What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver

Short stories are my thing. As much as I love all types of books, literature and biography I am a big fan of the short story. In the second half of the twentieth century Raymond Carver was one of the Masters of the form. As John Cheever wrote often about the characters of Long Island, New York City and suburban Connecticut Carver too writes often about the same characters. Carver's however are darker, often plied with alcohol and often with violence just below the surface.

Not all of Carver's stories work for me. However when his stories work, they work extremely well. Gazebo is the first of the winning stories in the collection. A couple with dreams of improving their lives remembers a gazebo they have seen in the past and pictures that as the epitome of married bliss, while they deal with the troubles in their young marriage.

I Could See the Smallest Things in just four pages expresses the under the radar pain of a friendship between two working men, neighbors, who have fallen out of friendship. Only Carver could have a man out digging night crawlers at three in the morning speak to his neighbors wife out to close a forgotten gate and convey so much with a message to her husband that he says hi.

In this stage perhaps Carver had a thing for the subtext of water. In perhaps the most famous story from the collection, " The Bath", features a family celebrating a young boys birthday. When the boy is injured and in the hospital with a life threatening injury the world outside keeps turning and in " So Much Water Close to Home" a group of men who discover the body of a drowned girl they are not prepared for the anger directed at them when they finish their fishing trip before reporting it. Clearly cell phones would have been a huge asset to these gentlemen.

The title story is a bit longer and features two couples discussing love. All four middle aged, at one point they were all married to others, have differing opinions as to the meaning of love. Just under the surface the differences between the characters opinions are a bit more in conflict and as the gin flows the conversation does too. In the end nothing really happens, the more they try to express what love really is, the more they cannot speak to it. As the story ends the couples, drunk before it gets dark are hungry and would like to go get some food. Still, thinking in their interior about what is love, no one moves and the story ends.

An uneven collection, still with some very valuable stories.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Corrections was a 2001 book written by Jonathan Franzen that received rave reviews, multitudes of awards, and is often cited as the greatest work of fiction of the first decade of the new century.

Over the last week I have read this book and must admit that I enjoyed it, parts of it were extremely well written and affecting, and that the story itself was very strong. The story is also unsettling.

Albert Lambert is a retired Railroad Engineer. In his late seventies he now suffers from Parkinson's disease and dementia. As his personality and physicality crumble from what they were his wife Enid endures but suffers as well.

The books features a section on each character, in these sections we travel back and forth in time from the characters childhood through some of the their major life events. Interestingly some of the characters relate the same event through different viewpoints.

Alfred the patriarch of the Lambert family is dignified and correct. He also has been a bit tyrannical in his administration of his house. To me his character represents old America, perhaps even how I feel seeing the technology of cell phones, texting and constant engagement that I sometimes am shocked in seeing. His loyalty to his company, even after he is discarded, is typical of people from that era. His battle with dementia is uncomfortable to see. He keeps his shotgun handy and we pray he does not use it. He suffers with bathroom problems, enemas, and bladder control, adult diapers and conversations with illusory feces. He is a man breaking apart mentally and physically. Near the end of his ability to speak begging his son Chip to, in a moment of final clarity, help him end it he says I and we are told of all he wishes to say. He wishes he could say he is scared, he is in pain, he wants to die, he loves his family, he did his best. Al is a man who has come to the end of his sanity, his clarity, and in that final moment of clarity rages against the world whose rules he has tried to follow.

His wife Enid is a sympathetic character. Raised in the Depression she is constantly concerned about money and finds fault with her husband, her children and like many people we may know is a good person who is too caught up in appearances.

Oldest son Gary is the most unlikable character. A weak willed character he lives in Philadelphia. Rich beyond his dreams, with a wife and kids who have nothing good to say about his family, indeed ridiculing his parents and their Midwestern lifestyle one can sense he has given in so long when he attempts to be the man it is not taken seriously. Perhaps his attitude is explainable as his way to deal with the fear of what is taking place with his father. His desire to control, to make sense, leads to outbursts and cruelty to his parents that is tough to witness. His miserly hounding of his Mother for $4.46 tells much about his character.

Middle Son Chip has made many mistakes. Gaining a Doctorate he is teaching on tenure track at a small collage but in his last year before tenure he self destructs by having an affair with a student. Soon he is working on a screenplay, proofreading for a law firm, dressing too young and too cool for who he is, and placing studs in both ears. When this falls apart he is Lithuania being the marketing and computer muscle in a scheme to defraud investors, mostly American. For all that however Chip becomes a sympathetic character. His ability to understand and accept his father's frailties without judgement show why Alfred over the last year has called out for Chip before asking for anyone who was there. Alfred, losing traction on reality, knows who Chip is.

Lastly we have Denise the baby of the family. A woman of confused sexuality who has made multitudes of mistakes in relationships with both men and women is a Chef of very chic restaurants written up for reviews in the Times and other papers. She is however a wreck, having left her parents hometown of St Jude as long as possible she is haunted by her parents and their mundane lives in contrast to hers. Her discoveries of her father's knowledge of a mistake she committed years ago, known by him since it happened, but never discussed or the knowledge disclosed, feeds her guilt to new levels and fuels her desire to protect her Dad from her older brother's sanctimonious efforts to help.

HBO is currently at work in a series adaption of this book. It should be powerful viewing. It certainly was powerful reading. More like Updike than Cheever, two of the authors I have most seen him compared to Franzen is very very good. If a bit too modern for some of my tastes that is a reflection on me not him.

A book highly recommended.

Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

Having heard quiet a few references to this book with most of them containing adjectives such as superb, classic, and influential in describing these stories of small town life in the late eighteen hundreds I picked this up from the library.

Further pleased to find out it was originally published in the year of my father's birth, that is 1919, there were no superlatives for me to use to describe this. I confess freely that I did not read the whole book. I read the first six stories and do admit there is in theory a chance that the stories get better deeper into the book. On the assumption that they do not I can only describe stories that are odd, often out of sequence and context and with characters that apparently have no value whatsoever.

Hearing these stories described as a precursor to some of the great American writers to follow left me in the dark. I found Faulkner to be dense and Cheever is self absorbed in his own world. Perhaps most authors are but these stories were just bad. I can say nothing positive about this work.

The Stories of John Cheever

I enjoy short stories. I think that they are a prelude into an author's vision and have used these stories as my entry into the works of Hemingway, Faulkner and now Cheever. An appreciation for a good short story appears to be a lost art. In the mid nineteen hundreds each week many literary magazines were published many with stories by some of the great authors of the time on a regular basis. I suspect that in today's marketplace short stories are considered not worth the effort, certainly the financial rewards are meager compared to the riches from a bestselling novel.

I occasionally will show a favorite story to a friend but more often than not after humoring me with a reading, if at all, they do not enjoy it as I did. What is the point of it or I do not understand will be the response. As a short story is often a glimpse of a moment in time in the life of a character and not often a beginning, middle and end our current entertainment culture has spoiled them.

As we now watch Mad Men every season and celebrate the New York driven culture of the mid sixties the stories of John Cheever become even more relevant again. When published in 1978 this collection of stories earned Cheever the Pulitzer Prize.

I read several books at a time and have over the last couple of months made it a practice to read one Cheever story each night before bed. It is hard to describe why these stories are so good. Often they are just lonely people in a busy world. A sense of loss and optimism haunts these people. Cheever has an ability to allow his characters to move from real to imagined storylines and occasionally it is a challenge to follow along.

This collection is full. I enjoyed each one. A few such as Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor, The Swimmer, The World of Apples and Artemis the Honest Well Digger are reknown but these stories are wonderful.

This is a top ten collection of stories. Highest recommendation.

Bring It On

Sometimes you watch a movie you did not intend to. Sometimes you watch a movie your embarrassed to admit too. Sometimes you watch a movie that just happens to be about cheerleaders and when you tell your wife it was a mistake she just gives you the look.

All of these events happened to me last week when one of the kids left the television on USA and when I returned to the house after dropping them off to school I turned on the television to check out the last hour of Morning Joe.

So I ended up watching the ten year old movie Bring It On cheerleading movie starring Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku. Certainly watching the cheerleading scenes was not bad on the eyes but the real thing about this movie was that I had a hard time deciding if the movie was a parody, a farce, or a real storylined movie.

I decided it was a combination. The movie tells the tale of Torrance (Dunst) who has been named cheer captain who when recruiting a new girl named Missy ( played by Duskhu) is made aware that her team's previous captains have been stealing routines from an inner city school in Compton.

Struggling to do the right thing she faces challenges from her own team who are more concerned with winning than doing right. There are all the stereotypical high school characters and some parts of the movie are laughable if not on purpose.

Still there is some drama and a little bit of merit in the story and the movie is not entirely bad. We have all known these characters and it is interesting to seem them paraodied and in some cases skewered so well.

An interesting movie, not one I would reccomend but I have to confess I did watch it. Does it count that I was reading John Cheever at the same time.