The opening paragraph from Carver's "Where I'm Calling From":
J.P. and I are on the front porch at Frank Martin's drying-out facility. Like the rest of us at Frank Martin's, J.P. is first and foremost a drunk. But he's also a chimney sweep. It's his first time here, and he's scared. I've been here once before. What's to say? I'm back. J.P.'s real name is Joe Penny, but he says I should call him J.P. He's about thirty years old. Younger than I am. Not much younger, but a little. He's telling me how he decided to go into his line of work, and he wants to use his hands when he talks. But his hands tremble. I mean, they won't keep still. "This has never happened to me before," he says. He means the trembling. I tell him I sympathize. I tell him the shakes will idle down. And they will. But it takes time....
-Raymond Carver: the poet of loss. The bard of weirdos--and we're all weirdos, in one way or another. I take great comfort in Carver's compassion--in his portrait of people at war with themselves, stunned by their own weakness, struggling to be allies for one another.
-The speaker in this story has a kind of humorous sense of resignation: "I've been here, to the drying-out place, once before. What's to say? I'm back." These lines tell us so much about the speaker: He has had some difficulties, he is still struggling, he can view his own failures with clear eyes. The short sentences convey more than a lengthy paragraph, in a weaker writer's novel, would convey.
-Wishing to speak with your own hands, but discovering that those hands now tremble: an arresting metaphor for growing older, finding one's powers waning, dealing with loss.
-A gift that sometimes comes from suffering is a new sense of compassion, and we see this in the speaker: "I tell him I sympathize. I tell him the shakes will idle down..."
-"He's a drunk, but he's also a chimney sweep": Again, the words do more than they seem to do. Human identity is complex: Even as we seem to be failures, on several fronts, we're also noble and worthy of admiration. A drunk and a chimney sweep. An ambulatory disaster--and someone capable of doing good in the world. One thing doesn't cancel out the other: Warring impulses exist within one person, all the time.
-Carver wrote about rather pedestrian problems--in direct, unusual language--and he routinely chose struggles no one else would think to dramatize. Your hands tremble? Or... you're "in a spot" because your wife left home abruptly, and you forgot, before your fall term started, to do some serious research w/r/t babysitters? These issues can be the stuff of stories. If you're a genius, and you have a gift for seeing drama where others wouldn't look. Carver had that gift. It's such a nice, therapeutic thing you can do for yourself: stopping by just about any bookstore and picking up this Carver anthology.
J.P. and I are on the front porch at Frank Martin's drying-out facility. Like the rest of us at Frank Martin's, J.P. is first and foremost a drunk. But he's also a chimney sweep. It's his first time here, and he's scared. I've been here once before. What's to say? I'm back. J.P.'s real name is Joe Penny, but he says I should call him J.P. He's about thirty years old. Younger than I am. Not much younger, but a little. He's telling me how he decided to go into his line of work, and he wants to use his hands when he talks. But his hands tremble. I mean, they won't keep still. "This has never happened to me before," he says. He means the trembling. I tell him I sympathize. I tell him the shakes will idle down. And they will. But it takes time....
-Raymond Carver: the poet of loss. The bard of weirdos--and we're all weirdos, in one way or another. I take great comfort in Carver's compassion--in his portrait of people at war with themselves, stunned by their own weakness, struggling to be allies for one another.
-The speaker in this story has a kind of humorous sense of resignation: "I've been here, to the drying-out place, once before. What's to say? I'm back." These lines tell us so much about the speaker: He has had some difficulties, he is still struggling, he can view his own failures with clear eyes. The short sentences convey more than a lengthy paragraph, in a weaker writer's novel, would convey.
-Wishing to speak with your own hands, but discovering that those hands now tremble: an arresting metaphor for growing older, finding one's powers waning, dealing with loss.
-A gift that sometimes comes from suffering is a new sense of compassion, and we see this in the speaker: "I tell him I sympathize. I tell him the shakes will idle down..."
-"He's a drunk, but he's also a chimney sweep": Again, the words do more than they seem to do. Human identity is complex: Even as we seem to be failures, on several fronts, we're also noble and worthy of admiration. A drunk and a chimney sweep. An ambulatory disaster--and someone capable of doing good in the world. One thing doesn't cancel out the other: Warring impulses exist within one person, all the time.
-Carver wrote about rather pedestrian problems--in direct, unusual language--and he routinely chose struggles no one else would think to dramatize. Your hands tremble? Or... you're "in a spot" because your wife left home abruptly, and you forgot, before your fall term started, to do some serious research w/r/t babysitters? These issues can be the stuff of stories. If you're a genius, and you have a gift for seeing drama where others wouldn't look. Carver had that gift. It's such a nice, therapeutic thing you can do for yourself: stopping by just about any bookstore and picking up this Carver anthology.
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