In reading Raymond Carver's second volume of stories, [What We Talk About When We Talk About Love], while one is impressed, even stunned at times, by the brevity and harshness of the material, one begins, soon enough, to feel imposed upon by a monotony of tone, theme, and structure. Like Ann Beattie's stories, Mr. Carver's, when taken separately, have a power which is difficult to resist. Read together, however, these seventeen pieces (some are not really stories) put one out of sorts—an effect, I suspect, the author intends. But one's discomfort does not result from having to face new and unbearable truths. The theme of the inevitable and unrelieved loss of love, friendship, youth, and marriage is common enough. Rather, the cumulative effect of the book impoverishes the reader by reducing the world to a few realities. By concentrating exclusively on the disconnectedness, paucity, and sorrow of modern existence, Mr. Carver succeeds not in expanding the powers of feeling—and, therefore, of perception—but in shrinking them. Less is not more in his case.
Underneath all his stories, many told in an alcoholic haze, lies a sense of betrayal; that life has not fulfilled its early promise of peace, order, and love. On the contrary, as one grows older, one is left with a broken marriage, a house full of unwanted furniture, and an inability to understand what has happened. Mr. Carver's fiction, then, records the great disenchantment of the middle class. Assured from birth that all will be well if they do what they're told, the children of that class are unprepared for sorrow, much less tragedy. In response they make do with booze and self-pity…. Touching, perhaps, but not very moving or cogent—particularly after the seventeenth time. (pp. 459-60)
