that carver boy be spitting
April 12, 2021 8:18 AM Subscribe
A couple years ago, after a long time of pretending to have read Raymond Carver, I decided that I probably should actually read him. Writer Brandon Taylor, the author of Real Life and a new collection of short stories, Filthy Animals, writes about reading Raymond Carver for the first time.
I looked up from having read my first Carver stories and felt the whole world changed.
When I first read Carver, I was startled at how utterly familiar his world felt. It was like coming home to lawns occupied by junk cars, to people trying with everything in them to make a living, to that jokey warm banter of people having a good time, getting lit and smoking out in the dark, wondering when their next paycheck would hit. Carver wrote about the kinds of people I’d spent my whole life around. And his idiom, that easy way that was by turns charming and by turns brutal, made my throat close up from homesickness. It was like running into my father’s voice a million miles away from home. Carver wrote about working people. Desperate people. Lonely people. But also people who loved and hated each other in equal parts. He wrote about the kinds of things that people who’ve never heard of The New Yorker or The Paris Review or Harper’s live through. That great swath of America that slips under the notice of this country’s liberal intelligence, and bobs there, waiting to be noted down.
When I first read Carver, I was startled at how utterly familiar his world felt. It was like coming home to lawns occupied by junk cars, to people trying with everything in them to make a living, to that jokey warm banter of people having a good time, getting lit and smoking out in the dark, wondering when their next paycheck would hit. Carver wrote about the kinds of people I’d spent my whole life around. And his idiom, that easy way that was by turns charming and by turns brutal, made my throat close up from homesickness. It was like running into my father’s voice a million miles away from home. Carver wrote about working people. Desperate people. Lonely people. But also people who loved and hated each other in equal parts. He wrote about the kinds of things that people who’ve never heard of The New Yorker or The Paris Review or Harper’s live through. That great swath of America that slips under the notice of this country’s liberal intelligence, and bobs there, waiting to be noted down.
I should probably reconsider Carver. I read his stories in high school and college, by assignment and nowhere else. I didn't like them; I found them oblique and dull. The teacher told us something about his importance as a working-class writer, but in my experience, working-class readers read Stephen King, who was just as gritty and had stuff actually happening in his stories.
At the same time as I didn't like his work, I took in the idea that literary short stories were supposed to be written like his--strange things happen; the protagonist has an unstated epiphany and wanders off and/or does something shocking. My work was pretty uninviting as a result. I didn't understand what was going on beneath the surface in Carver stories, or why people did what they did in them. I thought that was what you teased out by sitting back and thinking about it afterwards, just as in class. As I say, I was too young.
I do continue to appreciate one of his stories: the one about the argument over the baby. You know the one, or you don't, and you have to find out by yourself. Pure masterful horror.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:36 AM on April 12, 2021 [10 favorites]
At the same time as I didn't like his work, I took in the idea that literary short stories were supposed to be written like his--strange things happen; the protagonist has an unstated epiphany and wanders off and/or does something shocking. My work was pretty uninviting as a result. I didn't understand what was going on beneath the surface in Carver stories, or why people did what they did in them. I thought that was what you teased out by sitting back and thinking about it afterwards, just as in class. As I say, I was too young.
I do continue to appreciate one of his stories: the one about the argument over the baby. You know the one, or you don't, and you have to find out by yourself. Pure masterful horror.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:36 AM on April 12, 2021 [10 favorites]
I grew up in Yakima, and I didn't learn who Carver was until I moved to Louisiana and they actually taught his writing in school.
You would think he would be taught in the high schools of towns he actually lived in, but... nope.
When I finally read him, I remember thinking "Huh, yeah, this guy really did come from Yakima, all his characters sure ring true to the area."
posted by deadaluspark at 8:49 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
You would think he would be taught in the high schools of towns he actually lived in, but... nope.
When I finally read him, I remember thinking "Huh, yeah, this guy really did come from Yakima, all his characters sure ring true to the area."
posted by deadaluspark at 8:49 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
(How does one even avoid reading Raymond Carver stories, if you're into American literature? Most are barely long enough for a trip to the toilet, you could accidentally read one while looking for another book to read.)
I guess I'm just old enough now that other, younger-but-fully-adult adults are discovering things whose worth has been well-known since before I was born, and writing excitedly about what they're finding, but it's tiresome to me. Like, I'm glad you discovered Raymond Carver's stories, but there are literally annotated editions and whole other books about his work already out there extolling their virtues...this kind of constant, wheel-rediscovery approach to culture is kind of a phenomenon of a young internet, but still, the breathless enthusiasm of discovery for an author often described as "the most popular and influential American short-story writer since Ernest Hemingway," and who died over 30 years ago, is just...who is the audience for this essay? Did we need to re-establish that Raymond Carver wrote terrific and meaningful short stories? Ugh, I feel like such a curmudgeon thinking like this, but also, culture didn't start 10 or 15 years ago, either.
(Have you guys heard about Shakespeare? Look, I avoided reading that stuffy, old-White-dude stuff for years, but finally gave it a chance, and it's actually good.)
posted by LooseFilter at 8:51 AM on April 12, 2021 [16 favorites]
I guess I'm just old enough now that other, younger-but-fully-adult adults are discovering things whose worth has been well-known since before I was born, and writing excitedly about what they're finding, but it's tiresome to me. Like, I'm glad you discovered Raymond Carver's stories, but there are literally annotated editions and whole other books about his work already out there extolling their virtues...this kind of constant, wheel-rediscovery approach to culture is kind of a phenomenon of a young internet, but still, the breathless enthusiasm of discovery for an author often described as "the most popular and influential American short-story writer since Ernest Hemingway," and who died over 30 years ago, is just...who is the audience for this essay? Did we need to re-establish that Raymond Carver wrote terrific and meaningful short stories? Ugh, I feel like such a curmudgeon thinking like this, but also, culture didn't start 10 or 15 years ago, either.
(Have you guys heard about Shakespeare? Look, I avoided reading that stuffy, old-White-dude stuff for years, but finally gave it a chance, and it's actually good.)
posted by LooseFilter at 8:51 AM on April 12, 2021 [16 favorites]
"You know the one, or you don't, and you have to find out by yourself. Pure masterful horror."
Popular Mechanics, later re-titled Little Things.
posted by deadaluspark at 8:53 AM on April 12, 2021 [5 favorites]
Popular Mechanics, later re-titled Little Things.
posted by deadaluspark at 8:53 AM on April 12, 2021 [5 favorites]
I got Carver from, I believe, the same early-1990s high school teacher who gave us an excerpt from Ben Hamper's "Rivethead." (Harper's subscriber link here, everyone else can check their local library or ILL for the book.)
Both felt very honest and simple to me when I was 17, even though that wasn't my life. I should give Carver another go -- it's been thirty years. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:56 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
Both felt very honest and simple to me when I was 17, even though that wasn't my life. I should give Carver another go -- it's been thirty years. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:56 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
Did we need to re-establish that Raymond Carver wrote terrific and meaningful short stories? Ugh, I feel like such a curmudgeon thinking like this,
Brandon Taylor is pretty up front about his intentions, which are clearly explained in the essay, and extend beyond a naive rediscovery of a famous author. Did you not do the reading before coming to class?
Even the impulse of this letter, to situate Carver within a political framework, isn’t really about wanting to talk about his politics. It’s to make him seem relevant and interesting so that people won’t dismiss him. I mean, yes, his politics are interesting, particularly around the white working class and what all that means, and the absence of black people in his work and the way his stories are situated in places without a dense population center, that thready network of busted towns clinging to survival in the Northwest. Like, yes, there is something interesting there to be discussed, and I would like to. But first, I feel I have to justify my interest, and my way of doing that is to hold up his stories and say, no, no, these are deeply political. As if by proving his political bona fides, the ethical and moral vision of his work, I can save him from being labeled just another white dude. I can get him an invite to the cookout.
posted by mecran01 at 8:57 AM on April 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
Did you not do the reading before coming to class?
I did do the reading, and that paragraph in particular prompted my comment. If the essay author must justify his interest in a White author, then perhaps the more interesting essay is not about justifying his own interest, but rather an exploration into why he must justify any reading interest at all. Is curiosity not enough to read someone's work? Well-established cultural influence not enough to prompt a bit of exploration? Has all work by White authors now been thrown out entirely as worthless, and must be re-examined and re-admitted as worthwhile on a case-by-case basis? If so, that would make for a more interesting essay than this one, in my opinion.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:05 AM on April 12, 2021 [7 favorites]
I did do the reading, and that paragraph in particular prompted my comment. If the essay author must justify his interest in a White author, then perhaps the more interesting essay is not about justifying his own interest, but rather an exploration into why he must justify any reading interest at all. Is curiosity not enough to read someone's work? Well-established cultural influence not enough to prompt a bit of exploration? Has all work by White authors now been thrown out entirely as worthless, and must be re-examined and re-admitted as worthwhile on a case-by-case basis? If so, that would make for a more interesting essay than this one, in my opinion.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:05 AM on April 12, 2021 [7 favorites]
If younger people don’t get told about the writers older people read, then young people won’t know to read them, and they will vanish from the canon. How is this confusing?
I read the story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” for class once and liked it quite a bit but never sought out more Carver because I don’t read much short literary fiction, but now having read this article I think I will. So I guess the answer to “who is the audience for this” is “me, for one.”
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:12 AM on April 12, 2021 [14 favorites]
I read the story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” for class once and liked it quite a bit but never sought out more Carver because I don’t read much short literary fiction, but now having read this article I think I will. So I guess the answer to “who is the audience for this” is “me, for one.”
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:12 AM on April 12, 2021 [14 favorites]
I guess I'm just old enough now that other, younger-but-fully-adult adults are discovering things whose worth has been well-known since before I was born, and writing excitedly about what they're finding, but it's tiresome to me.
When other people discover and love things that I already love, I usually don’t get pissed off about the fact that they didn’t already know about those things. I am just really struggling to understand this viewpoint.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:14 AM on April 12, 2021 [34 favorites]
When other people discover and love things that I already love, I usually don’t get pissed off about the fact that they didn’t already know about those things. I am just really struggling to understand this viewpoint.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:14 AM on April 12, 2021 [34 favorites]
Young people excitedly discovering existing art is what keeps the world spinning. Rather than putting up signs to the contrary, we should enthusiastically invite them onto our lawns.
posted by gwint at 9:14 AM on April 12, 2021 [21 favorites]
posted by gwint at 9:14 AM on April 12, 2021 [21 favorites]
I think the essay makes more sense if you know who Brandon Taylor is. Real Life is a semi-autobiographical account of a Black grad student in biology from the rural South who is ground down and bewildered by his program and eventually drops out. The real Taylor's career did follow this trajectory, from what I've gathered.
I think for some outsider students, admitting that you don't know things that "everybody knows" is a sort of superpower, braver than mutely pretending to share in all of the norms of your environment. Everybody in academia is faking it to a certain degree, and it is actually disarming and refreshing to meet people who admit when they don't know things. For people from marginalized places this is particularly important, because otherwise the community feels like a place where you can never, ever belong.
posted by anhedonic at 9:21 AM on April 12, 2021 [30 favorites]
I think for some outsider students, admitting that you don't know things that "everybody knows" is a sort of superpower, braver than mutely pretending to share in all of the norms of your environment. Everybody in academia is faking it to a certain degree, and it is actually disarming and refreshing to meet people who admit when they don't know things. For people from marginalized places this is particularly important, because otherwise the community feels like a place where you can never, ever belong.
posted by anhedonic at 9:21 AM on April 12, 2021 [30 favorites]
Popular Mechanics, later re-titled Little Things.
I'd never read this story, so I went and searched for it online [Content Warning: Child abuse] I found it.
If you haven't read it, go do that right now. Seriously, this very instant. It'll only take you a minute. It's, like, 300 words long.
And then we can discuss it in this thread, because shit, I really want to talk about it.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:22 AM on April 12, 2021 [9 favorites]
I'd never read this story, so I went and searched for it online [Content Warning: Child abuse] I found it.
If you haven't read it, go do that right now. Seriously, this very instant. It'll only take you a minute. It's, like, 300 words long.
And then we can discuss it in this thread, because shit, I really want to talk about it.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:22 AM on April 12, 2021 [9 favorites]
I had a bit of an unfair beef with Carver, because I came up in fiction workshops so heavily enamored by his style that there was a real whiff of “this is the only way to write literary fiction” among his often very influential fans. And his stuff is good—better than good—but as an unabashedly feminine fan of maximalism,digression, not-quite reality and non-linear narratives, the whole cereal box, denim shirt, taciturn masculinity thing always felt a wee bit stifling to me.
Again, not Carver’s fault.
posted by thivaia at 9:25 AM on April 12, 2021 [16 favorites]
Again, not Carver’s fault.
posted by thivaia at 9:25 AM on April 12, 2021 [16 favorites]
Jesus, maybe a trigger warning for child harm on that link Faint of Butt? It was unwise for me to have read that in the middle of a work day.
posted by Tesseractive at 9:27 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Tesseractive at 9:27 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Thanks for posting that, Faint of Butt, but it kills me that such a rich story is followed by eight banal multiple choice questions. I'm sure there are reasons for that, and maybe it's necessary, but what an excellent way to make people hate literature and read it in the shallowest ways possible.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:28 AM on April 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:28 AM on April 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
fiction workshops so heavily enamored by his style
yeah when the author "staggered around Iowa City in a bleary haze" I was thinking, surely the ER there knows how to handle a Raymond Carver OD
posted by thelonius at 9:28 AM on April 12, 2021 [13 favorites]
yeah when the author "staggered around Iowa City in a bleary haze" I was thinking, surely the ER there knows how to handle a Raymond Carver OD
posted by thelonius at 9:28 AM on April 12, 2021 [13 favorites]
I usually don’t get pissed off
Please don't mischaracterize my comment--I said that it's tiresome, but I'm not pissed off, nobody needs to get off my lawn, and I'm not trying to squash anyone's discovery of old, great art. The essay's framing reads as if Carver has been massively cancelled, and that his work isn't still being actively read and taught somehow, and that was confusing to me.
For people from marginalized places this is particularly important, because otherwise the community feels like a place where you can never, ever belong.
This was a very helpful comment, thank you. I think the issue is that I am not the intended audience for this essay, at all. It's a good essay, and I agree with the author that Carver's work has much to offer, but I didn't know that this was any kind of obscure fact, or that there needs to be this kind of justification or rationalization in many communities for pursuing a particular interest like this.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:31 AM on April 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
Please don't mischaracterize my comment--I said that it's tiresome, but I'm not pissed off, nobody needs to get off my lawn, and I'm not trying to squash anyone's discovery of old, great art. The essay's framing reads as if Carver has been massively cancelled, and that his work isn't still being actively read and taught somehow, and that was confusing to me.
For people from marginalized places this is particularly important, because otherwise the community feels like a place where you can never, ever belong.
This was a very helpful comment, thank you. I think the issue is that I am not the intended audience for this essay, at all. It's a good essay, and I agree with the author that Carver's work has much to offer, but I didn't know that this was any kind of obscure fact, or that there needs to be this kind of justification or rationalization in many communities for pursuing a particular interest like this.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:31 AM on April 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm sorry, Tesseractive. I'll ask a mod to add a warning.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:31 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:31 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
(How does one even avoid reading Raymond Carver stories, if you're into American literature? Most are barely long enough for a trip to the toilet, you could accidentally read one while looking for another book to read.)
I went to a shit high school and went through college in a major that didn't really encourage curiosity in the literary arts. this is literally the first time I've heard of Raymond Carver.
posted by Dr. Twist at 9:33 AM on April 12, 2021 [16 favorites]
I went to a shit high school and went through college in a major that didn't really encourage curiosity in the literary arts. this is literally the first time I've heard of Raymond Carver.
posted by Dr. Twist at 9:33 AM on April 12, 2021 [16 favorites]
I had a bit of an unfair beef with Carver
Ditto. Carver is one of those artist who made a particularly difficult type of work look easy, and thereby spawned a million copycats who don't take the time and/or don't have the talent to do anything remotely as good.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:34 AM on April 12, 2021 [12 favorites]
Ditto. Carver is one of those artist who made a particularly difficult type of work look easy, and thereby spawned a million copycats who don't take the time and/or don't have the talent to do anything remotely as good.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:34 AM on April 12, 2021 [12 favorites]
Regarding "the taciturn masculinity thing"/Carver's style, Gordon Lish is at least partly responsible.
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:36 AM on April 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:36 AM on April 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
(I thought we were talking about Raymond Chandler, until realizing this is a completely different author I've never heard of.)
posted by kaibutsu at 9:52 AM on April 12, 2021 [20 favorites]
posted by kaibutsu at 9:52 AM on April 12, 2021 [20 favorites]
Last year I was gifted a copy of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and I bounced right off of it. Short stories have never been my thing, but I honestly read them all and didn't like a single one.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:53 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:53 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
For those interested, here's the long NYT piece about Lish and Carver: The Carver Chronicles
posted by gwint at 9:56 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by gwint at 9:56 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
There is quite a bit of discussion of how poet-partner Tess Gallagher shaped Carver's later writing, and how he shaped hers. It's pretty interesting, in my opinion, and reinforces the importance of the writer-editor relationship.
Maybe Brandon Taylor is overselling Carver's diminished presence in the literary world, but I found it enormously interesting and useful to experience Carver being read by a queer, black author.
posted by mecran01 at 10:25 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
Maybe Brandon Taylor is overselling Carver's diminished presence in the literary world, but I found it enormously interesting and useful to experience Carver being read by a queer, black author.
posted by mecran01 at 10:25 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
(I have to confess I was waiting for the Lish to surface.)
The thing about Carver is that almost every time I've read his stories, I've taken something away something different. I haven't really expected too, often, yet still.
This is an interesting essay, from a perspective not my own (and thus even more valuable).
posted by From Bklyn at 10:31 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
The thing about Carver is that almost every time I've read his stories, I've taken something away something different. I haven't really expected too, often, yet still.
This is an interesting essay, from a perspective not my own (and thus even more valuable).
posted by From Bklyn at 10:31 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Oh yeeeeaaaaah, "Popular Mechanics!" Forgot that one and its O'Henry last line.
...
Geez, how could I forget that?
I guess...
...maybe...?
...I think maybe I've actually forgotten most of everything.
Not just Carver but everything.
I suppose it's all the Netflix.
culture didn't start 10 or 15 years ago
No, but maybe it ended? Just talking about me; ymm of course v.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:39 AM on April 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
...
Geez, how could I forget that?
I guess...
...maybe...?
...I think maybe I've actually forgotten most of everything.
Not just Carver but everything.
I suppose it's all the Netflix.
culture didn't start 10 or 15 years ago
No, but maybe it ended? Just talking about me; ymm of course v.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:39 AM on April 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
I am definitely surprised to read here that Carver's work is less well-known than I understood it to be. It's certainly been influential on our creative culture generally (good and bad, as mentioned above), if not widely known. Robert Altman even made a magnum opus of a movie from some of Carver's stories. But I guess his work isn't as widely read as, say, Hemingway, even though it's in the same stream of American culture/influence, in which case some advocacy would be due.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:06 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by LooseFilter at 11:06 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I went to a reasonably good high school with a reasonably good English program. Our American Literature class focused almost exclusively on the 19th century (and earlier).
Reading the descriptions in the article and here were leaving me very confused, and it took me a while to realize I was conflating Raymond Chandler and Carver, just like kaibutsu.
Reading the posted link to "Little Things," the style feels familiar, but I can't say whether I've actually read any Carver stories before, or just imitators, and while I've almost certainly heard of Carver before, I almost certainly was conflating him with Chandler at the time--I have a real tendency to conflate people with similar names, even significantly less similar than these two.
posted by Four Ds at 11:25 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Reading the descriptions in the article and here were leaving me very confused, and it took me a while to realize I was conflating Raymond Chandler and Carver, just like kaibutsu.
Reading the posted link to "Little Things," the style feels familiar, but I can't say whether I've actually read any Carver stories before, or just imitators, and while I've almost certainly heard of Carver before, I almost certainly was conflating him with Chandler at the time--I have a real tendency to conflate people with similar names, even significantly less similar than these two.
posted by Four Ds at 11:25 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
...I think maybe I've actually forgotten most of everything.
Not just Carver but everything.
I suppose it's all the Netflix.
Ditto for me, but I don't watch much Netflix.
posted by Four Ds at 11:26 AM on April 12, 2021
Not just Carver but everything.
I suppose it's all the Netflix.
Ditto for me, but I don't watch much Netflix.
posted by Four Ds at 11:26 AM on April 12, 2021
I do continue to appreciate one of his stories: the one about the argument over the baby. You know the one, or you don't, and you have to find out by yourself. Pure masterful horror.
“So Much Water, So Close to Home” popped into my head unbidden the other day, as it does from time to time.
(CW on this one, violence against women, not terribly graphic but as the major theme.)
posted by atoxyl at 11:27 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
“So Much Water, So Close to Home” popped into my head unbidden the other day, as it does from time to time.
(CW on this one, violence against women, not terribly graphic but as the major theme.)
posted by atoxyl at 11:27 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
Thanks for posting that, Faint of Butt, but it kills me that such a rich story is followed by eight banal multiple choice questions
Multiple choice questions are the true horror.
omg
Someone made it into a film.
why
posted by sammyo at 11:51 AM on April 12, 2021
Multiple choice questions are the true horror.
omg
Someone made it into a film.
why
posted by sammyo at 11:51 AM on April 12, 2021
Multiple choice questions are the true horror.
These baby shoes you have for sale, were they ever used?
a) no
b) yes
c) un ... decided.
posted by chavenet at 12:04 PM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
These baby shoes you have for sale, were they ever used?
a) no
b) yes
c) un ... decided.
posted by chavenet at 12:04 PM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
Also, Brandon Taylor's Real Life is one of the best books I've read this year. TW: heartbreak, abusive relationships
posted by thivaia at 12:06 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by thivaia at 12:06 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'll admit that my only knowledge of Carver comes from Altman's Short Cuts. If I was assigned any of his stories in high-school, I either forgot them or never actually did the assignment (which is most likely).
posted by octothorpe at 12:35 PM on April 12, 2021
posted by octothorpe at 12:35 PM on April 12, 2021
wenestvedt: Rivethead was a big book for me in high school. I didn't know anyone else read it, much less had it assigned in school. Not that I've thought to ask anyone about it in years. I hesitate to return to it now, 30 years on, as it might not hit the same way it did back then.
posted by hilberseimer at 12:51 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by hilberseimer at 12:51 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
hilbersheimer, I re-read "Rivethead" a few years back and, if anything, it was even more relevant.
It showed me that once Michael Moore's "Roger & Me" flames died down, there was still a really interesting, funny writer behind all the Flint/GM-worker stories. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 1:12 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
It showed me that once Michael Moore's "Roger & Me" flames died down, there was still a really interesting, funny writer behind all the Flint/GM-worker stories. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 1:12 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
for some outsider students, admitting that you don't know things that "everybody knows" is a sort of superpower, braver than mutely pretending to share in all of the norms of your environment.
It can be a risky move.
In grad school it was a dangerously self-deprecatory thing to say.
In the college where I taught, it was a bold move, often humorous. One colleague was fond of saying "Read it? Heck, I haven't even taught it!"
posted by doctornemo at 1:40 PM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
It can be a risky move.
In grad school it was a dangerously self-deprecatory thing to say.
In the college where I taught, it was a bold move, often humorous. One colleague was fond of saying "Read it? Heck, I haven't even taught it!"
posted by doctornemo at 1:40 PM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
What a good reflection on reading Carver. Thank you for this.
So many good notes, like this one:
Carver’s realism gives me that same porous elation I feel when I read Link or Curtis or even Sarah Shun-lien Bynum or Carmen Maria Machado. That feeling that anything at all might leap out at me from around the corner, a sense of giddy, electric possibility.
I kind of liked that, getting in touch with the weirder impulses in Carver’s work.
posted by doctornemo at 2:10 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
So many good notes, like this one:
Carver’s realism gives me that same porous elation I feel when I read Link or Curtis or even Sarah Shun-lien Bynum or Carmen Maria Machado. That feeling that anything at all might leap out at me from around the corner, a sense of giddy, electric possibility.
I kind of liked that, getting in touch with the weirder impulses in Carver’s work.
posted by doctornemo at 2:10 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
I seem to remember sporadic outbreaks of enthusiasm for Carver over more than a decade, and then there was a kind of flashover event where everybody was talking about him.
And then after that, almost nothing.
posted by jamjam at 2:24 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
And then after that, almost nothing.
posted by jamjam at 2:24 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
We can visualize Carver's waxing and waning presence, although debating whether or not Carver is being overlooked is probably the least interesting point in this essay.
posted by mecran01 at 2:38 PM on April 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by mecran01 at 2:38 PM on April 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Here I was thinking, "Well I liked his hard-boiled detective fiction about as much as I liked Hammett's when I read it" but of course that's a different Raymond C.
Don't believe I've dabbled with much Carver. Will have a squiz.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:39 PM on April 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Don't believe I've dabbled with much Carver. Will have a squiz.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:39 PM on April 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
I was like Taylor a few years ago with Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, a book I actively avoided for decades because it was recommend to me by someone I loathe.
I've read all of Carver's stories -- collected in one volume -- and like him fine but he never gut-punched me like Johnson's Fuckhead did and continues to do. Must have read this book at least 20 times. I often return to the audiobook for comfort (here's the better deal if you're considering it).
(Johnson was a student of Carver's.)
posted by dobbs at 3:33 PM on April 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
I've read all of Carver's stories -- collected in one volume -- and like him fine but he never gut-punched me like Johnson's Fuckhead did and continues to do. Must have read this book at least 20 times. I often return to the audiobook for comfort (here's the better deal if you're considering it).
(Johnson was a student of Carver's.)
posted by dobbs at 3:33 PM on April 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
Carver is great but lots of people stan Carver; this piece has a Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum shoutout! That you don't see every day. Madeleine is Sleeping is a wonder. (Unlike Taylor, I don't feel at all the same things reading Bynum as I do Carver, but hey, that's why books have more than one reader.)
posted by escabeche at 3:51 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by escabeche at 3:51 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
because I came up in fiction workshops so heavily enamored by his style that there was a real whiff of “this is the only way to write literary fiction” among his often very influential fans.
am I naive in hoping that the term "literary fiction" will someday (hopefully soon) become something we can all just laugh at in a grim sort of way? It doesn't mean anything. Nothing good anyway.
posted by philip-random at 3:52 PM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
am I naive in hoping that the term "literary fiction" will someday (hopefully soon) become something we can all just laugh at in a grim sort of way? It doesn't mean anything. Nothing good anyway.
posted by philip-random at 3:52 PM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
No, not naive. It's ever more common to hear people admit that the concept of "litfic" is a marketing strategy.
I would add that the actual word litfic is useful in its connotations. Like, "litfic" fiction is definitely a genre, with its own conventions of skittish realism. (We just still aren't allowed to call it a genre without fluster, protest, etc.)
posted by desert outpost at 7:07 PM on April 12, 2021
I would add that the actual word litfic is useful in its connotations. Like, "litfic" fiction is definitely a genre, with its own conventions of skittish realism. (We just still aren't allowed to call it a genre without fluster, protest, etc.)
posted by desert outpost at 7:07 PM on April 12, 2021
I've never read or heard of him, that I recall. I'm one of today's Lucky 10,000. Apparently there's an adaption of one of his stories, "Why Don't you Dance?" with Will Ferrel called Everything Must Go on Prime. I might try that.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 8:32 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Chrysopoeia at 8:32 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
Definitely give "Everything Must Go" a shot. Will Ferrell keeps proving the truism that comedians often make fantastic dramatic actors
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:14 PM on April 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:14 PM on April 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Carver's poetry is very, very good.
posted by StopMakingSense at 12:18 AM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by StopMakingSense at 12:18 AM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
re: "Popular Mechanics" / "Little Things"--I love this story and I used to use it in classes. There's so much that's great to discuss about it, including the two different titles.
"Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too."
Chills.
IT WAS GETTING DARK ON THE INSIDE TOO.
posted by exlotuseater at 6:53 AM on April 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
"Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too."
Chills.
IT WAS GETTING DARK ON THE INSIDE TOO.
posted by exlotuseater at 6:53 AM on April 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by thelonius at 8:20 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]