Carver's Greatest Hits

Book #7 is Where I'm Calling From, the final short fiction collected released before Carver died in 1988. It has 37 stories, arranged chronologically from his earlier efforts to the present. It gives you a very good sense of Carver's evolution as writer. The copy I got from Booksale didn't have the table of contents--after all, I can't complain much since I got it for only 70 pesos. I ended up writing down all the titles and page counts. It turns out I've read around half of the stories already from previous Carver books. Most of the stories here have appeared elsewhere, or with new titles. Very surface comment: A whole lot of his characters have problems with drinking--as though you didn't know that before.

Another very surface comment: I like the photo of the author on the cover. It makes him look very ferocious. I thought that the style of the photo looked familiar, and true enough, it turns out that Marion Ettlinger is credited for the photo. I've seen a book of author photos I like, called Author Photos, I think.

Short Cuts

I've had this book on my shelf for years but haven't gotten around to actually reading it. But I was working on my revision for fiction class and Carver is one author that short story writing teachers often point to. The crispness of language, spare images and description reminds me of Hemingway.

But I liked Short Cuts first (again) as a film. I saw it first in film class many years ago. Must be the second most viewed Robert Altman film in film classes. What attracted me to the movie was how Altman was able to put together all those narrative threads together and not make it look like each little story is "bitin." When I learned that the material for the script was actually taken from stories by Raymond Carver, I was even more intrigued. There's this discussion that short stories lend themselves more (in)credibly to the screen, and I suppose Carver's work and what Altman did with it was an evidence of that.

As for the Carver stories, I really like the one about the baker and the birthday cake. I think it was called "The Bath" in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love but it's called "A Small, Good Thing" in the new compilation. There's also the one about this guy who decided to get rid of his children's dog. They're all stories of ordinary folks who suffer through this really "quiet desperation." I know I heard that last phrase somewhere else before but just can't pin it down right now.

So that's it for this year's Book # 6. Fabulous book. You should all read it.