Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver

I started reading this when I first got to New Zealand and stored it in my host family’s living room for lonely minutes. A story here, a story there… and now, unfortunately, I’ve come to the end. Jon has covered Raymond Carver pretty thoroughly so I won’t restate our love for this man all over again but I guess I will offer a few thoughts.

I liked Jon’s metaphor on Carver’s writing and houses, and building on this (pun definitely intended!!!), there would be nothing in Mr. Carver’s house just because it looks pretty. While writers like Nabokov and Updike can go into long, beautifully descriptive paragraphs, Carver only gives us what is necessary to know. What he’s got inside his simple post and beam house may not drop your jaw, but it’s all working, all practical, and part of the plan. There’s nothing fancy here, folks, but you will indeed feel very comfortable.

What I also like so much about Carver, and I could probably think of a million sentences that start this way, is that it doesn’t even seem like he’s trying. While many authors draw up elaborate plots or explosive climaxes, Carver says, No, I think I’ll just write about a man going over to dinner at his coworker’s. And that’s it. And he gets us with that. And it’s brilliant because it’s a hyper-realistic portrait of ourselves. The light turns on, there is some minute action, and then the light turns off. Doesn’t get any more minimalist than the Carver pen. Now my sentences have become completely fragmentary. I’ll stop there and, keeping with the precedent, furnish this post with a handful of stories that I specially remember (but be it told: they’re all exceptional):

Nobody Said Anything
Fat
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Fever
Distance
So Much Water So Close To Home
Cathedral
A Small, Good Thing
Menudo
Elephant

One more thing: I include this particular cover image not for the sake of variance but because this is what my old copy looks like and it is just ghastly hideous. Without a doubt the fugliest looking book on my shelf yet one of the most cherished.