Faulty Diction
By: Adam McInturf
To sum up Carver in two words, call him “Hemingway meets.” Not Hemingway meets a social conscience or feminine sensitivity, but just other beings. Carver’s stories still, for the most part, center male protagonists, who remain haunted by unseen scars. But his stories are about what happens when these men collide with other people, with friends, with women, even the occasional dog. While the style is even sparer than Hemingway’s, this new addition of other people makes them infinitely more rich and complex.
In the blurbs on the backs of his books, people often talk about how dark and gloomy Carver’s stories are. They’re half right, but they’re also blind to the real core of the stories, because they miss the overwhelmingly humane and sensitive way that he depicts that darkness. Here, people who are far more ordinary than real life are portrayed in the midst of their monotonous lives, never exotic safaris and wars. Carver manages to construct entirely believable scenarios in which these ordinary people become real to each other in new ways, cease to be furniture. Even in the most bizarre scenarios, like marijuana induced dual tracing of a place of worship for a blind man who calls him “bub” in “Cathedral,” the events are always believable, always crafted from nothing other than the raw materials readily available in our stupid daily lives.
Carver’s stories are incomparably uplifting because of their insistence on never depending on the foreign or exotic to bestow self-actualization. Or maybe I should put that differently and say that these stories redefine the foreign and exotic: rather than Africa and Cuba, the exotic is now Walla-Walla, Eureka, Felony Flats, and Yakima. Right in the midst of our alcoholism, our failed attempts at adultery, or any other of our failed attempts to escape who we are – right there Carver shows us the resources for newness and love. And it only takes a little twist, a little rearrangement of the furniture on the lawn and an extension cord run out to the lamp and record player, for us to start dancing to the music that was there all along in the magical presence of other people.
(Source: youmightfindyourself)
“For me, a man is a man. I cannot distinguish a gay man from a straight man,” he says. “After 35 years of knowing John Waters, I turn to my wife and I say to her, ‘I have a feeling this man is gay.’”
Watch Werner Herzog Talk About Learning That His Pal John Waters Is Gay
Qlocktwo W by Biegert & Funk
In a square there is a grid of 110 letters. When the stainless steel button is pressed, words light up in unexpected places which describe the time.
I’m so out of it when it comes to new releases. I didn’t even know Moshe Kasher had put out a book. Listen, you might learn something.
Bill and Hillary
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Daniel Schutz is a writer living in Los Angeles. He blogs for free, but would prefer to be paid. This is where you come in; a kindly patron willing to pay an MFA graduate for his time and work. Donations are accepted, though perishable food items are generally discouraged (meatloaf excepted).
