The short stories of Raymond Carver have been the inspiration for many creative works. The minimalist style of Carver’ s writing seemingly encouraging others to build upon what the author started.
Raymond Carver was the author of popular short stories during the 1970’ s and 80’ s. His writing captured the American lower-middle class, at moments in life when his characters faced harsh realities and disappointing realisations. His achievements as a writer have however have been tainted by two significant biases in literary criticism. Firstly the idea that the short story is inferior to the novel, and an immature form of writing. And secondly, the stigma that is attached to a minimalist style. As a consequence there has seemingly been a desire amongst some Creatives to develop what is perceived as Carver’ s unfinished work, or unfulfilled potential. Though seemingly to do so is to misunderstand and undervalue Carver’ s writing, and more so to distort his aesthetic.
Minimalism is a problematic term when applied to literature. Originally the word was used in a political context to describe a less extreme sector of the Russian Social Revolutionary Party. In the 1960’ s minimalism was applied to the art world to works with,“ an emphasis placed upon purity of colour, form, space and materials.” In modern vocabulary the adjective is used in general reference where ever there is evidence of simplicity or starkness. The broadened scope of this meaning has meant that, in literature, minimalism has become interchangeable with a number of other terms which together serve to unify a great diversity of writing. Carver himself found the term to be an unsatisfactory description of his work. Michael Truster writes,“ carver believed it was( a) form of critical jargon, often serving to conflate dissimilar writers.” Though there is undeniably brevity to Carver’ s writing evocative of a minimalist description. The author’ s style recognised Ernest Hemingway’ s‘ iceberg’ aesthetic, where by seven eights of a narrative can effectively take place beneath the surface of a text without being explicitly referred to.
Carver’ s writing is at its most stark in his 1981 collection of shorts,‘ What We Talk about When We Talk About Love.’ The minimalist quality of this writing is blamed- if it is in fact wrong- on the heavy handed editing of Gordon Lish. A. O Scott describes,“ Lish cut, rearranged, and rewrote freely, without regard for Craver’ s wishes or feelings.” The work was poorly received by critics who denounced the minimalist style as banal and mundane. Carver’ s later writing is often referred to as the‘ real Carver,’ seen as a shift or maturing, from minimalism to an effective realism. Evidencing this point, critics often refer to the rewriting of‘ So Much Water So Close to Home’ from,‘ What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’ to‘ A Small Good Thing,’ which was republished in the 1983 collection‘ Cathedral.’ The second version of the story is more expansive, though Gunter Leypoldt suggests Carver still oscillates between reference and silence, as is minimalist tradition. Leypoldt argues that the popularity of‘ A Small Good Thing’ causes critics to exaggerate its significance in terms of Craver’ s‘ growth’ as a writer.
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