Seeing Through Touch

Cathedral

This has been one of the most entertaining short stories I’ve ever read. In the beginning I thought that this would be plain Carver story just talking about a blind man. I soon realized that this one would differ from the others.

The characters in the story were very interesting. The wife for example was married to an officer and once tried to commit suicide. “She went in and swallowed all the pills and capsules in the medicine chest and washed them down with a bottle of gin.” (Pg. 211) As for the blind guy, he married a black woman, but then she died from cancer. Like the narrator, I wondered how it would be like to marry a blind person, and found myself agreeing with what he said. “Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one.” (Pg. 213) I would say that facial expressions and body language overall can say more than talking. Finally, the narrator doesn’t explain his past, but we get a good idea of his personality. “’ Maybe I could take him bowling…’” (Pg. 212) I thought this remark was very funny although kind of harsh. Other than this, he’s a pothead. “Then I asked him if he wanted to smoke some dope with me. I said I’d just rolled a number. I hadn’t, but I planned to do so in two shakes.” (Pg. 219), “Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I could before I fell asleep.” (Pg. 222) I thought that it would be very irresponsible to give a blind guy some weed. What if he freaks out? He might hurt himself pretty badly!

As read the story I reflected upon how it would be to be blind. Everything would be very strange since you never know where you are (exactly) or not knowing how beautiful a sunset is. Furthermore, I wondered whether it would be better to be born blind or to lose your vision halfway through life. In one hand, you wouldn’t know what seeing is like and therefore not miss it. On the other hand, if you lose your sight you would miss seeing, but you would know what colors are like and be able to treasure those vision filled memories. I finally found myself praying and hoping I never lose my sight, ever.

Desperate Apartmentcomplexwives

The Birdle

I would say that this story incarnates what would be the apartment complex version of Desperate Housewives. The whole story is about a hairstylist that watches her neighbors and goes to their houses. I thought the whole thing was boring, although I can point out some of the things I found a little bit interesting (for the sake of writing a good blog).

Initially, I thought that the main character is a very social person and enjoys company. “We went, but we didn’t care for the company.” (Pg. 195) This disproves my assumption. The hairstylist and her husband go to a party and just sit and sulk in the corner.

Regarding the tone of the story I would say that the narrator is completely disinterested in what she is saying. She just tells the story as a list of occurrences. She did this… He did that… The narrator doesn’t include any reflection whatsoever.

Finally, I managed to infer that the people living here had some money of their own. “This particular racehorse, he bought it…” (Pg. 199) Race horses are very expensive; some of them can range from six hundred thousand to a million dollars.

As for the two stories I haven’t read, I hope they’re better than The Birdle.

Fever Made Me Sick

Fever

Just when I was beginning to appreciate Carver, I read this story and my appreciation went down the drain. I didn’t get the point of the apparent negativity that the main character had. His wife had left him months ago and it was time for him to move on. “’I never want to see your face again. I’ll never forgive you for this, you crazy bitch.’ Then, a minute later, ‘Come back, sweetheart, please. I love you and I need you. ‘” (Pg. 162) This was the most entertaining part of the story, the rest was completely boring. The fact that his wife had some kind of psychic powers or that the baby sitter was a good person made the whole story a blur of boring material. I thought it was ridiculous how nothing changes. The tone of the narrator is indifferent making the story much less appealing. It was like if Meursault (from The Stranger) was narrating the story.

I thought I was making progress with this kind of writing, but having read FEVER made me a little sick.

An Acquired Taste

A Small, Good Thing

I think that if I were to sum up this story into one word I would say it would be suspense. The story starts out with an ordinary mom ordering a cake for her son’s birthday. My first impression was that this would be another boring story like Feathers. I soon found out I was wrong. The story quickly escalates into a very tense mood when the child is hit by a car. I was constantly wondering whether the child would perish or wake up. To be honest, I thought the kid would wake up. “He’s out of any real danger, I’d say that for certain…” (Pg. 66) I think Carver used the dressed up doctor as figure of truth so he could mislead the reader into thinking the child is going to survive. In my case, I would say that he succeeded.

“… as if suddenly remembering and feeling guilty.” (Pg. 69) I thought it was very weird that Scotty’s parents felt guilty about leaving their son in the hospital. I think that to feel guilty you have to do something bad previously. Neither Howard nor Ann did something wrong, why were they feeling so guilty? As the story went on, I noticed that Ann would act weird because of her guilt. In page 74, she explains her son’s situation to a family of strangers instead of just asking for the location of the elevator. Why was this necessary?

During the scene of the black family I noticed that Carver gives us foreshadowing. “…these people who were in the same kind of waiting she was in.” Then, in page 78, the nurses tell Ann that the black kid had died. At this time we still didn’t know what was going to happen with Scotty, but these clues gave me a little bit of information to work with.

Yet again, Carver uses repetition to give a scene a certain mood. In page 75, almost every sentence begins with the word “She”. I concluded that Carver wanted to stress that she was completely alone when she arrived to her house.

Towards the end, I thought the story changed course completely. First there was this tense and suspenseful mood, but the couple goes to the baker, the mood changes into this mushy heartbroken scene that ruins the whole story.

Even though I didn’t appreciate the end, I enjoyed the story as a whole. Carver’s writing has grown on me.

Vitamins Won't Get You In A Good Mood

Vitamins

This has been the most interesting of the short stories I’ve read up to now. It includes very attractive subjects such as adultery, alcoholism, drug abuse, and loose morals. “It was a nothing job… (He) went drinking with the nurses.” (Pg. 91) From these fragments I was able to infer that the main character is some kind of a doctor or a nurse. Having this kind of job would require being a responsible person and not going out drinking as soon he got off work. Regarding alcoholism, I observed that there are various scenes where the main character gets off work and stops at the bar to have a drink before getting home. “I fixed us another one.” (Pg. 97) This is the way the narrator would say that he fixed himself a drink. This phrase also appears several times in the story.

Something I found very interesting was how the most important scene or the climax of the story wasn’t the one that caught my attention. While the part where they’re (Donna and the protagonist) in the bar was very tense and action filled, I think Donna’s epiphany was a lot more important. A drunken veteran makes her realize that she should become a prostitute. “’It’s true,’ she said. ‘I could have used the money’” (Pg. 108) Meanwhile the main character doesn’t care about this at all.

Finally, we observe drug abuse when the main character gets to house and swallows a whole bunch of pills. “I knocked some stuff out of the medicine chest.” (Pg. 109) This quotation may also mean that he just knocked some bottles of pills to the floor. Still, I think this could be a way of saying that he was looking for pills to get hopped up on.

If I were to relate this story to my life, I think the only aspect ii would find would be the selling of the vitamins part. My mother has sold Herbalife for nine years now. That would be it, the rest of the story is pretty hardcore and I can’t manage to find any other relation.

As for some of the literary devices we see in this story, we see a great amount repetition. For example, in page 92, the word “girls” appears about twenty times. Maybe the narrator wanted to exaggerate how the work his wife was doing was only for the opposite sex.

A Higher Degree Of Understanding

The Compartment

Having read my sixth Raymond Carver short story, I finally begin to realize that these stories are really interesting. It’s either that or The Compartment is the best story in the whole compilation.

The story starts out with a man traveling through France to go meet his kid in college. I observed that this was a slight change since this first scene doesn’t seem as interesting as the other beginning parts of the other short stories. Immediately after this, Carver describes a scene where Myers (the protagonist) beats up his son after a fight he has with his wife. “He slammed him into the wall and threatened to kill him. He meant it. ‘I gave you life… and I can take it back!’” (Pg. 48) Relating this scene with reality, I would say that Myers family should appear on a Jerry Springer show. I can’t imagine a father threatening his son like this and meaning it. After a few pages, we learn that the boy contacted his father through a letter. “But inexplicably, the boy had closed the letter with the word Love, and Myers had pondered this for a long while.” (Pg. 51) As I father I would have valued this letter in enormous amounts. Still, he was the one that should have taken the first step towards reconciliation. Even though Myers took a trip and was willing to see his son after all those years, I felt that he lacked motivation. He acted as if he was obligated to take this trip instead of being driven by the love for his son. He didn’t even announce it. “…there was really no one, besides his secretary and a few business associates, that he felt it was necessary to tell he was going away.” (Pg. 51)

As for his trip, we see Myers as the typical lazy tourist. He goes to cities of great historical value and just lies in his hotel room watching TV. Eventually, he took a train ride to the town where his son was. During his train ride, someone stole a watch he was going to give his son as a gift. “What was missing was the gift he’d bought the boy – an expensive Japanese wrist watch purchased at a shop in Rome.” (Pg. 52) From then on, Myers hated everything in his trip. “He felt dazed with anger… he looked out the window at this hateful place.” (Pg. 54)In the end Myers decides not to meet his son and keep on going. This made me arrive to a fairly logical conclusion. Myers is a "cheapo". He let his frustration for having lost the watch take the best of him and forces him to decide not to see his son.

With Carver, I’ve tried to learn how to interpret his writing in a positive and constructive manner. So far, it has been hard, but I think I’m getting there. Initially, I thought Carver was like those modern artists that scribble a weird shape on a canvas and call it art. Now, I understand the deeper meaning he wants to express in his stories.