Review on What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

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

Raymond Carver has been a mojo to me. For one thing I like his short stories for their unsophisticated nature, but also for the urge to gain the insight of observation. From what I can extract from how his stories were written, I can’t help to picture him in real life, how he was, is that he must be a good company to sit down with. I can see this person with a group of friends being himself. Reserved and slightly aloof. He would listen. And he would watch people talk. All that while, he listened very carefully and people would forget about his existence. This person had to be pictured in that way so it is reasonable to see how much details he could extract from the way people talk and how that give away what is on their mind. His skill is what people remember him for. The heedless way of talking, those silent and brisk behavior that want to hide themselves from your observation. And how his stories end abruptly at a point where he show that how he sees what really matter in the communications. When the hightlights of those slices-of-life are dimming, the curtain falls accurately at the end of the peak.

Those understated depictions bring the characters to life in a way that they are the reflection of the real life. In Carver’s asthetics, people communicate not with words and gestures, but the silence. A meaningful talk is proceeding with the silence, and punctuated with the words and actions serving as spaces between them. In silence, people either study each other or go into their own heart. And they decide the next act. When things go really south or out of control, those moments are louder than the others. But in Carver’s way of thinking, they are also just gaps or a blackout for a while and then life goes on. The heavy wheel in each one’s mind will grind on silently anyway.

If I have to believe that candor is not the only essence to communication (which should also be the initial state of everyone) then I will go with Carver’s way. A way of intricate stillness. While two might not be two completely different traits, it is hard for one to act both.

18.03.2024