Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?: Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)

This was my first go at Raymond Carver's short stories. They were perfect little segments of the lives of ordinary people. I felt, when starting another one of these short stories, that I was stumbling into the lives of people that I knew or was familiar with ... or that could have been me. Carver is an author that knows people so perfectly. He knows the secret thoughts of people, the wild lust and exuberance, and the darkened black suspicions. Carver's writing style is unorthodox, seemingly a writer that wrote completely on his own terms. And the structure is reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway. I drew many similarities between the two. In short, I can't wait to delve into more of Raymond Carver's work. My favorite stories in this collection are "Will You Please Be Quite, Please?" and "Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarets".

Just re-read this collection, took less than a day. I first read it about thirty years ago in my youth, where I found it more impactful. I read this thinking this is what the future held for my adult life, after all, I saw parts of these stories in the lives of my parents, step-parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, bosses, etc… Now re-reading this book and the “What We Talk About When We Talk About love” collection I know that these lives are for the most part on the fringe. Couples don’t all break up, cheat, drink to excess, and in general physically or emotionally destroy each other. I don’t mean to say Carver is similar to Bukowski in using almost exclusively alcoholic characters dragged from run down bars and boardinghouses. No, Carver pulls characters many could see as next door neighbors, co-workers, friends, your dentist, etc… but pretty much everyone but a few unnamed characters are white middle class. So it reads a bit dated. Makes sense for the era they were written where society was more segregated racially and by wealth. But the writing is crisp, the dialogue is spot on, and the stories are efficient. So I still rec’ Carver’s stories, whether you just want to enjoy good writing, interesting stories, or are interested in a historical snapshot of short stories from the latter half of the twentieth century. Lastly, you can see many films based of these stories, even some in recent years. Robert Altman’s “Shortcuts” is a film where he used numerous Carver stories featured here as a basis for the various storylines, with a great ensemble cast of stars. A great film, but the original stories are much richer. In my youth these would have been a 5, but now they are that much more dated. 4.0

I enjoy reading all of Raymond Carver's short stories, non-fiction writing, and his poetry. I simply love his style of writing.

Fantastic book, I enjoy Mr. Carver’s writing and perspectives, he’s so refreshing to my young mind and this book has made me a fan.

For some several decades now I've spent a great deal of time musing on literary matters. Not brooding over such matters, nor delving in deep study. However, literature has been on my mind generally, and more or less perpetually. It all started when I was 4 or 5 years old and my mother took us frequently to the library. Anyone who thinks physical libraries are outmoded in our electronic era today is mistaken. The magic of borrowing physical books, at least for the youngest readers, cannot be overstated. A few years later, through some book club or something, I was given the first three books of my own: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Story of Doctor Doolittle, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I read these all several times. The Lewis Carroll is the only one which remains a favorite. What are these "favorites?" Why do I remain fond of Alexander Pope when he's so little read today, especially in contrast to his contemporaries? Moby-Dick was never assigned reading for me, but when I eventually got around to it, I recognized its power as a masterpiece right away. Ulysses is the greatest novel ever written, and I think many would-be readers who give it up never persist long enough to penetrate Joyce's screening layers of ironic erudition to perceive its comic core. The Cyclops episode I've long thought to be the funniest in that book, but now that I'm currently reading The Cattle of the Sun very closely, I'm beginning to believe that this episode is even funnier. One of my literary questions, seldom called into full consciousness, has been whether or no there is some general innate magic in what we call literature. Surely the professors would have us believe so, waxing poetic as they do about innumerable authors and their works. And yet again and again I've encountered readers, myself included, for whom some classic or other falls flat. Madame Bovary was one, for example, which didn't work for me. Was the translation the problem? Maybe, but I doubt it. I feel guilty when this kind of thing happens. Everyone loves this book. What have I done wrong? What have I missed? Dracula was another, which I found to be awful. And don't get me started about Lord of the Flies. I'm now starting to move beyond these guilty feelings, however, for when I consider the novels and stories which are resonant for me, I'm realizing it's not the implicit literary magic which appeals so much, even though that is often there. No, it has to do with the mind of the author with whom I am in communication across dividing decades, or centuries, or more. Lewis Carroll, Alexander Pope, Frank Herbert, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, James Joyce, and so on: these are my people in ways that Hugh Lofting, Frank Baum, Gustave Flaubert, Bram Stoker, and (Heaven forfend!) William Golding never can be. It is the mind-to-mind connection that matters: not the literature-for-literature's sake. Which is why, although I'd looked forward so very much to reading Raymond Carver's first collection of short stories, Will You Please be Quiet, Please?, powerfully recommended by so many advocates of literature whose opinions I respect, I must say that this book does not do it for me. I don't dislike the book: I simply do not strike a harmonious chord with Carver's authorial mind in the way I wanted and expected to. I do know that I am in the minority, and if you read it, your milage may vary quite a lot from mine. Don't put too much credence in the reviews people scribble down about books they've loved or hated. The main thing is to remain on your own reading journey, because really life is mostly about the stories we hear and tell: that's how we make our passage through the world. Find the authorial minds you can relate to, and be prepared for a sense of awe as you witness the world expanding dramatically all around you.

Carter has a very distinctive point of view. His stories are very mid-century modern. He somehow captures the uncertainty of times under the shadow of nuclear destruction without directly referencing the struggle against communism. He gave me the feeling of being a voyeur on the private lives of interesting people. I eventually got a little tired of his viewpoint, but undoubtedly a gifted writer.

This is a great book. The collection of stories is incredible. I'd suggest that the reader obtain Lish's edits and Carver's original unedited version of the stories that originally appeared in the New Yorker. It will greatly enrich the reading experience. Carver's ability to capture American suburban life was incredible. This should be required reading, it is that good.

Carver writes with a rare and magnificent simplicity, straightforwardness, and muscularity rivaled perhaps only by Hemingway. His prose is taut, lean, and gets the job done efficiently, but is also remarkably deep in its themes and vivid in its imagery, and his characters sound and feel as real as flesh-and-blood humans. Highly recommended for lovers of short stories and great American fiction.

Anyone who knows anything, knows what Carver was (and is), what he can be, could be. This book is everything conveyed with next to nothing, it is more, so much more. If Carver were music he would be jazz. Carver's genius lies in his powers of transportation. His ability to paint his subjects in the most transparent of washes, the faintest of brush-strokes and yet still manage to make you imagine them in their fullness and their complexity. Like the Chinese or Japanese masters of 'sumi-e' (ink painting), he lays down the simplest of lines, the simplest of narratives and the simplest language to convey to the viewer (the reader) just what was intended to be conveyed. There is no waste, no excess, no fat to be trimmed here, he stops short of giving too much and just shy of not giving you enough. Carver arguably restored the relationship, the contract between the reader and an author. A contract whereby both parties agree to work for a common goal. The author agrees to give part of the story, if the reader agrees to use their imagination to fill in the blanks. And in agreeing to this contract, they agree to not just use their imagination in some passive, inert sense, but rather agree to draw on their store of experiences and knowledge to deepen one's assimilation to the characters and situations laid down on the page. This short collection is memorable from start to finish and is highly recommended for anyone who likes great story-telling, who is interested in the human condition, or anyone who wants to encounter just what the short story can be.

So glad I discovered this amazing writer. So rare to find a short story writer of this calibre.

Bellissimo e inquietante repertorio di brevi racconti del primo Carver. Scritti in un inglese americano non difficile, se via piace il genere buttatevi.

Raymond Carver was without a doubt one of the best short story writers of the 20th century, and this is one of his best collections. He had the knack of homing in on the smallest incident in a character's life that is somehow the most telling. He's also spare - writing close to the bone. Some of the stories are autobiographical as the recent, excellent, biography of Raymond Carver (Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life, by Carol Sklenicka) shows. []

Unsentimental sparse and melancholic picture of urban American life