"Will You Be Quiet, Please" by Raymond Carver (1967, reprinted in 100 Years of the Best of American Short Stories)

Raymond Carver (1938 to 1988) is considered one of the masters of the minimalist short stories, a genius at getting as much as you can out of as few words as possible.   I have only read a few of his short stories because of a limiting prejudice.  Much of his work seems devoted to stories about people who lead alcohol centered lives.  I do not find much sympathy with the problems brought on by this and maybe this is why I have not yet got into Carver extensively.   

"Will You Be Quiet, Please", published in the 1967 Best American Short Stories Anthology, is a brilliant portrait of a sad marriage, where a mistake made years ago ruined everything but the partners cannot really just walk away or forget what happened.  Alcohol is an important part of their coping mechanism.

About two years ago the wife had a one night relationship with an acquaintance of the husband.  When he came to realize what happened, the man hit his wife in the mouth, blooding her and knocking her to the ground.  Years go by and the husband cannot forgive or let it go.  (As a husband, I could not either.). He keeps quizzing his wife about why she cheated on him.  It seems she just got carried away in a moment.  After one very gut wringing quarrel he storms out of the house and ends up in a tavern.  He cannot help but think over and over on the infidelity of his wife, he cannot get the image of his wife having sex with another man out of his mind.

The story is divided into three sections.  In one interesting incident, he is hit in the mouth and robbed by a black man (then called a "negro") who knocks him down just as he did his wife.  

I admired the very real technical mastery of this story.  Carver truly made me feel the pain in this marriage but also the deep love from which a terrible hurt is born. One day I hope to read the full body of Carver's short stories.  They are just in fact being published as Kindle editions.  

Do you have any favorite Carver stories?

The story is included in the collection above.  I was given a copy of this very well done anthology. 

Mel u

"They're Not Your Husband" by Raymond Carver

"They're Not Your Husband"  by Raymond Carver (1981, 7 pages)


My Prior Posts on Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver (1938 to 1988, Oregon, USA) is on a lot of top ten short story writer of all times lists.   I have read and posted on five of his stories.    I recognize he has a tremendous talent and can do wonders with a small amount of material.   I was fully convinced of his brilliance when I read his story on the last day in the life of Anton Chekhov, "Nobody Said Anything".   (By a cosmic coincidence it was Carver's last story.)   


I am put off a bit by the people in Carver's stories.   I know it is not a good reading habit to judge stories and novels on how the people in the stories relate to those in your world but I am a bit turned off by the prevalence of alcoholics, drug users, wife abusers and just seemingly brutally ignorant people in his stories.   If this shows a lack of artistic detachment on my part or a lack of sympathy for the people in most of his stories, then so be it.   It does not mean I do not appreciate his genius and I will keep reading his stories.


"They're Not Your Husband" will make a lot of people cringe at the brutal seemingly valueless lives depicted in the story.   The husband in the story has to be a nightmare figure for every married woman concerned her charms have faded.   


The wife works as a waitress in a diner.   Basically that means a restaurant with a counter, a simple place.   The husband is sitting at the counter, hoping to get a free meal.   Two men come in and scrutinize his wife from behind as she bends over.   Not knowing who the man is, they make a number of really rude remarks about her body, concluding with a suggestion that they guess she can still attract men because "some like them fat".   The husband is really upset by this.   When he and the wife are going to bed, he basically tells her she needs to lose some weight and tells her to stand naked in front of the mirror. OK it takes either an idiot or a total uncaring brute to say something like this to his wife, perhaps particularly when she is the only one working in the family.   He goads her onto a  diet and when she begins to lose weight but looks haggard and feels week her co-workers express concern over her health.   She tells her husband and he says to her "They're Not Your Husband".


After she has lost nine pounds or so, the husband is back in the diner.   He is sitting next to a man he does not know and he tries to draw the man into a conversation about the body of his wife.   This is male bonding at its worse.   


This is a very well done story.   Carver is considered a minimalist (he would have been great on Twitter!).   He does do a whole lot in this story. 

It appeared in his collection of stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.   If you search for it, you can read it  online.   


Please share your experience with Carver with us.  


Mel u

Stories by Anton Chekhov, O. Henry, and Raymond Carver-

"Misfortune" by Anton Chekhov (1885, 16 pages, translated by Constant Garnett)
"Nobody Said Anything" by Raymond Carver (1988, 12 pages)
"A Municipal Report" by O. Henry (1909, 19 pages)

Three Short Stories by Masters of the Form

O. Henry, Carver, and Chekhov

This morning I want to briefly post on three very different short stories by writers considered among the greatest of all short story writers.    

Almost everyday I check out East of the Web:Short Stories to see what has been selected as the short story of the day.   Normally they have one story from a high status author and one story that may not be real well known.   They often have new stories as well.   It was here I first discovered Katherine Mansfield.   If you have some time to read and cannot think what to read, you might check out this web page.     One of their stories of the day yesterday was "A Municipal Report" by O. Henry (1862-1910-USA-There is some background information on him in my prior posts on O. Henry.)   I saw it was 19 pages and I at first thought that I did not want to read a 19 page story just to find out what the surprise ending might be.   Then I recalled Jhumpa Lahiri had said he was one of the geniuses of the short story.   I did some quick research and saw this story is often considered O. Henry's masterpiece.   I hate to gush too much but this story is a quantum leap better than his other work.    It is a work of genius that belongs among the world's best short stories.   If all of O Henry's stories were this powerful nobody would think it was odd or patronizing to include him with Chekhov and Carver as a master of the short story.   This story is about a traveling representative for a publishing house on his way to Nashville to renegotiate a contract with one of their authors.    The characters in this story are whole people, not the semi-cartoon like characters in the other stories by O. Henry I have read.   The characters are beautifully realized.   There are some surprises in this story-maybe four of them-I loved them all.    I know a lot of people are not going to be willing to read a 19 page O. Henry story, I almost did not.    In my after read research I read that people say that if O. Henry was not a bit lazy and did not have to please magazine editors, then this is the kind of story he really was meant to write.  

You can read "A Municipal Report" HERE

"Nobody Said Anything" by Raymond Carver (USA, 1938-1988-his very last short story was about the death of Anton Chekhov-it is flat out brilliant) is included in a collection of his short stories (32 in all) Where I'm Calling From" which contains many of his best stories.    In the last few years of his life Carver reread the short stories of Chekhov and many say that this experience pushed Carver into a richer vein.  (There is some background information on Carver in my prior posts).    There is one thing in this story that surprised me-no one drinks in it!    This story is about two brothers, their mother, their father (might be long time step-father) and a boy the older son meets when he goes fishing.   There is also a woman in the story who picks up the older of the boys from the road and gives him a ride while he fantasies she will give him more than that.   Carver is really good at adolescent sex fantasies.    This is a great story.   Carver shows what can be done with the short story form.    I was kindly given an e-book of  Where I'm Calling From by a very generous reader in New Delhi and will be reading and posting in at least a minimal way on the 29 stories in the collection I have not yet read.

Nearly everyone into the genre says Anton Chekhov (1860-1904-Russia) is among if not the very best short story writer in the world.     (There is some background information on him in my prior posts on him.)    "Misfortune"   is an acutely observed story about a man in love with or with a sexual obsession for the wife of a friend.    The real brilliance of the story is in the depiction of the wife and her reactions at various states in the relationship.

You can read "Misfortune" here.

All of these stories are very much worth your time.   If you are really into the short story and kind of look down on O Henry (OK I did before today) and can read only one of these three stories today, then  please read his and come back and tell me what you think please!

If you are hoping to be short listed for the 2012 Caine Prize award, read all the Carver you can.   If you confine yourself only to the greatest of  literature, then read the Chekhov story.  

Mel u

Raymond Carver: Three of His Most Famous Stories

"Why Don't You Dance"   (1988, 6 pages)
"Cathedral"   (1988, 5 pages)
"Errand" (1988, 5 pages)

Three of Raymond Carver's

Highest Regarded Stories

A few days ago a very kind reader of my blog from India (who does not wish their name mentioned) sent me four collections of short stories, among them Where I Am Calling From (1988) by Raymond Carver.    All of the stories I will post on today are from this collection.  (They were all published prior to this elsewhere.)   I did a bit of research  guided me toward reading the highest regarded stories in the collection.   I had prior to these stories read only one of Carver's works,  'Little Things".    (There is some background information on Carver (1938 to 1988-USA) in my post on that work.)   My first reaction to Carver was that I saw his talent but I did not find I could relate to the people in this story-a dysfunctional couple fighting over their baby.    Carver is on many lists of greatest short story writers and on nearly all lists of greatest American short story writers so I wanted to read more.   I am now fully convinced of the great talent of Carver,  in his ability to create full worlds in just a few lines.    He is commonly called a master of the minimalistic style.    I liked all of the stories I read today and was amazed by his story on the last day in the life of Anton Chekhov, "Errand".    I will just post briefly on each of the three stories.   (At the end of this post I will provide links where you can read two of the three stories.)

"Why Don't You Dance" is a brilliant story as much for what it leaves out as for what it includes.    It is basically about a man on hard times selling his possessions in a yard sale.   He has a very interesting encounter with a couple considering  buying his bed.  It is an alcohol fueled plot. This story also exemplifies the issues I had initially with Carver. I had read that Carver had a very bad drinking and possibly drug problem for many years of his life until he was able to quit drinking with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous.    I do not, of course, hold this against a writer, but it seems many of Carver's stories do center around people with serious drinking problems or those whose lives have been degraded by the use of alcohol or drugs.   I do not find this an interesting "slice of life" and it was that prejudice that kept me away from Carver.    I think now Carver's talent is so huge I can overlook this.   In a cynical moment I did think about calling him the Mansfield of the methamphetamine set or the Joyce of the Discount Liquor World parking lot but in truth he is a genius.

"Cathedral" also involved a lot of drinking.    So far it seems hard for people in the stories of Carver to relate to each other sober.    I liked this story a lot for its portrait of a marriage and the reaction of the husband to the blind friend of his wife from many years ago.    Carver is able to do in depth characterizations in just a few sentences.

"Errands" stunned me with its power and sheer audacity.    It is set in Moscow, March 22, 1897 and deals with the death of Anton Chekhov.    In addition to Chekhov, his wife, his good friend Alexi Suvorin (a publisher), Leo Tolstoy,  we meet a doctor,  and an hotel errand boy.   As the story opens Chekhov and his friend are (yes you guessed it) drinking Vodka.    Chekhov, who had tuberculosis, begins to cough up a massive amount of blood.   A doctor arrives and then Leo Tolstoy shows up also.   I will tell no more of this story other than to say Carver has the sheer talent to make things on this terrible day come vividly alive.   It does take great nerve to write a short story about two of the greatest writers who ever lived and Carver makes it work perfectly.      I was very moved by this story and I think anyone who loves the short story will really like "Errand".     It turned me into a Raymond Carver believer.   I will read all of the other stories in the collection, Where I Am Calling From. 


Do you have a favorite Carver short story?



Mel u

"Little Things" by Raymond Carver-

"Little Things" by Raymond Carver" (5 pages, 1988)

I have seen Raymond Carver's name on several best American 20th century short story writers type lists over the last few months.       A bit of quick pre-read research on Carver (1938 to 1988-Oregon, USA) seems to put him squarely in the hard drinking, scramble about life style of American writers such as Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway.    He had a variety of jobs from night janitor at a hospital to instructor at the super prestigious Iowa Writer's Workshop.    Wikipedia has a good article on him.

I have been in a sampling new to me writers mode this month so I thought I would read a story by Carver, if I could find one online.   His work is still protected by American copyright law but I was able to find one story online.   (As I have  said before, there are no public libraries here in Manila and I do not wish to buy collections of new to me short story writers so my samples of new authors tend to be limited).

"Little Things"  (first published in Popular Mechanics Magazine in 1977) gives us a look at a very nasty fight at what seems to be the break up of a couple that has had a baby together.    These opening lines of the story will give you an idea of his prose style.

Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water. Streaks of it ran down from the little shoulder-high window that faced the backyard. Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too.

He was in the bedroom pushing clothes into a suitcase when she came to the door.

I'm glad you're leaving! I'm glad you're leaving! she said. Do you hear?

As the story goes on each one has one of the baby's arms and they are pulling on him in an effort to claim ownership.   Hum-what to say here....?    Is "Little Things" a marvelous example of literary minimalism or is it a "shock story" designed to take participants in college workshops on creative writing and readers of the Paris Review outside of their personal comfort zone?    Is Carver an American enfant terrible?  

I am glad I have now read one of Carver's stories.     I would read one or two more of his works to get a better feel for him.     Over all, I  would say I would not buy a collection of his stories (for sure not at full retail!).

 I could not help but imagine Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen trying to decide if this story is meant to be taken seriously or if it is an odd joke of some kind.  

Please let me know what you think of Carver-

The story can be read online.      I am glad I got to sample one of Carver's short stories.  

Mel u