- Raymond Carver’s work has been adapted for the screen in Short Cuts (1993),
directed by Robert Altman, and Jindabyne (2006), directed by Ray Lawrence.
Both films change Carver’s Pacific Northwest setting to, respectively, Los
Angeles and the town of Jindabyne in New South Wales, Australia. Jindabyne
is based on “So Much Water So Close to Home”; Short Cuts uses that story, as
well, combining it with eight others, five of which are also in Where I’m Calling
From. Students may wish to view one or both films with the aim of comparing
them to the original stories, paying particular attention to changes in plot and
character (Altman changes and collapses characters, even inventing new ones)
and how these changes affect overall theme. Students might also consider
whether the screen versions are more or less effective than their literary coun-
terparts in conveying certain themes such as love, family, death, marriage, and
voyeurism, and whether or not the film versions are able to capture Carver’s
distinctive narrative style. - Arthur M. Saltzman describes Carver as a “diligent refiner of sentences,” a qual-
ity that critics connect to “minimalism.” Carver, however, loathed the minimalist
“tag” and felt it “suggests the idea of a narrow vision of life, low ambitions, and
limited cultural horizons” (interview with Del Pozzo in Stull). A controversy
regarding Carver’s minimalist style jeopardized the acclaim that positioned
Carver as the “father of minimalism.” Motoko Rich’s New York Times article,
“The Real Carver: Expansive or Minimal,” describes how Carver’s style was
altered by the severe editing of Lish, Carver’s editor at Alfred A. Knopf, who
published What We Talk about When We Talk about Love. Students can view Lish’s
alterations by examining “Beginners,” the original version of “What We Talk
about When We Talk about Love” submitted to Lish; it is available in Raymond
Carver: Collected Stories (2009). Students may also wish to examine versions of
the Lish-edited stories in Where I’m Calling From. For this collection he revised
“So Much Water So Close to Home,” and the story “The Bath” is restored, added
to, and renamed “A Small, Good Thing.” After comparing versions of the stories,
students may wish to weigh in on the discussion of minimalism in Carver’s fic-
tion. For more on minimalism and Raymond Carver, consult Arthur Bethea’s
volume (especially the conclusion, which distinguishes between technical and
ideological versions of minimalism), Nesset, Saltzman, and Trussler. - Many of Carver’s characters are hindered by silences and inarticulateness. In
“‘What’s to Say’: Silence in Raymond Carver’s ‘Feathers,’” Laura Champion
outlines studies of Carver’s uses of silence, while also advancing her own. She
notes: “Often it is not direct discourse, words spoken between characters, but
characters’ inability to communicate that becomes important in developing
characters’ attitudes, motives, weaknesses, or hopelessness.” In stories such as
“Gazebo” and “Why Don’t You Dance?” characters arrive on the cusp of verbal
expression only to fail with open-ended silence, highlighting their own inad-
equacies and those of language. Silence in stories such as “Feathers” and “A
Small, Good Thing” contribute to the development of characters and advance
meaning in the same manner as negative space in a photograph. Students may
wish to extend Champion’s examination to other stories that feature silence:
“Careful,” “Where I’m Calling From,” “A Serious Talk,” and “Cathedral.”
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