What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
"What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" is a notable collection of short stories by Raymond Carver, which gained significant literary acclaim in the 1980s. Through a minimalist writing style, Carver illuminates the struggles of ordinary individuals, often depicting themes of disillusionment and emotional complexity. The characters often belong to the working class, navigating lives filled with financial hardship, failed relationships, and a sense of longing for something greater. Carver explores various dimensions of love, revealing its complexities—ranging from romantic and hopeful to painful and unfulfilled.
Central to the narrative is the concept of "dis-ease," which Carver uses to describe the uncomfortable domesticity that many of his characters experience. Stories within the collection highlight moments of introspection and confrontation, as characters grapple with their emotions and the realities of their circumstances. Carver’s work ultimately suggests that love is multifaceted, eluding easy definitions and often surrounded by a mix of despair and hope. His poignant depictions resonate with readers, making him a significant voice for the marginalized in American literature.
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Subject Terms
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
First published: 1981
The Work
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love vaulted Raymond Carver to the forefront of literary attention in the 1980’s. His pared-down style was praised and maligned, and he was celebrated as his generation’s most capable spokesperson for blue-collar frustration.
Ordinary life is the antagonist throughout the seventeen stories. Short on education, Carver’s people work assembly lines, wait tables, stock shelves, and manage second-rate motels. Their houses are trashy; their cars and furniture break down. Treading debt, they sell off their belongings at reduced prices or bank on getting lucky at the local bingo hall. Even their weekends and vacations turn out miserably. After years of hard work, they have little to show for their efforts. Most turn to alcohol, knowing that the things they want most for themselves and their families are never going to happen.
These low-rent tragedies are played out between men and women. Some couples are just beginning their relationships, some are locked in unfortunate marriages, and others are divorced. Carver explores in each story some aspect of “dis-ease,” a term he often used for “a certain terrible kind of domesticity.” In “Gazebo,” for instance, Holly and Duane, a young married couple, have arrived at an impasse because of Duane’s infidelity. He and Holly try to get past the issue by getting drunk and making love, but her trust has been shattered. Their future is now vastly different from what Holly had once romantically envisioned, and silence engulfs them. Claire in “So Much Water So Close to Home” is amazed to learn that her husband and his friends had found a dead girl in a lake they were fishing and continued on with their three-day vacation before reporting to the authorities. In the end, Claire feels herself drowning in emotions that are too murky for Stuart fully to understand.
The collection’s title story unites youth and age, innocence and experience, and failure and enduring hope. Love, Carver shows, traverses a vast spectrum. It can be impoverished and suicidal or it can be spiritual and life-fulfilling. Mel, the narrative’s “heart specialist,” tells his wife and the newlywed couple they have invited over for drinks that they should feel “ashamed” when they act like they know what they are talking about when they talk about love. It is too extraordinary to explain and all attempts to do so are destined to fail.
About identifying with America’s underclass, Carver said: “They’re my people. I could never write down to them.” His realistic depictions of their struggles and thwarted dreams have made Carver one of the most recognized short story writers of the second half of the twentieth century.
Bibliography
The Atlantic Monthly. CCXLVII, June, 1981, p. 96.
Campbell, Ewing. Raymond Carver: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1992.
Carver, Raymond. Conversations with Raymond Carver. Edited by Marshall Bruce Gentry and William L. Stull. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990.
Hudson Review. XXXIV, Autumn, 1981, p. 459.
Library Journal. CVI, March 15, 1981, p. 678.
The Nation. CCXXXIII, July 4, 1981, p. 23.
The New Republic. CLXXXIV, April 25, 1981, p. 38.
The New York Review of Books. XXVIII, May 14, 1981, p. 37.
The New York Times Book Review. LXXXVI, April 26, 1981, p. 1.
Newsweek. XCVII, April 27, 1981, p. 96.
Runyon, Randolph Paul. Reading Raymond Carver. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1992.
Saltzman, Arthur. Understanding Raymond Carver. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.
Saturday Review. VIII, April, 1981, p. 77.
Time. CXVII, April 6, 1981, p. 82.