What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver

“Mel thought real love was nothing less than spiritual love. He’d said he’d spent five years in a seminary before quitting to go to medical school. He said he still looked back on those years in the seminary as the most important years of his life.”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is Raymond Carver's classic collection of short stories. Unfortunately, this may have been another case of me having heard a few too many positive comments about Carver, and this book in particular. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but I somehow expected something more. Even writing this review, I find it difficult to specifically recall most of the stories, and there were only a few that really touched me. That said, Carver's style of writing is definitely unique and something that has been emulated by many writers since. The stories have a quietness to them, the writing is sparse and simple, and they focus on men and woman without ambition and without direction. It is just a glimpse into their lives, peeking in and then vanishing just as quickly.

One story I particularly enjoyed was "I Could See the Smallest Things" where a woman has a midnight chat with a neighbour her husband was once friends with but had a falling out, the man is killing slugs. Afterwards, the woman goes inside to her sleeping husband, the drool on his face reminding her of the slugs she just saw. The title short story is one of the longer ones in the collection, although still pretty short, and "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" was a memorable reflection on what love means to different people. When Carver is successful his stories are looks into the lives of the ordinary through a dirty lens which blurs the nonsense and keeps only what is essential.

Overall, the book provides some simple and beautiful moments but the lack of resolution in the stories was a technique which didn't always work for me. The stories are all very bleak and occasionally run together because I didn't find that there were any ups and downs to the collection but that it mostly ran at a similar frequency. Also, perhaps due to the brevity of many of the stories, I sometimes I felt as if Carver really hadn't let the reader know enough about the characters to get me interested or invested in the story. Ultimately, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a good introduction to a famous contemporary short story writer but although Carver peeked my interest, he didn't capture my heart. 

Release Date: 1981
Pages: 144
Overall: 3.5/5
Source: Personal Copy (Gift from Laala)
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Room by Emma Donoghue

"I still don’t tell her about the web. It’s weird to have something that’s mine-not-Ma’s. Everything else is both of ours. I guess my body is mine and the ideas that happen in my head. But my cells are made out of her cells so I’m kind of hers. Also when I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jump into our other’s head, like coloring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green."

Room by Emma Donoghue is one of those books that has been everywhere, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and a favourite read of 2010 for many so after a couple months on my shelves I was eager to pick it up. Room is a novel told from the perspective of five-year-old Jack, a child born inside of a room he has never left. To Jack, there is nothing but Room, where he lives with his Ma, going to sleep each night in the wardrobe so he is kept hidden from Old Nick. Old Nick is the man who has kept Ma a prisoner for the last seven years, and although she has made it a home for Jack she still dreams of leaving. Ma forms a plan for the two of them to escape, but leaving Room is the only the first step towards a normal life for Jack and Ma.

The voice that Donoghue uses for Jack is incredibly realistic, and I was completely taken into the mind of this smart but unusual little boy. As a story, Room is both heartbreaking and beautiful, but there were often times when I craved slightly more from the characters. In more than once instance Donoghue failed to go deeper into issues which played a major role in the lives of Ma and Jack, including *minor spoiler* a seemingly out of nowhere mention of an abortion and a stillbirth *spoiler over*. I felt that if Donoghue was going to bring up events which are clearly very emotional, it should have been discussed further, although that might have been difficult given the five-year old narrator. While I was reading Room I enjoyed it, but after I finished it I became disappointed by a book that had not impacted me. The premise of Room, inspired by true events although the novel is completely fictional, is so incredible that I think the hype lead me to expect more from the book. Room lacked the literary depth I was hoping for, which may be due to the young narrator- perhaps both the best asset and the biggest hindrance to the novel's success. Experiencing the world through Jack's eyes is a wonderful and exciting thing, but eventually I expected more of the book which felt too simple. Ultimately, Room is an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon but Donoghue failed to take full advantage of the potential the novel had leaving me lusting for what almost could have been. 

Release Date: September 13, 2010
Pages: 352
Overall: 3.5/5
Source: ARC from Publisher 
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2011 Reading Goals: Book Club With Laala

This year my best but long distance friend Laala and I did a joint reading project which included three books, beginning with Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera, then Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy, and lastly How To Talk To A Widower by Jonathan Tropper. Inspired by the fun we had we decided to set an actual book club schedule for 2011, beginning this month. I've decided to post it here so I have a record of the commitment, and also don't have to worry about misplacing the list. In chronological order the titles are:

• December 2010: Room by Emma Donoghue (Review)
  2011
• January: Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart (Review) 
  *Note: Laala did not actually read this book
• February: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver (Review)
• March: New Selected Poems by Carol Ann Duffy (Review)
  *Note: Laala did not finish this book

And this was when we abandoned the book club!  Apparently we don't do well with schedules...

• April: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larrson 
• May: Dubliners by James Joyce (Review)
• June: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Review)
• July: Birds of America by Lorrie Moore (Review)
• August: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (Review)
• Sept: Jacob's Room by Virgina Woolf (Review)
• October: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (Review)
• November: A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon (Review)
• December: Eve Green by Susan Fletcher (Review)

I am really excited to read all these books with Laala, I think it's a great combination of non-fiction, poetry, short story collections and fiction. I also own all the titles already except two (Murakami and Haddon) which makes it a lot easier to organize, and those I can easily get from the library. I'd also love to participate in a few read-a-longs in the upcoming year, assuming I enjoy my first experience. I haven't exactly decided which ones I'll be doing but they will likely center on classics as I find those are the ones I am most likely to benefit from a group discussion for. The Lost Entwife and A Literary Odyssey both have a great schedule of read-alongs lined up so I'll definitely be checking those out. I'd love to find a local book club, but I don't know where to start, and online works better for my crazy schedule anyway.

How do you feel about online book clubs? Do you participate in any book clubs, online or otherwise? If you are hosting any read-a-longs for 2011 definitely leave me a link, I seem discover about half of them after they've already started.