Student Zone

The story that I chose to write about was "After the Denim." It tells the story of Edith and James Packer, husband and wife. They seem to live in a seniors community near the coast. They have a routine of going to bingo night. As they pull up to the community center someone had parked in their parking spot. Then once they got inside there was a couple sitting in their usual spot. They had never seen this couple before. They were young and both wore denim, the girl wore lots of jewelry and the boy had a gold hoop earing. This seemed to really bother James. James then noticed that the young man was cheating by playing numbers on cards he hadnt bought. James couldnt concentrate on anything else. During a break he finally went up to the young man and said "I see what you're doing," but the young man kept cheating the whole night. Finally the blackout game was the last game played, it is the game you can win the jackpot on. Sure enough the young women won bingo, which made James very bitter. He said "They'll use it to buy drugs." They left for the night. When they got home they talked a little more about how Edith was "spotting", she had mentioned it at the bingo hall and at home decided she needed to see the doctor. Edith went to sleep for the night and James stayed up knitting.

This story was nice because James and Edith are so considerate of one another. When I started reading all these short stories I was starting to think that they were all about how love can go wrong. There Gazebo and Tell the Women We're going both showed husbands cheating on their wives. The rest of the other stories mostly showed unhappy times in relationships. This story was different. When I said they were considerate of each other, here are a couple of examples. Edith wears the headphones to listen to her classical music because James doesnt like it when hes working. James always helps Edith with her coat and chair. James was also very worried about Edith having to see the doctor, he was thinking of different ways he can make it better for her. All around the couple is always thinking about the other one.

After the Denim also shows how caught up in tradition people get. James was so used to things being one way at the Bingo hall. He put his money down for Alice to come pick up, he got oatmeal raisan cookies for them at the break. When the van was parked in his spot, and the couple wearing denim cheated this threw Jamess whole night off.

Another small thing I noticed was that the young girl pinched her guys arm when he missed a number on his card. Later in the text Edith did the same thing to James. This kind of shows that even though James thinks him and the young couple are totally different, they are the same in some ways.

After the Denim.

Raymond Carver uses a very interesting writing technique in all of his stories in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. He tells very simple stories about falling in and out of love but one thing that can be noted is that though these stories are simple, the characters in them are not. Each character is extremely human and thus, complex.

"After the Denim," I appreciated especially because of how real and human this story felt to me.

To summarize "After the Denim" in one sentence I would say that it's a story of old versus youth, tradition verses revolution, all started when a possibly obsessive compulsive man finds his usual routine of going to bingo with his wife ruined when a younger, Bohemian type couple steals their parking spot, and then their Bingo table, thus spoiling the entire night of routine.

The title of the story roots from the following passage, when the old man is thinking bitterly toward the young couple: "If only they had to sit in the waiting room! He'd tell them what to expect...He'd tell them whats waiting for you after the denim and the earrings, after touching each other and cheating at games.

Clearly, there are two obvious themes occurring in this phrase alone. 1) Denim and Earrings, as well as a pony tail on a boy, lots of jewelry, a run down van sybmolize, according to the old man, youth and revolution and social upheaval, (and also mean that they are doing illegal things, such as when they win Bingo the man bitterly says they will spend the money "on drugs") and 2) the struggle old generation vesus new generation.

It is also evident from this passage that with the words "waiting room" there is some reference to ailments that come with old age, and his wife apprently is sick. (As shown later on in the story when she returns from the bathroom and annoucings is spotting "again.")

It seems, as Brandon pointed out in class, that the old man is a bit obsessive compulsive. He has a pattern of making sure doors are locked, lights off; he is clearly completely upset and thrown off when he finds his parking spot and bingo table taken by the young couple. Also, in a certain passage where the man is looking in the refidgerator the way Carver words this act leads the reader to believe that the man does suffer from some sort of OCD, describing the food inside as "neat, protected exhibits."

Also, the man becomes so obsessed with the young couple and their cheating by using an extra, non paid for card (perhaps because they represent who he used to be or they represent the social upheaval of society in the late 1960s, early 1970s)that he looses track of his own card, despite his wife consistently telling him to mind his own card and leave the couple alone. The man has become so obsessed with the couple that he feels the need to go up and confront the boy in denim and seems to illogically blame the "worst bingo night in history" and even his wife's health problems on the young couple, who are engrossed only in each other.

He is noted as thinking, :"Why not them instead of Edith?"

What the man fails to do, is enjoy the ripeness of old age and the optimistic attitude that his wife permeate throughout the story.

Summary of “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off”:
This story is told from the perspective of a man, looking back on his childhood and recalling one particular year in which his father’s “friend”, Dummy, had died. Dummy worked at the Cascade Lumber Company in Yakima, Washington, (which is around where many of Raymond Carver’s stories are set) along with his “friend” Del Fraser, the narrator’s father, and seemed to be the butt of many a joke around the lumber yard. It didn’t help that Dummy was deaf (or at least slightly deaf, or pretended to be) and that his young wife was seen around town with “Mexicans” all the time. So, Dummy didn’t really have much to call his own until he bought several barrels of Black Bass to stock his pond with. As Carver puts it, “The fish changed Dummy’s whole personality.” In an effort to keep people from stealing more from him than they already have, after stocking the pond, Dummy put a big electric fence around it. During this time, Dummy’s friendship with Del had waned. It seemed that Dummy had gotten fed up with the taunting he used to seem perfectly fine with. Even so, Del managed to convince Dummy to let him go fishing in his pond with his son, the narrator. As excited as they were, it seemed even crueler that Dummy had let them fish, yet set restrictions on they’re catch (all without actually saying anything). On his first cast, the son reeled in a big bass, “six or seven pounds maybe,” but Dummy wouldn’t let the boy keep the fish, which seemed to end any friendship Dummy had with Del after that. That winter it rained more than usual and Dummy’s pond overflowed into a nearby river. This frustration, along with years of feeling inadequate, finally made Dummy “snap,” so he butchered his wife with a hammer and drowned himself shortly afterward.

Commentary:
This particular story seems to have less to do with love (overtly) than most stories in the collection, and more to do with blame. However, the two can’t really be separated among these stories, as blame seems to be a central theme, tying into love in many ways. It also includes a common theme among these stories, which is betrayal. In this story, Dummy’s fish become the sole bone of contention among two male friends, which seems to override the trust they once had for each other. Dummy finds fault in how he’s handled life up to that point (warranted or unwarranted), so he decides to make a change, starting with the fish. On his trip back home with the fish in the bed of his pickup, Dummy is extremely careful not to screw anything up. The text, “Dummy drove very carefully all the way through town, and just as carefully all the way to his house,” gives good evidence of this, but it’s the text just after that that jumps out me. “He went right through his yard without stopping.” It’s as if Dummy was cleaving all that he found sacred in his house, and creating a new sacred ground for himself.

The other layer to this story has to do with blame as well, but it’s the son’s blame for his father’s death. As his father blames Dummy’s death on three things, the son blames his father’s death on three separate things. He says, “The first thing (that killed my father) was Pearl Harbor,” meaning that ultimately it was fighting in World War II that killed his father. However, he also blames Dummy’s death and the fact that his father had to move back in with his father as reasons for his death. Meaning, 1) that even though his physical death came at the hands of gun wound or bomb (or something), Del changed so much as a result of Dummy’s death that his son didn’t recognize him anymore, and 2) that his marriage had gone bad (as we also see in the rest of Carver’s collection).

Question: Does anyone feel that because his father had tried to find blame for Dummy’s death, which in turn caused his personality to change, that the son’s personality changed as a result of his blame? Is Carver trying to convey a cyclic pattern here, or an inherited pattern of behavior in which it is hard to break the habit (or the cycle)? And, how does this relate to love and especially betrayal?

Popular Mechanics starts the reader off into this dreary setting due weather and the ice sloshes. If feels like the beginning of spring because the snow is slowly melting away. It insinuates a sense of renewal because the springtime is arriving. We enter the world with our two main characters. It’s a married couple that is on the verge of separating. The husband is leaving because his wife is asking him to leave. He is packing up his clothes. They are going through an irreconcilable agreement over the baby’s picture. They are arguing over the custody of their baby. They tussle and wrestle over the baby. Literally they are grabbing the baby and yanking it back and forth. Both of these two are determined to have control and seize the only possession that had these two want. The desire to have that final say in an argument is strong with these two.
It’s hard to go through or experience a divorce. There is a lot of spite, anger, resentment and other emotions involved. Carver does not ‘sugar coat’ the grim reality of such repercussions and outcome of this situation. This is one of many of the inane arguments that husbands and wives go through in a divorce: who gets custody of the child? Since they will be leaving each other, one of these two has to be the dominant figure and control the situation. Even though they are fighting for control, the resolution is that neither of them won and that the resolution fell into neither hand. Do you think that either parent grabbed the baby or it fell out of both of their grasps? What does the example teach us about conflicts in relationships and control?

What we talk about when we talk about love.

So Much Water So Close to Home is told from the perspective of a woman whos husband has just returned from a fishing trip. A young girl's dead body was found near the camp. The authorities are informed. After he returns from the wilderness the girl's death is publicized. Reporters begin to hound the man for details concerning the girl. The woman decides to attend the girl's funeral. On the way to the funeral the woman is followed by a pickup truck. She stops on the side of the road. The driver of the pickup truck attempts to help her. He thinks her car has broken down. He tries to get her to come out of the car but she won't. She drives off and goes to the funeral. She learns the girl's murderer has been found. When she gets home she has sex with her husband while her son plays in the backyard.

All these stories are pretty deadpan but the images Carver uses are heartfelt. He is a master of saying very little while getting a large point across. He knows when to introduce information and when to leave the page blank. What We Talk About.. is filled with bleak images that are real because they feel so vulnerable. They're vulnerable scenes because so much of what Carver writes is left open to interpretation. His writing is sparse and the scenes he sets up are very ordinary. Much of the scene is set by the reader's assumptions. He forces a subtle abstraction from the reader when he introduces things. Then he will introduce something and show only the end result leaving the action up to the reader's preconceived image. "In bed he put his hands on me again and then waited as if thinking of something else. I turned and opened my legs. Afterwards, I think he stayed awake."
Within the larger context of the book So Much Water So Far Away is very similar to the feel of other stories. Carver plays the waiting game and lets the characters work out their own issues. The things that they say are telling but also very ordinary. His characters are slightly detached, they deal with the smaller problems as well as the big problems. Hemingway wrote this way.

The quote that titles this book is meant to show the importance of the impulse. The man feels that if he died or his lover died the impulse to love would still be within him no matter how terrible the loss. He would take another lover some time later because the need would still be there. The impulse is highlighted throughout the stories as a necessary human action. The stories shift focus from love, to money, to murder, to pleasure, hatred, sadness. Alcohol is important in many of the stories.
In context, from one to all the others, the stories carry on similar paths in similar situations. Carver just looks at each thing through a different lense.

Questions: Do you think that Carver could achieve the same barren effect that the reader is left with in these stories with a less spartan writng style?

Raymond Carver’s short story, I Could See the Smallest Thing was my favorite. The story begins with a woman who is awoken by the sound of an open gate banging against the fence. Her husband makes it hard for her to fall asleep so she moves to the kitchen for a cigarette and then decides to go outside and close the gate. She runs into the neighbor, Sam Lawton, and moves to his side of the fence for a little chat. We learn that he is former friend. His life changes after his wife dies and he remarries suddenly. One day he builds fence between the yards after an argument the men have while drinking one evening. The make small talk and finally as the woman is about to go back inside, the man asks her to tell her husband that he says hello. She agrees and goes back into the house and realizes that she never closed the gate. She decides against going back out, and returns to bed.
Carver does a great job in his literature by leaving much of the text out. This allows the reader to insert the remainder for their interpretation. This is shown in the short sentence structure and the brief conversations characters have. He also uses a lot of symbolism in this story. One example is the situation with the “gate”. The woman goes out to close it but at the same time this adventure allows a little piece of Sam to get into their lives, and a little piece of her to get out. She says, “ It felt funny to get out in my nightgown and robe. I thought to myself that I should try to remember this, walking around like this”, expressing to the reader the sense of this trip being forbidden. I also think that the rosebush is and example of the friendship that the men once had. The slugs that are eating away at it are a symbol of the fight that is tearing the men apart. Sam Lawton found these “small things” by using the flashlight to see them. The woman says that, “Everything lay in moonlight, and I could see the smallest things”. For her the moonlight was enough light to see that the small things are what are obvious (like the two fences separating the men), but he needed the help of the flashlight to find the problem. Before she goes to bed the man asks her to, “Tell Cliff I said hello”. This is his way of letting her know he is ready to try and rebuild the friendship (typical male,looking for the easy way out).

First of all, can I tell you I love this book? I don’t think that there is any other title in the world that would do it justice. Most of the characters in this book seem to come from average working class families. Carver also writes alcohol and cigarettes into many of the stories. This unfortunately can help many people relate. He writes of the drinking in such a casual tone that you realize how much it happens in relationships and we do not even notice the impact it has. One example of this is when Sam says, “I quit you know, had to. For a while I didn’t know up from down”. Here one may think that he is talking about drinking and has come to realize this was a major factor in their argument. Another example is from Why Don’t You Dance. When the “kids” first meet the man he is returning from the store with whiskey after he had already been drinking earlier. Although you are never told while his family is gone, it is alluded to that the man’s drinking may have been one of the main causes.

I also appreciate that Carver not only talks about relationships between married couples, but also friends and family. In Tell the Women We Are Going, we learn of the love that two best friends can have for each, and the effects that life can have on people as we grow and change. I also have come to appreciate not only the choice of words the author uses, but also the placement. At the end of Sacks, you turn the page not realizing that there is no more text. The last word hangs at the very bottom of the page causing the reader to want more when you realize you already read all that you needed. Although there are many short stories I the book they are all related in some way. The main thing they have in common is they all talk about the things we DON’T think or talk about when we talk about love. These are the things we learn only through the different relationships in which we experience “love”.