The Stylish Carver

The Stylish Carver

An individual is always noticed by their style. The way they walk, talk, and dress has much to do with who they are and how they express themselves. In writing a writer is noticed by their style too. The sentence structure and the tone of their writing may vary from author to author. Raymond Carver has a writing style noticeably different from all other authors. He has a variety of themes throughout his work. Alcoholism is a grand theme in many of his stories, along with the theme of identity and searching for self. Epiphany�s are recurrent in the collection of stories in the book Where I’m Calling From. All the characters have a flash of insight from another main character and how the other views life. “One of the charms of these stories is the recognition of ourselves and ordinary people we know among Carver’s antiheros”. (Geimer)

Many people love Carver’s work just because they can find themselves in the stories and perhaps better themselves by self examination. It was once said that, “If there is a unifying theme running throughout all the stories, it is that life continues and our task is simply to endure. Crises are not disposed of with the finality, never to arise again. At best one can hope, with the hero of the title story, that such an “impossible” change may come over him and he will be able to come to terms with reality”.(Geimer) Carver on no account dwells on one thing. He makes his points short and simple for any reader to understand. His sentence structure is clean cut and blunt. Carver has found himself in life and wants others learn that they can find themselves too. His writing is used this way so that from a poem or short story a reader will, “have a deeper insight into the lives of the characters, and ultimately a greater appreciation of the quiet desperation of the lives most people lead.” (Geimer)

With Carver’s writing style in mind his theme of identity and searching for self is not hard to see. He usually writes with this theme in mind along with his life experiences. When asked by interviewer Stull, “What makes your writing style uniquely your own?” Carver replies, “…tone in the work… if you can find an authors fingerprints on the work, you can tell it’s his and no others.” In essence he states that the way his stories are written is who he is. In the short story Where I’m Calling From, it deals with the main characters searching for themselves. The unnamed narrator and J.P. were alcoholics trying to get clean in the “drying-out’ facility. In Carver’s life he dealt with suffering from alcoholism and depression. Carver was hospitalized from alcohol poisoning several times and was even separated from his wife and children. The unnamed narrator was going through a mirror situation of Carver’s. The story Where I’m Calling From came right from the heart of Raymond Carver. The story correlates his life almost verbatim. Colby says, “Though very brief, the stories explore complex human tension and emotions repressed in the course of humdrum everyday life. Carver hints at a disturbing absence of the knowable.” (Colby)The characters know what has to be done to get things right in their lives. The story has an epiphany at the end, as do all other Raymond Carver stories. “Carver does not condescend to entice readers with shocking or startling attention-getting openings. Rather, the stories almost invariably begin with flat understatement, and progress through to their subtle, inconclusive ending leaving the reader barely aware that something of significance had happened. A closer reading however, yields wry insights, judgements that are usually beyond the command of the characters in the stories themselves.”(Geimer) In the story, “So Much Water So Close To Home”, the ending leaves the reader wondering if the husband did all those terrible things or was the wife really thinking of herself and how she was that young woman and tied down. The ending leaves the reader with many things to think about and question.

Carver’s sentence structure is put together in a unique fashion. His stories are very straight to the point and the main characters are usually withdrawn to let the other characters tell a story of their personal experiences. The short story, Where I’m Calling From, J.P. was telling his story to the unnamed narrator. The narrator was searching for himself following suit with Carver’s stories. “Carver’s lean, spare style wastes no time with indulgent commentary or needless purple patches, nor does it condescend to call attention to or summarize the underlying verities; elucidation would destroy the atmosphere created and lose the subtle essence of the stories”. (Greimer) All Carver’s stories follow the