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Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?: Stories
With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.
Paperback, 251 pages
Published
June 9th 1992
by Vintage
(first published 1976)
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Haruki Murakami translated this book (and many of the works of Scott Fitzgerald) into Japanese... and with good reason. Raymond Carver is an excellent distiller of the middle-class suburban American experience, and this book contains 22 short stories which begin without a beginning, and end without ending, holding the readers attention through subtle underlying tensions between characters. They fit wonderfully into Japanese expectations of contemporary storytelling.
The short stories cap...more
The short stories cap...more
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This is one of those blow your hair back, curl your toes books. It’s like drinking juice concentrate. All the stories are brief and "to the point". Yes they are minimalist, but more to the point, Carver captures the human experience at a certain important moment in time. Further character study, plot explanation, or environment description are a waste and would only water down the tale on the page. Carver does away with all this fodder as well as any author I have ever read.
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such a masterpiece collection of the short story form. Gritty, isolated, real and honest. Quoting the NY Times Book Review, "they are especially artful in their suggestion of repressed violence."
i do not understand why i am never sick of raymond carver. somehow, i just plow through every story, even though most of the time it's clear it's going to end up like most carver stories do - with some bloody thread hanging there untied, hinting at something really awful.
but out of all of his short story collections (minus, you know, the big one of all the stories), this one is my favorite, i think. maybe it's because it opens with a fat man from the circus in a diner. that's very pos...more
but out of all of his short story collections (minus, you know, the big one of all the stories), this one is my favorite, i think. maybe it's because it opens with a fat man from the circus in a diner. that's very pos...more
I must first admit that, historically, I have a lot of difficulty appreciating short stories. I would love to love them, seeing as I am trying to write them myself. But practically every venture I have made into reading short story collections has left me feeling immensely frustrated and dumb. Reading this collection started out in a similar fashion, but by the time I got to the third or fourth story, something started to click. Carver turned out to be incredibly understandable!
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I just finished Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver. I'm dovetailed reading Carver with reading the biography the came out last year, Raymond Carver: A Writer's Lifeby Carol Sklenicka.
I must say, I really am finding Carver to be a kindred spirit. I remember those desperate days of my youth when I was a student, lived on a shoestring, and moved house frequently. These early stories mostly concern married couples in that condition, or people transgressing societal bounda...more
I must say, I really am finding Carver to be a kindred spirit. I remember those desperate days of my youth when I was a student, lived on a shoestring, and moved house frequently. These early stories mostly concern married couples in that condition, or people transgressing societal bounda...more
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? sets the stage for a career of solid, highly-crafted writing based around the life of everyday people and their everyday lives.
If anything, the characters Raymond Carver creates in 1976’s Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (McGraw-Hill, ISBN: 0070101930) are painfully real, if nothing else. The types of people who say things like, “My life is going to change. I feel it” are usually trying to figure things out, working through abstract ideas about “hap...more
If anything, the characters Raymond Carver creates in 1976’s Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (McGraw-Hill, ISBN: 0070101930) are painfully real, if nothing else. The types of people who say things like, “My life is going to change. I feel it” are usually trying to figure things out, working through abstract ideas about “hap...more
Carver’s book is a set of short stories, and frankly, I’m not the biggest fan of the short story. I have always found them to build to a climax, at which point the story abruptly finishes or I’m in the situation where the story evokes such a curiosity that I feel frustrated because there is no way I will ever find out what happens next. The other with a short story is that the immersion you have within a story is so quickly cut off as soon as you finish it. It’s the entire set-up that frustrates...more
In this collection, Carver alternates between the over-rated, over-analyzed tedium he's best known for and some of the most perfect explorations of the emotional lives of his ordinary American characters. Unfortunately, I think he's too celebrated for the first to ever be recognized for the second.
Notes:
Carver renders the mundane as it appears, and all of his characters are instantly recognizable to anyone who has lived a suburban life in the last fifty years. His stori...more
Notes:
Carver renders the mundane as it appears, and all of his characters are instantly recognizable to anyone who has lived a suburban life in the last fifty years. His stori...more
I discovered Raymond Carver years ago when I read "A Small, Good Thing" in an anthology and it blew my hair back. It's still one of my favorite short stories ever. I found this collection, Carver's first, a little uneven though. He already has his signature style but some of the stories felt more like someone trying to write a story in the style of Raymond Carver complete with the requisite drinking and smoking, circling ennui and that downbeat, apropos of nothing ending line. When the...more
There is a famous remark about Zen Buddhism that characterizes it as "only everyday life with nothing to do," and one could attach a similar label to this collection of quiet, tense stories by Carver.
Most are set in the northern California and Pacific Northwest of the author's own life, and it's not hard to picture the terse exchanges and abrupt gestures of the couples he writes about taking place amid the low light and gray skies of Oregon or Washington. In spare language, m...more
Most are set in the northern California and Pacific Northwest of the author's own life, and it's not hard to picture the terse exchanges and abrupt gestures of the couples he writes about taking place amid the low light and gray skies of Oregon or Washington. In spare language, m...more
In these early stories, we get to see Raymond Carver before he became Raymond Carver. He's clearly still hammering out his style. He can capture American life extremely well at this stage, but he hasn't yet learned how to craft compelling narratives yet. The dialogue is perfect, but the details are missing. All of that said, there are some brilliant stories in this collection-- most notably the title story, and "Jerry and Molly and Sam," which seem to be the two stories that point ...more
From "Sixty Acres":
"Nina was at the kitchen table, the little box with her sewing things beside her on another chair. She held a piece of denim in her hand. Two or three of his shirts were on the table, along with a pair of scissors. He pumped a cup of water and picked up from a shelf over the sink some of the colored rocks the kids were always bringing home. There was a dry pine cone there too and a few big papery maple leaves from the summer. He glanced in the pantry. But...more
"Nina was at the kitchen table, the little box with her sewing things beside her on another chair. She held a piece of denim in her hand. Two or three of his shirts were on the table, along with a pair of scissors. He pumped a cup of water and picked up from a shelf over the sink some of the colored rocks the kids were always bringing home. There was a dry pine cone there too and a few big papery maple leaves from the summer. He glanced in the pantry. But...more
Su Temperamente: Nove mesi fa, in riferimento a Cattedrale di Raymond Carver, scrivevo:
Non è lui a dirti cosa quel racconto volesse trasmettere. No, lui ti dice: arrivaci tu, resta un giorno o due in queste vite di altri. E così succede che queste vite durino nella memoria, anche a distanza di un anno.
Mi sono autocitata non certo per vanagloria, ma perché ieri, al termine della lettura del racconto Vuoi star zitta, per favore?, ho avuto una reazione che avevo rimosso. Il racc...more
Non è lui a dirti cosa quel racconto volesse trasmettere. No, lui ti dice: arrivaci tu, resta un giorno o due in queste vite di altri. E così succede che queste vite durino nella memoria, anche a distanza di un anno.
Mi sono autocitata non certo per vanagloria, ma perché ieri, al termine della lettura del racconto Vuoi star zitta, per favore?, ho avuto una reazione che avevo rimosso. Il racc...more
Some action, not much. Some info, not much. Carver doesn't tell us everything about his characters, neither puts them in intrincated plots that would reveal their dirty secrets. Little does Carver tells us, he lets us watch everyday scenes and conversations - these might end up in big revelations, epiphanies. However, his short stories are indeed short and quite a few end as if the most important thing is about to happen, but you won't read it. The lack of closure kinda transfers the stories to ...more
I really like Raymond Carver. I remember that the first story that I ever read by him was "Popular Mechanics" and I instantly fell in love with both the story and the beautiful way that he expressed such dark material. Carver is a master at capturing the human experience. He invokes in us feelings of sacrifice, love, understanding, and guilt. That is what makes him one of the greatest short story writers of our times. This book was just as good as all the other compilations that I have...more
He is really really great. I think I should have put down the book after each story to enjoy the next story even more.
Reading Carver is a kind of literary voyeurism, a feeling similar to walking down the street at night and peering into the lit windows of family homes; only you don't just see into their living rooms, you see into their heads and hearts, their innermost lives as well. You know what you're going to get from a Raymond Carver book, but while all his stories are essentially of a certain type, each one seems entirely fresh and new, just because of the slightest change in character and setting. They a...more
Chi ha letto Carver, almeno una volta, deve aver concluso il racconto con l'espressione di uno a cui è squillato il telefono dieci secondi prima dell'orgasmo. Il telefono sul comodino, a dieci centimetri dall'orecchio.
L'ho sempre catalogato nella categoria: "Tutti possono fare gli scrittori se hanno un minimo di talento e un buon editore".
Non so se ho cambiato idea. Alcuni racconti sono... efficaci? Penetranti? Boh.
Però 3 stelline perchè alla fine, davvero, ti rimane...more
L'ho sempre catalogato nella categoria: "Tutti possono fare gli scrittori se hanno un minimo di talento e un buon editore".
Non so se ho cambiato idea. Alcuni racconti sono... efficaci? Penetranti? Boh.
Però 3 stelline perchè alla fine, davvero, ti rimane...more
Un recueil de nouvelles sur le quotidien banal de gens ordinaires - l’évocation de leurs problèmes de couple, d’argent, d’alcool, - quotidien décrit de façon quasi documentaire, sans interprétations ni jugements de valeur. De ces instantanés sourd cependant une menace imprécise, point un vague désespoir… Carver n’a pas son pareil pour installer le lecteur dans l’intimité de ses personnages, ni pour suggérer le malaise qui gagne ceux-ci, les étreint, les malmène. De leur platitude, de leur médioc...more
After reading this, my first Raymond Carver collection, I came away with the notion that this man, if not the undisputed master, is one of the most talented authors to ever work inside the medium of the short story. Though it features shades of former gurus such as Ernest Hemingway (terse, economical language and profound realizations), James Joyce (character epiphanies and shades of escapism) and Anton Chekov (human relations, familial tensions), Carver's fiercely unique literary voice shines ...more
Se dio scrivesse, sempre che un dio esista, scriverebbe senza aggettivi e senza avverbi. Nei suoi racconti non ci sarebbe il bene e il male, niente buoni e cattivi, nessun personaggio cui affezionarsi. L'assoluta sospensione del giudizio. Se dio esistesse, secondo me, scriverebbe proprio come Carver.
E' vero che si prova un senso di disagio, nel leggere questi racconti. Ci sembra che tutti, indistintamente, attori protagonisti e comparse, siano sgradevoli. Lo scrittore lascia il lettore da solo...more
E' vero che si prova un senso di disagio, nel leggere questi racconti. Ci sembra che tutti, indistintamente, attori protagonisti e comparse, siano sgradevoli. Lo scrittore lascia il lettore da solo...more
I think I heard about Ray Carver in relation to Richard Russo- or Richard Yates- or both. Either way- he came to my attention as a master of the short story. Judging from this collection he is. He sketches people and their emotional conditions so you feel and understand their plight like it was your own. Before I got into Richard Yates- I was forewarned that his material was bleak- that it looked at the seemier side of life where- almost no one lives happier ever after. While that may be tr...more
Most start with the narrator proclaiming that he is between jobs. Sometimes she will puff on a cigaret (spelled just so) and plot against a promiscuous woman on her street. Sometimes he will tell us that everything is alright between himself and his wife, except for that one tiny mistake two years ago that he can't seem to put behind him.
Raymond Carver's characters are always recognizably Carver's, even after so many of his readers have gone on to write their own Carver-influenced ...more
Raymond Carver's characters are always recognizably Carver's, even after so many of his readers have gone on to write their own Carver-influenced ...more
I became interested in reading Carver after stumbling upon his short story in the New Yorker a while ago. This was the longer version of an already published story, which -apparently- had been tightly edited by his long time editor. Carver, as it turned out, is well known for his terse but deeply-contoured short stories.
I did not know about Carver before then, which was a shame noting that I fell in love with one of Tess Galagher's poems that might have the presence of Carver in it (...more
I did not know about Carver before then, which was a shame noting that I fell in love with one of Tess Galagher's poems that might have the presence of Carver in it (...more
This collection — Carver's first — already contains some of the classic stories: "Fat," "Neighbors," "They're Not Your Husband," "The Father," "Nobody Said Anything," and a few others. But they front-load the volume, and get lost in it. The balance of the collection is comprised of journeyman pieces, most of which Carver excluded from "Where I'm Calling From." They're still worth a read.
Because discussion of Carver centers o...more
Because discussion of Carver centers o...more
I'm no expert on the contemporary short story but it's easy to see why Carver is so often imitated. I don't understand why I like these stories, but I do.
Some observations/quotes:
"her breath produced itself on the glass"
"He tried to think how much he loved her or if he loved her"
Like M. John Harrison, Carver sometimes uses an apparently redundant double dialogue marker to convey a pause. Like:
"Harry, we have to love each...more
Some observations/quotes:
"her breath produced itself on the glass"
"He tried to think how much he loved her or if he loved her"
Like M. John Harrison, Carver sometimes uses an apparently redundant double dialogue marker to convey a pause. Like:
"Harry, we have to love each...more
At first, I didn't think much of Carver. However, the more I read the more powerful his writing became. By the end of this collection I looked forward to a story or two each night. Carver seems to present a commonplace slice of life that resonates well beyond it's subject matter. You feel like you are in the skin of each story's protagonist - if only for a little while - and transported to a different time and place. The jury is still out on the "greatness" of Carver, but I look f...more
If every story in this collection had the weight and power and compact eloquence of "Nobody Said Anything" or "Jerry and Molly and Sam," it would have been an easy five stars. It would have been an easy six stars.
Carver's economical style gives such life and depth of feeling (mostly sadness) to these stories, yet is sort of unfinished or monotonous in many of the others. I usually prefer more verbosity in my reading, but I would not hesitate to pick up another...more
Carver's economical style gives such life and depth of feeling (mostly sadness) to these stories, yet is sort of unfinished or monotonous in many of the others. I usually prefer more verbosity in my reading, but I would not hesitate to pick up another...more
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Carver was born into a poverty-stricken family at the tail-end of the Depression. The son of a violent alcoholic, he married at 19, started a series of menial jobs and his own career of 'full-time drinking as a serious pursuit'. A career that would eventually kill him. Constantly struggling to support his wife and family Carver enrolled in a writing programme under author John Gardner in 1958 and ...more
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