"A dozen stories that overflow with the danger, excitement, mystery and possibility of life...Carver is a writer of astonishing compassion and hone...
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Dec 17, 2009
Steve
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After years of being told that Raymond Carver was the epitome of quality short story writing I finally read one of his books. I'm all in favour of sparse, concise prose that describe the minutiae of everyday life if it offers reveals the extraordinary within the ordinary. With many of the stories in "Cathedral" I kept thinking, "And...?" I did not feel that Carver's subtle observations amounted to any great insight. The only story that lingers in my mind is "A Small, Goo
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Jan 31, 2012
Giulia
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Avete presente quei libri che si leggono da bambini, mi sembra che li chiamino libri animati, che hanno delle linguette laterali? Tu le tiri e sulla pagina ti si rivela un’immagine, oppure magicamente si alza una figura e la pagina diventa 3D. Spero di essermi spiegata. Comunque, ecco, la sensazione che ho avuto leggendo questo libro di Carver è stata così. Un’esperienza rivelatrice, illuminante.
I critici, parlando dei racconti di Carver, li descrivono come onesti. Sono d’accordo, se More...
I critici, parlando dei racconti di Carver, li descrivono come onesti. Sono d’accordo, se More...
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Mar 17, 2008
Jeremy
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This is my favorite collection of short stories bar none. I'm even impressed with the the way in which the collection is arranged. The title story comes last, if I remember correctly and it's a perfect bookend and the strongest here. It may be his most famous. My best pal Andy turned me on to Carver a long time ago and if I never learn Aikido like we had contracted to do, he will be winner by default because of this recommendation. Again, if you need your characters actually doing things (c
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Sep 28, 2007
J.P.
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On Christmas Eve, 1989, I sat in my room as snow fell outside. I was 20 years old. That night, I read this book cover-to-cover. I didn't mean to---Carver's voice and characters just grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go. It's one of the few books I've ever read in one sitting.
These characters, I found, weren't like 'made-up' people from most other fiction I'd read up to that time. They were my friends, neighbors, coworkers---and to some extent, me.
Upon completin More...
These characters, I found, weren't like 'made-up' people from most other fiction I'd read up to that time. They were my friends, neighbors, coworkers---and to some extent, me.
Upon completin More...
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Jun 07, 2011
Myles
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OK, so the craft and the talent of/behind these stories is undoubted, but there was very little about them to love.
They were mostly about endings and people keeping on anyway. Sometimes they had a shred of hope like in the title story or "Where I'm Calling From", but mostly it was about keeping your head down and just accepting the dull current of life.
This is the first time in a long time that I've felt too young to have read something. I can get a bit down and More...
They were mostly about endings and people keeping on anyway. Sometimes they had a shred of hope like in the title story or "Where I'm Calling From", but mostly it was about keeping your head down and just accepting the dull current of life.
This is the first time in a long time that I've felt too young to have read something. I can get a bit down and More...
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Sep 22, 2011
Jigar
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Brilliant, Brutal, Devastating - these short stories by the preeminent artist of dirty realism manage to chip away the universals other writers deem necessary and lay bare the particulars, the mundane, the absurd in everyday life. Carver must have had a craggy, unsentimental stare, coz he is always bloody right on target.
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Feb 07, 2012
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Feb 05, 2012
In “Cathedral”, I interpreted a simple paradigm change. A judgmental man displays his prejudice in a number of ways. These ways include racism, astonished that the man might have a black wife, and prejudice against blindness. His wife has grown fond of a blind man, and the man grows jealous.
I interpreted a sense of hypocrisy from the story. The man doesn’t sleep with his wife, and smokes pot until he falls asleep every night. He pokes fun at the blind man that he could never see his wife, More...
I interpreted a sense of hypocrisy from the story. The man doesn’t sleep with his wife, and smokes pot until he falls asleep every night. He pokes fun at the blind man that he could never see his wife, More...
Feb 05, 2012
Emily
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I was particularly fond of the use of a biased narrator in this piece because you could feel the narrator coming around and changing his attitude towards the blind man. The bias gave a unique insight to the reader so they could not only understand how the man evolved in the story, but gave perspective on why he felt the bias he had towards the blind man in the beginning. The bias can be seen through his inner dialogue, using both blatant statements such as, “A blind man in my house was not som
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Feb 05, 2012
Cathedral is filled with passive animosity. In any case, this would be just another man jealous of his wife’s –in essence- past lover. Right off the bat, the reader is familiarized with the husband’s angst towards the Blind man. The husband is threatened by blind man’s swagger. The husband is pessimistic about the blind man’s visit. The husband has many reasons to feel this way; his wife always stayed in contact with the blind man even after all these years. The blind man is objectified by the h
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Feb 05, 2012
Dallas
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“Cathedral” by Ramond Carver left me perplexed. No sooner was it until the end of the book had I understood what in fact I was reading. I was unaware, even oblivious to the title, such a perfect place to be taken into by a story. I found myself in the eyes of the narrator: a cynic, a doubter. Someone who I have been active to avoid being in my life, yet he was a character I seemed to have known my whole life. The blind man in the story was by a good account an ethereal being. As I read the inter
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Feb 05, 2012
The narrator of “Cathedral” tells the story from his point of view as it unfolds before his eyes. It is a feel good story that is shows two men who come from completely different backgrounds and are able to share a deep connection. Throughout the entire story the man never refers to Robert by his first name. Only his wife, who has had a close relationship to Robert for a while, refers to him by his name. The man seems extremely intimidated by Robert as he has indirectly been a large part of him
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Feb 05, 2012
In the short story “Cathedral”, the narrator wrote the story in the first person view. From the story, I can tell that the narrator is the kind of person who is lack of confidence, he doesn’t want that blind man Robert to come over because Robert was very close to his wife, somewhere inside his heart he must feel very insecure, he is afraid of the possibility that Robert might take his wife away from him. He says he never believed in any religion, which implies that he might not trust anybody bu
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Feb 05, 2012
Marco
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I would give the book more of a 3- 3 and half than an actual four because the events that happened in the story, but I can not rate it that way from the website. I believe the story holds a lot of truth with how society is today. The story can easily be applied to current day even though the technology and other parts of the story show that it is not. The second husband is proof of the high divorce ratio because he seems very far disconnected from his wife. Every night he prefers to smoke mariju
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Feb 05, 2012
Daniel
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Raymond Carver’s Cathedral follows the conversation of a man meeting his wife’s blind friend, named Robert, who had recently lost his wife to cancer. As this is the man’s first time meeting a blind person, he does not know what to expect of the meeting. I found this premise interesting because I, myself have never met a blind person, nor do I know what I would talk to one about. The most intense conversation between the main character and Robert occurs when the man’s wife is asleep and they enga
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Feb 05, 2012
Wendy
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As soon as I read the first three words of Raymond Carver's, "Cathedral," I knew that there was going to be wisdom, knowledge, and deep insight to find within this story. Over the years, I have learned that any character that is blind usually "sees" much more than those who can see but are "blind" to the things surrounding their own life. This we see immediately from our narrator who does not see his wife's own unhappiness. His wife confides in the blind man her utm
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Feb 05, 2012
Cathedral is a story about prejudice and realizing that the world doesn’t necessarily always work the way we think it should. It is clear from the beginning of the story that the narrator is kind of insecure and does not like most people. For example, he refuses to call his wife’s first husband anything other than officer. His reasoning for this is that he was her childhood sweetheart and that should be enough. As the story goes on and he learns more and more about the blind man he is quick to
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Nov 03, 2011
Nitya
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Raymond Carver is considered by many to be the greatest American short story writer of all time. Cathedral was written after Carver got sober and found love with the poet Tess Gallagher. These stories often portray the damage wrought by alcohol in a marriage, or the loneliness inherent in the human experience. Sounds depressing, but it's not. Touching, that's what it is. The characters become real, and their suffering is universal and easy to relate with. In Cathedral, the final story, a blind
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Oct 25, 2011
Bruce
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Aug 30, 2011
Gretchen
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Cathedral is a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver. Each story explores everyday moments in humanity, as well as common issues like relationships and alcoholism. Carver’s writing style is minimalist, so there are no moments of long description of setting or characters. Carver focuses on plot and themes, and each story ends with a slight cliffhanger, leaving it up to the reader to decide what happens.
I read this book for my Contemporary American Literature class, and I loved i More...
I read this book for my Contemporary American Literature class, and I loved i More...
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Aug 16, 2011
PGR
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The title Story "cathedral" is one of the best American stories of last century.
The theme is the communication gap that isolates relationships. The narrator drinks too much and seems unable to adequately communicate with his wife. The wife has earlier tried to commit suicide because of loneliness. Both the narrator and his wife are unable to effectively communicate with one another; however, his wife communicates freely and well with the blind man. The narrator is very resi More...
The theme is the communication gap that isolates relationships. The narrator drinks too much and seems unable to adequately communicate with his wife. The wife has earlier tried to commit suicide because of loneliness. Both the narrator and his wife are unable to effectively communicate with one another; however, his wife communicates freely and well with the blind man. The narrator is very resi More...
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Jun 20, 2011
Christine
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This is an excellent set of short stories and personally my first introduction to Carver. The back of my edition has a quote from Carver himself that sums up why these are so extraordinary better than I can: he has the ability "to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language and endow these things - a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring - with immense, even startling power."
Which is exactly what he does to - fill More...
Which is exactly what he does to - fill More...
Dec 31, 2010
Eric
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This is the collection where Carver shakes off the label of "minimalist".
His previous editor, Gordon Lish, was known for paring Carver's stories down to the bone. But in this collection, free from Lish's pencil, he is able to be more expansive. The stories still concern average shmoes living clumsy lives, but now Carver gives himself the space for more incident. More emotional nuance. Not only that, but he's funnier, and he was fairly funny to begin with.
I read a vo More...
His previous editor, Gordon Lish, was known for paring Carver's stories down to the bone. But in this collection, free from Lish's pencil, he is able to be more expansive. The stories still concern average shmoes living clumsy lives, but now Carver gives himself the space for more incident. More emotional nuance. Not only that, but he's funnier, and he was fairly funny to begin with.
I read a vo More...
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Sep 20, 2010
Steven
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Honestly didn't care much for the stories at first, though the talent and skill, especially with style and construction, were obvious. Just seemed to me that the characters NEVER thought, "Things aren't going so well; maybe I should do something different. Like, stop drinking, for example." But then came "A Small, Good Thing," which is one of the better short stories ever, and the tide shifted to stories about characters who at least realized that maybe improvement and mov
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May 18, 2010
Rowland
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The Difference between Looking and Seeing
In “Cathedral,” the act of looking is related to physical vision, but the act of seeing requires a deeper level of engagement. The narrator shows that he is fully capable of looking. He looks at his house and wife, and he looks at Robert when he arrives. The narrator is not blind and immediately assumes that he’s therefore superior to Robert. Robert’s blindness, the narrator reasons, makes him unable to make a woman happy, let alone have any k More...
In “Cathedral,” the act of looking is related to physical vision, but the act of seeing requires a deeper level of engagement. The narrator shows that he is fully capable of looking. He looks at his house and wife, and he looks at Robert when he arrives. The narrator is not blind and immediately assumes that he’s therefore superior to Robert. Robert’s blindness, the narrator reasons, makes him unable to make a woman happy, let alone have any k More...
Apr 04, 2010
Casey
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Raymond Carver knows what he writes about. All of his characters could either be him or people he knows really well. I’ve never had that feeling before. That sense that the author is in every story he’s writing about. Be it the family that loses their son, our the alcoholic that is trying to dry up, the husband abandoned with two children by a wife that “is going for it”. I always got the sense it was Carver in all these stories. It was his life he was talking about. Of course that’s not the cas
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Feb 11, 2010
Eric
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When mentioning the art of the short story, we eventually come to the subject of Raymond Carver. Brought to the height of his career in the 1980s, Carver was known for revival of the short form and for his curt, direct style of writing that came to be known as dirty realism. Of course, there was the controversy between Carver and his editor, Gordon Lish, but by the time Cathedral came out, Carver had already distanced himself away from the editor (he actually re-wrote "The Bath" which
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Nov 12, 2009
sleeps9hours
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Depressing short stories about working-class Americans. He’s a decent writer, but spare, and the subject matter is everyday tragedy. Abrupt endings. Seen as a “realist”, but he lives in a banal and cynical kind of reality. ALL of his characters are awful people with huge flaws and petty prejudices. Recommended by a writer friend, maybe more enjoyable if all you want to do is analyze the writing.
From "Feathers"—about a family with an ugly baby and a peacock for a pet.
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From "Feathers"—about a family with an ugly baby and a peacock for a pet.
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Oct 16, 2009
David
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In the title story, the narrator of this typically short, sparely written tale is expecting an old, blind friend of his wife’s to come to visit them for a few days. She hasn’t seen him in ten years, since she worked for him one summer, and she is very excited about it. The friend has recently lost his wife to cancer. His dead wife had been her replacement the following summer, nine years ago, and the job of both women had been to read and talk to him. He’d obviously made a deep impression, a
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