What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Raymond Carver

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The nature of love remains elusive throughout “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” despite the characters’ best efforts to define it. Mel tries again and again to pinpoint the meaning of love, but his examples never build up to any coherent conclusion. For example, he tells his friends about an elderly couple who nearly died in a car crash, but the conclusion of the story—the old man depressed by not being able to see his wife—merely confuses everyone. When he asserts that he’ll tell everyone exactly what love is, he instead digresses into a muddled meditation about how strange it is that he and the others have loved more than one person. His attempts to clarify the nature of love eventually devolve into a bitter tirade against his ex-wife. He seems much more certain about what love is not and tells Terri several times that if abusive love is true love, then she “can have it.” genul scurt, Raymond Carver (1938 - 1988) rămîne, probabil, cel mai influent prozator american. Știu, în România, povestirile nu se vînd prea bine, chiar dacă cel care le-a scris se numește Borges, se numește Cortazar, se numește Carver, se numește Bolaño. Și e păcat.

Milan Kundera in his short story collection Laughable Loves, talks about the inevitable absurdity that revolves around the highly misunderstood feeling of Love that begins with innocent stargazing but later tempt numerous meteors to destroy the vulnerable abode of lovers. Promises are ditched, mushy definitions are torn apart and even when other things remain equal or unequal; he/she still loves me just doesn’t matter anymore. What remains is this filthy carcass of emotions that some people tag along wherever they go while some bury it in the most unwholesome style in the graveyard of their hearts. A laughable business and some compelling stories, which underwhelmed me initially but after reading Carver’s What we Talk about when we talk about Love, I reconsidered my reaction towards Kundera’s book and now I can appreciate it a lot more by reason of few hazy intersection points I perceived between these two works. And certain things around us will change, become easier or harder, one thing or the other, but nothing will ever really be any different. I believe that. We have made our decisions, our lives have been set in motion, and they will go on and on until they stop. But if that is true, then what? I mean, what if you believe that, but you keep it covered up, until one day something happens that should change something, but then you see nothing is going to change after all. What then? Meanwhile, the people around you continue to talk and act as if you were the same person as yesterday, or last night, or five minutes before, but you are really undergoing a crisis, your heart feels damaged…”Alcohol acts as an ambivalent force in the story, although it has more negative connotations than positive ones. On one hand, the characters open up more to one another when they have had more to drink. Alcohol makes everyone, especially Mel, talk freely. I mean, the accident was one thing, but it wasn't everything. I'd get up to his mouth-hole, you know, and he'd say no, it wasn't the accident exactly but it was because he couldn't see her through the eye-holes. He said that that was making him feel so bad. Can you imagine? I'm telling you, the man's heart was breaking because he couldn't turn his goddamn head and 'see' his goddamn wife." Rich, Motoko (October 17, 2007). "The Real Carver: Expansive or Minimal?". The New York Times– via NYTimes.com.

A Couple Meets And Kissed At A Middle Of A Flower Field.” Pexels , uploaded by Taryn Elliot, 24 Oct. 2019, https://www.pexels.com/video/a-couple-meets-and-kissed-a t-a-middle-of-a-flower-field-3126661/ . Alcohol is a symbol of both connection and isolation. "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" themes While Carver’s was the first famous one, titles like this have been enjoying a heyday in the past decade. In 2009, Haruki Murakami came out with What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir. He asked Tess Gallagher, Carver’s widow, for permission to use the title form. In 2011, The New Yorker featured Nathan Englander’s story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank,” which was reprinted in his 2013 collection of short stories of the same name. In a clever reprisal of Carver’s story, Englander substitutes Jewish identity for love as the topic of two couples’ drunken conversation. Popular Mechanics', a story of the acrimonious split of a couple's assets, made me throw the book down as though it was a deadly snake. The visual it gave me was too much to linger on. Raymond Carver a impus un stil și o modă. A compus o proză laconică, fragmentară, din care lipsesc toate conjuncțiile „cauzale” (pentru că, fiindcă, deoarece, întrucît etc.), ceea ce o face de-a dreptul enigmatică. Autorul trece peste explicații și nu-l lasă nici pe narator să se destăinuie pînă la capăt. Povestitorul este, de obicei, un individ simplu și aproximativ educat. Mai este și instinctiv (ca la Faulkner). Nu-l duce capul la definiții riguroase, la generalități filosofice, la explicații fine. Nici măcar cînd discută despre iubire.Dionysius, Three: Ed shot himself in the mouth but he didn’t die – he was taken to the hospital where at one point Mel actually saw him. “His head swelled up to twice the size of a normal head. I’d never seen anything like it, and I hope I never do again.” When Ed was in his hospital room dying with his much swollen head, Terri sat in the chair next to him, counter to Mel’s wishes, right up to Ed’s last breath. Sidebar: As these two women and two men drink their gin, Terri’s compassion for Ed is the sole example given in the story where love transcends physical attraction for any of them.

In addition to being in love, we like each other and enjoy one another's company. She's easy to be with. Ed is not physically present in the story, but he encompasses Terri's entire view on love. Although he was abusive and threatened to kill both Terri and Mel, Terri thinks that he only did it out of love. Ed ultimately commits suicide when he realizes Terri has moved on. Marjorie All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I'm wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don't know anything, and I'm the first one to admit it.” Here, you guys,' he said. 'Let's have a toast. I want to propose a toast. A toast to love. To true love,' Mel said. The group continues drinking, talking about knights and Ed and Mel's ex. Mel says he wants to call his children, but Terri reminds him he would have to talk to his ex-wife, Marjorie. Marjorie reportedly only stays single to torment Mel and Terri and take their money.

Y como no se me ocurre otra cosa, me limitaré a deciros que fue la película Birdman la que me ha traído estos cuentos de nuevo a la mente; mi reciente afición por la relectura y la cantidad de años que hace que los leí lo que me ha hecho volver a ellos; mi pésima memoria la que me ha permitido maravillarme virginalmente al releerlos; y la edad y la carga de lecturas que ya arrastro las que han intensificado aquel placer que ya experimenté con estos desnudos, terribles, sinceros y extraordinarios relatos. His stories are all occurrences, all about things that just happen to people and cause their lives to take a turn. Maybe the bottom falls out. Maybe they have a near-miss with disaster. Maybe they just have to go on, knowing things they don't really want to know about one another.