objectively Ed could be regarded as sadistic, dangerous, and pathological, he operated out of a reservoir of strong emotion that was simply incapable of channeling itself in socially-acceptable ways. This strong emotion, when turned toward other human beings, erupted in violence. This is why he beat his wife and eventually committed suicide.
Ed, in fact, functions as a pivotal character in the story even though he is dead by the time the action occurs. He stands out in stark contrast to the little group drinking around the table, for, crazy as he was, he had life in him. Terri seems to look back to her days with Ed with a kind of nostalgia, because for all his crackling violence, she thinks he is more man than Mel will ever be.
Mel, for his part, presents the story's central question -- what is love -- because like the rest of the group he is imbued with a sense of loss, of regret, of unutterable sadness, for reasons he can not quite describe. He feels instinctively that it has something to do with love, and he's right in a way; it has everything to do with passion. The little group sees in alcohol a way to inflame the passion they once felt for living, or the passion they think they should feel. Mel notes that as much as they love each other, if they were all married to someone else, it would make no difference in their lives; one empty person is as good as another.
In fact there is in fact no passion in these people; the alcohol makes it worse, and at the end, when Mel says the gin is gone, Nick concludes the story with the words: "I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark." They can't move because they suddenly realize the fact that none of them have ever moved; their lives have always been, and will always be, empty and dark, and they no longer have gin to cover this up.
所有想看卡佛的这本短篇小说集的文艺青年们都应该放弃这个念头——这些小说里没有矫情和装腔作势,只有生活的真实的琐碎和无奈;这些小说不能带来谈资,而只会让人沉默。 短篇小说是生活或世界的一个剖面,就像建筑一样,没有哪一个剖面可以展现本体的全部,但是精心...
評分卡佛的故事太简单了。小青年们在需要装逼时,往往喜欢使用卡夫卡博尔赫斯卡尔维诺纳博科夫之类的作家,他们用文字织迷宫玩智力游戏,从一个意象上就可以抽出无数条扯不断的支线丝网,每条支线都可以是金闪闪的装逼点。而卡佛的故事太简单了。就是个素面玻璃杯,一眼就能看穿,...
評分买了本原版的卡佛作品集,试着有空做翻译练习。想有个对照,于是买了这本小二翻译的《当我们谈论爱情时我们在谈论什么》。看了三篇,可以判断这本翻译相当糟糕,想不明白译林出版社是怎么审核就让这书出版的。我自己不是什么高手,但不是高手的人也可以看出别人糟糕的地方。这...
評分我们读到结尾,会疑惑为什么“我”要那残疾人摄影师帮“我”把砸石头的行为照下来? 返回文本,以时间的顺序重新叙述这个故事:叙述者“我”是个老男人目前一个人生活,子女们都离“我”而去,妻子可能也和“我”离婚了或者死了,但他们把家里的东西搬了个精光。“我”孤苦伶仃...
評分《凉亭》是卡佛这本短篇集里给我印象最深的一篇。 这篇里的男主角叫杜安,女主角叫霍莉。 卡佛的好些短篇里的男女主角都是没有名字的。很多时候他们面目模糊,缺失的心理活动也只能靠读者根据他们的语言和动作来补足。于是,他们有没有名字,其实不太重要。我们知道,他们都属...
we don't know
评分村上春樹就是日本的卡佛吧!!!
评分I don't know why this story is so popular. It seems a little boring to me.
评分I don't know why this story is so popular. It seems a little boring to me.
评分當作傢真不容易,卡佛的極簡是建立在大量刪除上的。
本站所有內容均為互聯網搜索引擎提供的公開搜索信息,本站不存儲任何數據與內容,任何內容與數據均與本站無關,如有需要請聯繫相關搜索引擎包括但不限於百度,google,bing,sogou 等
© 2025 qciss.net All Rights Reserved. 小哈圖書下載中心 版权所有