"Pastoral," "Where I'm Calling From," "What We Talk About..." Responses 3 and 4

Response 3

          Since the stories from this week seem to deal heavily with the human condition and the hardships we sometimes face (love, loss, alcoholism, loneliness), there are plenty of current events that are relevant to Carver’s stories. Before I get into the connections that the stories have with current events, let me just say that I am beginning to understand why some might consider Carver a “minimalist.” Similar to “A Small, Good Thing,” the stories from this week, “Pastoral,” “Where I’m Calling From,” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” are written in a very minimalist manner. Not in a sense where the stories were two pages each and Carver used broken syntax, but in a sense that we are, once again, given bits and bits of small information. Did anyone else find similarities between the beginning of “Pastoral” and “A Small, Good Thing?” I enjoy reading Carver’s work thus far because I must keep reading if I want to find information that is usually given to me in the first page of other books (such as the name of narrator and other characters). Although the plots of Carver’s stories are usually linear, I often feel like I am watching an in-sequence version of the movie Memento. For those of you who haven’t seen it, I won’t ruin it by explaining it, but I will provide a clip from the movie so that you can see where I’m coming from (start the clip around 2:25 and just watch for about a minute—I think you’ll see some similarities. The way this guy is questioning stuff... that's how I feel while I'm reading Carver sometimes. We get small details in even smaller doses. 

While reading Carver, I am constantly asking myself, “Where is this happening? Who is this guy? What are they talking about?”

            I’m finding it difficult to link any of these stories to current events on the news because I think most of what is discussed in Carver’s stories (thus far) has to do with little things or relationships that we often overlook. “Where I’m Calling From” is my favorite from this week, as it deals heavily with alcoholism and the weight of drinking on relationships (I like the emotions it provokes you to have and the things it causes you to ponder). In the beginning of the story, the narrator explains (in relevance to the “drying-out facility” (452), “I’ve been here once before. What’s to say? I’m back” (452). This made me think about how difficult it must be for people to stop drinking after doing so excessively throughout their lives. It’s clear that the narrator has been at the drying out facility for help before, but regardless, he’s back for help again. The aforementioned and the fact that his drinking has had a negative impact on his family life made me think about what happened to MLB baseball player Miguel Cabrera this past week. Cabrera had been in legal trouble with drinking before and after his successful season last year most people thought he was done with excessive drinking and had turned everything around. However, on Wednesday, Cabrera was charged with a DUI.

Here’s a link to the article: http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2011/02/17/miguel-cabrera-charged-with-dui/

I’m sure that like our narrator in, “Where I’m Calling From,” Cabrera’s struggles with alcohol have had an impact on his family… both blood and baseball. Also, him drinking heavily again and doing this is very similar to the fact that our narrator is back in the drying out facility after being out of it for a bit.

            In “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” Mel exclaims, “it ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we’re talking about when we talk about love” (Carver 316). I’m not entirely sure how to connect this to a current event, but doesn’t it connect to so much more than one event? I think most of us have dealt (or are dealing) with what we might consider love at one point or another. Like Mel suggests earlier (315), we always think when we’re in love, nothing could ever be better… but after the relationship ends we move on. Today, people get divorced all of the time and fall in “love” with someone else a few days later (mostly we see this from celebrities). So, in that sense, I suppose that’s where this love thing fits in on the larger spectrum of “events.” Truth is, though, maybe we just don’t know what we’re talking about and that’s how we know what love really is. It’s a very complicated topic, I think.
            As far as “Pastoral,” I’m not sure what events we could tie to it and I’m interested to see if anyone else makes a connection. Does anyone else think Mr. Harold is having trouble with his wife and that’s why he’s at this cabin fishing and taking his mind off of things? It’s a pretty gloomy story, but the ending, to me, suggests that he is having some troubles with his wife, “he couldn’t very well go home” (Carver 204).


Response 4


"Wordle" link for J.P.'s character: http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3178959/j.p.

            For this response I decided to create a “wordle” for J.P. from “Where I’m Calling From.” For the “wordle” I used some of his dialogue as well as some words used by the narrator to describe him. I think the words in the “wordle” describe J.P. extremely well. I like how the word “kids” is extremely large because I feel that although he’s going through some tough times, J.P. still loves his wife and his kids. Speaking of his wife, I also included her name, Roxy, and a line from J.P. in which he exclaims, “That’s her!” (463) in reference to his wife visiting him at Frank Martin’s place. Seeing how the “wordle” looks is pretty cool because the disheveled layout of all the words could suggest how chaotic and jumbled J.P.’s life is in the book. His head is clearly all over the place, he is nervous (shaking), and has gone through a lot of things.

            I also chose to insert the word “well” into the “wordle” because of that whole scene where the narrator is talking about J.P.’s well story (454). This part of the story is my favorite, as I think the well symbolizes a bunch of stuff. This is the first parallel I think we can make. As a kid, J.P.’s dad rescues him after a while and brings him back into “the world he’d always lived in” (454). As an adult, the well could symbolize J.P.’s struggles with alcohol and how his problems have disconnected him from “the world he’d always lived in.” I would argue that Roxy is the equivalent of what J.P.’s father was during his childhood (his savior). This connection (between the well symbolizes his alcoholism) can be further argued for if we consider this line, “everything about his life was different for him at the bottom of that well” (454). It’s a really gloomy picture, isn’t it? To be stuck at the bottom in a dreary place but still have a view of something greater (the blue sky, the clouds, and the birds). A young J.P., pretty similar to an old J.P., seems kind of helpless.

            I chose to put Roxy’s name in the “wordle” because, as I mentioned briefly before, I think she is his savior. After reading, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” I was thinking about the type of relationship Roxy and J.P. have in “Where I’m Calling From.” Although they have fought (verbally and physically) several times and don’t seem to always get along, they still care about each other in the end. It’s almost as if she understands that drinking makes J.P. become another person (be stuck at the bottom of the well) and she believes that he can become who he once was (and get out of that well). Without her, I wonder if J.P. would care about getting better. I think he needs her as he needed the rope when he was stuck in the well. I suppose love isn’t about giving up on the person you claim to love.