Collected Historical Stories (Collected Stories)

Collected Stories

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She also won the Man Booker International prize for her lifetime body of work and has been called a modern-day Chekhov. A pioneering modernist writer, Mansfield was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand before moving to Britain, where she became friends with DH Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. The title story, one of her best-known works, is written in the modernist style, with the deceptively simple setting of a family preparing for a garden party.

Against this backdrop Mansfield brilliantly interweaves meditations on class, life and death, illusion and reality. He is brilliant at evoking social nuance and has an unfailing eye for the tiniest detail that will shine light on the whole. This deliciously fat collection gives the reader the chance to dip in and out of one of the best observers of human behaviour. Moore is notable for her arch tone and her sharp humour.

But what makes her special is the way she can shift so smoothly to gut-wrenching poignancy. She writes about terminal illness, family dynamics and infidelity with equal fluency. Some of the best short stories contain unexpected moments of felicity on which the plot pivots.

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And so it was that, just as I was compiling this list, I received a giant package containing this doorstep of a book. It might be the most comprehensive collection of short stories… ever, featuring an all-star cast including Angela Carter, Charles Dickens, Roald Dahl and more, selected by David Miller, a literary agent and author. The originals are better. I say that even though I've always been a big fan of minimalism. It's hard to say how successful Carver would have been without Lish. It was Lish who gave him his first national exposure in Esquire and championed him with agents and editors.

And Carver was forever grateful to him for changing his life. Because of Lish, who moved from Esquire to Knopf, Carver became known as "the foremost practitioner of minimalist fiction," as the new dust jacket indicates. But the original stories were not only much longer, they were far richer and, for me, more deeply felt.

Lish was clearly a talented editor, and I admire many of his changes as did Carver. Still, I seriously doubt that we would know the name Gordon Lish if it weren't for Carver. So both men benefited, I suppose, but it's heart-breaking to read the long letter Carver wrote to Lish — included in the notes to the new volume — begging him not to move ahead with his radically altered version of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. It's hard not to think of Lish as an ass. The contract for that book gave Lish the final say, but that changed for the next collection, Cathedral, and Carver accepted only minor changes.

So, clearly Carver had a boatload of talent all on his own, but he still might have labored in obscurity without the big break Lish gave him. And now we get to see the original versions and Carver is back in the news and selling more books and it all turns out for the best. I love a happy ending. Feb 08, Rodney rated it it was amazing. This guy was a master. I only recently discovered him and I read about five stories from the compilation "Where I'm Calling From" and gave that away then went right out and bought the Collected Stories.

I can't get enough Carver. His stories are often so subtle in how they hit you, but man do they linger long after the story is finished. And most stories end without much resolution. Some folks seem to This guy was a master. Some folks seem to consider these weaknesses or flaws in Carver's writing. Carver writes about real people and real situations. Despite what Hollywood and the media in general likes to have us believe, life doesn't always have grand endings to the people, places and things of our lives.

More times than not, there will be no real resolution or closure to what happens to us. It's all about the ride and Carver and his mysteriously unforgettable characters all make great fellow travelers. Mar 30, Michele rated it it was amazing Shelves: I did not actually read this entire compendium - yet. But, after reading over 60 of his stories I am ready to shelve this book for another time. My one word description of Carver's work is "unique. Many of his stories irritated me as I read the last word because I like many reade I did not actually read this entire compendium - yet.

Many of his stories irritated me as I read the last word because I like many readers felt short-changed at the ending but then, as I found myself ruminating over them later I realized their worth as a short story. This, I suppose, is Carver's genius writing at work. I want to point out that I am a big big fan of unresolved and open-ended short stories, but Carver's story endings are different somehow - his stories just "end" much in the same way that they just "begin" and that is during defined points in a scene of middle class life that are not the beginning or the end of the presumed scene that it is taken from.

The endings in particular seemed very abrupt. This collection is most interesting in that you can read many of his stories in their original form as well as their final edited and published forms. Carver himself was not a fan of the editing that took place.

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More often than not I felt that the longer version was better but interestingly, it mattered to me which order I read them in. If I read long then short, I felt that the short missed the mark; if I read in the opposite direction, I felt there were unnecessary added scenes. That was an interesting take-away for me.

Oct 27, Graziano rated it it was amazing Shelves: My life is going to change. But now and then they felt they alone among their circle had been passed by somehow, leaving Bill to attend to his bookkeeping duties and Arlene occupied with secretarial chores. They talked about it sometimes, mostly in comparison with the lives of their neighbors, Harriet and Jim Stone. It seemed to the Millers that the Stones lived a fuller and brighter life. I could hear water running in the bathroom.

But I thought he might want something. We get hungry this time of night. I put bread and lunchmeat on the table and I opened a can of soup. I got out crackers and peanut butter, cold meat loaf, pickles, olives, potato chips. I put everything on the table. Then I thought of the apple pie. At the checkout counter he added a handful of U-No bars to the order. But any day I expected to hear from up north. I lay on the sofa and listened to the rain. There was no one on the street, nothing. I noticed the way he was driving. It was terribly slow. He was all hunched over the wheel.

We were talking about Nietzsche. The story continues, but we're no longer the main characters. James Salter, Light Years Slow, thick flakes sifted down through the freezing air, sticking on his coat collar, melting cold and wet against his face. He stared at the wordless, distorted things around him. The gutter water rushed over his feet, swirled frothing into a great whirlpool at the drain on the corner and rushed down to the center of the earth.

Then she sat up and tugged her sweater over her head. She patted her hair into place. She took one of the cigarettes from the tray. I held the lighter for her and was momentarily astonished by the sight of her slim, pale fingers and her well-manicured nails. It was as if I were seeing them in a new and somewhat revealing way. We saw red-winged blackbirds on the fences, and pigeons circling around haylofts. There were gardens and such, wildflowers in bloom, and little houses set back from the road.

He took the meat out of the freezer and put the packages on the table. The he took the other things out of the freezer and put them in a different place on the table. He took everything out and then found the paper towels and the dishcloth and started wiping up inside. You have to eat and keep going. She tries to take her hand back. She lets me keep the hand. The crows work their way through the grass in the front yard. I hear the mower howl and then thud as it picks up a clump of grass in the blade and comes to a stop.

In a minute, after several tries, Larry gets it going again. The crows fly off, back to their wire. I look down and see my feet sticking out. I turn onto my side, facing her, and bring my legs up so that my feet are under the blanket. We should make up the bed again. The sky was blue, with a few white clouds in it. Some birds clung to a telephone wire. I wiped my face on my sleeve. He thought for a minute, then opened the notebook, and at the top of a blank white page he wrote the words Emptiness is the beginning of all things.

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Write about those fishings trip we took. I had him, all right.

The steel casting rod bowed over and sprung wildly back and forth. Let him run with it! Give him more line, Jack! No, let him run! Look at him go! After that morning there would be those hard times ahead, other women for him and another man for her, but that morning, that particular morning, they had danced. They danced, and then they held to each other as if there would always be that morning, and later they laughed about the waffle. They leaned on each other and laughed about it until tears came, while outside everything froze, for a while anyway.

Jun 20, Bobby rated it it was amazing Shelves: I knew this was going to be a 5-star book before I read it. I had already read and loved many of the stories collected here. I assumed I would love the stories that were new to me just as much. I can now say that I have read every short story by Raymond Carver and I have loved each one. We can see the stories as Carver wrote them and comp I knew this was going to be a 5-star book before I read it.

We can see the stories as Carver wrote them and compare that to the published stories, edited by Gordon Lish. Carver's original manuscript is good. Published by itself it would have been a fine collection. Lish's edits, though, make the stories leaner and punchier. They leave wide open spaces for the reader to fill with his own imagination and interpretations. Therefore, WWTA, in its published form, can be seen as a work of sculpture. The beauty arises from what was cut away.

This is not to say that Lish was responsible for Carver's greatness. Lish created something great out of something good with WWTA. However, Lish edited Carver's next collection, "Cathedral", as well but Carver had more editorial control and Lish didn't use his ax. You can tell - the writing is fuller in WWTA and the stories have more color. The title story may be Carver's finest. If anyone were to read just one Carver story that would be the one. Carver was an amazing short story writer and this collection of his work is a treasure.

This is definitely a desert island book. Jun 06, William rated it it was amazing Shelves: I was recommended to revisit some of his short stories having not fully understood the relevance of them the first time. The usefulness of this collection is that it contains just about every short story that Carver ever published, and is a compilation of other, smaller collections. The four stories I was recommended to read are: I am now reading as many of the others as I can.

Some of them are obviously not of the same standard as the four recommended ones but, for a student of creative writing, some of the poor ones are as instructive as the good ones. Carver is considered to be an outstanding exponent of the principle of "getting out quickly" in short story writing. I was encouraged to read him after having submitted a story which was technically defective because it lacked an epiphany in the development of the main character.

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Interestingly, I have noticed the same defect in some of Carver's own stories. Dec 28, Jennifer Campaniolo rated it really liked it. This is a beautiful and comprehensive collection of Raymond Carver's writing. It's interesting to see the heavy hand of his editor, Gordon Lish, who was the man behind Carver's trademark minimalism. Some people prefer Carver's longer version, but I actually think the edits, though dramatic, make the stories more powerful, more mysterious.

You can't read this book all in on This is a beautiful and comprehensive collection of Raymond Carver's writing.

You can't read this book all in one sitting; many of the stories are about dissolving marriages and reading one after another would be a grim undertaking. But in small doses, Carver's writing proves as powerful and real now as it was when I first read him in high school almost 20 years ago. May 30, Sara rated it did not like it. Lish-pared, early drivel is a lot like eating a bowl of Grape Nuts: Surely I can't be the only one out there afraid to admit to this.

Carver's over-rated by half. Apr 24, Elise Luquette rated it liked it Shelves: It's a bit hard to review this since it's really all unconnected stories but I really liked some and didn't care for others. I might check out more Raymond Carver in the future but I'm not sure yet. Ahora solo me falta leerme sus poemas, claro. Mar 23, Counsel rated it it was amazing. I consider myself a self-professed literary redundant type of person having to invoke Twain "read me" a book or two; however, I only recently--by sheer fortunate happenstance thanks to my wife --stumbled upon this Collected Stories of Raymond Carver.

In a moment of self-deprecation I must confess to never having heard of him before--having undoubtedly been somewhat morbidly preoccupied with other things during the 's's when Carver apparently was making the literary rounds. These sto I consider myself a self-professed literary redundant type of person having to invoke Twain "read me" a book or two; however, I only recently--by sheer fortunate happenstance thanks to my wife --stumbled upon this Collected Stories of Raymond Carver. These stories--for the most part--are not for the faint of heart. His stories are replete with--as his editor, Gordon Lish, amply described--"a peculiar bleakness.

This collection includes examples of the editing process including stories that Carver would publish in their original forms as well as the edited versions done at Lish's direction. Carver's struggles with love, alcoholism, financial distress and other demons are well documented and, may prompt you if you read this book--as it has me--to order a copy of Carol Sklenicka's biography of Carver.

It strongly reminds me of the tragic tale of Malcolm Lowry but fortunately Carver "recovered" from his alcoholism only to die at age 50 from lung cancer--at one point describing himself as "a walking human cigarette. Carver is the best of O. Henry, Hemingway and Flannery O'Connor perhaps rolled into one. His stories are indeed troubling. They are--as I once heard someone comment on someone else's writing--not something you can really read while lounging on a hammock.

They require some thought and reflection but to me anyway are well worth the effort. Feb 25, Aya rated it it was amazing Shelves: I highly recommend this book. It will be very fascinating to compare the original manuscripts of the stories e. Beginners with the edited versions e. The difference is rather huge because Carvers editor, Gordon Lish, deleted so extensively that sometimes less than half of the writing was left. Lish liked the bleakness, loneliness and d I highly recommend this book.

Lish liked the bleakness, loneliness and despair in the stories and believed it would be much stronger if even less is told. I must say I agree and love the edited version, but people seem to disagree. He says in this letter that although he doesn't dislike the edited versions and sometimes thinks it is artistically superior, he feels it is not his, not the way they are meant to be. This shows his struggle as a writer and his insecurities wanting to be published versus being true to yourself. Very interesting to read! What is also interesting is that because of the edited version of the stories, which are in fact not Carvers choice or style, he got the reputation of being a minimalist, a word he did not like to be used for him.

Oct 26, Marshall Comstock rated it it was amazing. I'm not usually a fan of books that are "Collected Works" or compendiums of an author's greatest hits, but this one is absolutely worth it if only for the fact that it contains both versions of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Carver's manuscript version roughly pages and Gordon Lisch's heavily edited final version pages. For those not familiar with the story, Lisch Carver's long time editor took unbelievable license with Carver's manuscript, often p Carver is fantastic. For those not familiar with the story, Lisch Carver's long time editor took unbelievable license with Carver's manuscript, often paring down stories to the point that they resemble one another only in title, and sometimes not even then.

This does not mean that Carver's versions are better or worse. They are simply different, like two completely different books. Also included in this edition is the heartbreaking letter Carver sent to Lisch detailing his angst regarding the changes though by that time it was too late for Carver to have a say in the matter. This edition offers a wonderful look at Carver's life's work. It is enlightening and intriguing. May 17, Rupert rated it really liked it. I found myself starting this - having already read almost every single story at least twice in the collections they first appeared in - thinking I'd just dip in now and then until I found the next novel to read that would become my "main" book.

But I got caught in the Carver beauty drone.

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Soon I was past the page mark and felt like I'd sat across a greasy old table from Carver far too many late nights to count. Occasionally it would feel like you were hearing the same voice, but then there w I found myself starting this - having already read almost every single story at least twice in the collections they first appeared in - thinking I'd just dip in now and then until I found the next novel to read that would become my "main" book.

Occasionally it would feel like you were hearing the same voice, but then there would be a story about the sociopath who becomes a polititician, and "So Close to Home" and perfectly worded everyday-ness juxtaposed with the darkness a person can descend to just packs a wallop. I feel like I just had a small college course in lower middle class Americana miserablism post-American dream, but still close enough to the time of the dream that you could catch the fading smell of the perfect lawn.

Sep 24, Andrew rated it it was amazing.

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