Cathedral: Stories

Carver writes short stories the way you might expect a poet to write them.

The stories here are full of mood, written from deep empathy with his characters. They are not stories of unusual events, action, or grand gesture. Most are somber in tone and set in the everyday life of people who aren’t winning.

Often there is a peek of sunlight that seemingly defeated characters may or may not glimpse. The title story, Cathedral, is a good example. The principal character and narrator is cynical and dour. He dreads meeting his wife’s friend, a blind man named Robert, judging and disliking him before he even walks through the door.

But when Robert has him draw a cathedral, to show Robert with the movement of pencil on paper, how to show more communicate the shape and grandeur of a cathedral to a blind man, he comes alive. “It’s really something.”

It’s the depth of the inner lives of Carver’s characters that draws us in and along the stories. It’s the experience that fiction promises, the chance to live inside the bones of other people, to think and feel what they think and feel. Not many writers can do this at all, much less at the depth that Carver can do it.

Not a lot of laughs, but if you want to deepen your experience of life, and your ability to appreciate and participate in the lives of those around you, Carver is your guide. show less

In this story the narrator is wrought with stark insecurities concerning his marriage. Initially, as readers, we are introduced to his blatantly unappealing, borderline racist attitude. We never learn his name, but his use of language is repetitive, simplistic and dashed with blue-collar slang, from which we assume his working-class status in society. While pondering Robert’s marriage to Beulah, whom he suspected of being a Negro, he accentuates his own wife’s use of the word “inseparable”, which clearly bothered him. Furthermore he refers to the bedroom as his wife’s room, which could possibly mean they don’t share a bedroom. The narrator spends his days getting drunk and his nights getting high, and is constantly blurting show more out offensive comments, while his wife is forced outside their marriage for emotional support. His insecurities take form when Robert, who represented all the sympathetic and caring aspects of his wife’s life – everything he didn’t, stays with them. He expresses his fear and narrow-mindedness by dropping words like “pathetic” after the Robert and Beulahs’ heart-wrenching love story. His mind was closed too far to understand it; a crisis that changed in a euphoric twist of an ending. Through an exercise of empathy, the narrator gained some understanding which would result (as we hope) in fewer insecurities and a stable, successful marriage. Like Shakespeare's King Lear, it took loosing his eyes to see the proverbial light. show less

In Cathedral, Raymond Carver offers the reader a powerful set of stories about people who are experiencing the worst things in their lives: divorce or abandonment, alcoholism, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, feeling isolated and trapped in a relationship, and so on. In each of the dozen tales comprising the volume, we are dropped into the middle of a situation in which an otherwise unexceptional person faces some sort of crisis or cathartic event and struggles to deal with the situation. Whether these characters ever find their way out of their respective messes is something we never really learn, as the stories are left largely unresolved in the end. In fact, the real genius that the author brings to bear in this show more compelling collection is that he takes his protagonists as he finds them and is content to just tell a piece of their stories in a tender, if unflinching, manner. If there is a recurring theme connecting this fiction it is the slow and heartbreaking destruction that alcoholism can have on everyone connected to the one doing the drinking.

While there is not a weak story in the entire book, there were some that stood out well above the others. The title tale ‘Cathedral’ is a masterful look at both the regret that can sometimes overwhelm a marriage as well as having to confront long-held prejudices in surprising ways. ‘A Small, Good Thing’ is an ironic look at how a simple miscommunication can spiral out of control when conflated with a truly harrowing personal tragedy. ‘Where I’m Calling From’ probably comes the closest to being optimistic storytelling, despite its setting in a rehabilitation facility populated by people who have been there on multiple occasions. ‘Chef’s House’ is a very intimate portrait of the fragility involved in trying to confront one’s demons and get sober. To be sure, these are not happy stories or stories in which the characters are redeemed at the end of a long, fraught struggle. Apparently, the author himself suffered as a recovering alcoholic and, if that is true, he definitely wrote the life that he knew. That he was able to write it so very well was his lasting gift to all of us. show less

“In those olden days, when they built cathedrals, men wanted to be close to God”

This collection of twelve stories, might be my favorite of Carver's work. He writes very well about ordinary lives but favors the messiness of life. Alcohol abuse, infidelities and heartache. The opening story, "Feathers" prominently features a peacock. A homage to O' Connor, perhaps? And the title story, which wraps up the collection, is a stunning look at blindness and religion. A knockout.

The stories in Cathedral are muscular and powerful, made more so by Carver’s clean and unvarnished writing. “They were into something now, something hard.”

In some, there’s a sense that hope is over and done – nothing else good is going to happen to these characters after the story is over (Chef’s House, Preservation).

Paradoxically, other stories that ought to finish with no hope, offer a glimmer, or a glimpse of a glimmer. In the title story, a blind man opens the eyes, or mind, of a cynical man. In A Small, Good Thing, the death of a child near his birthday and an ugly episode with the baker that made his cake ends up with a moment of grace between the baker and the grieving parents.

In all, loose ends are not neatly show more wrapped, very little is resolved. Life continues. show less

These stories are about people I don't know and don't think I would like. If someone described them to me I would think, why would I want to read that? About hairdressers and waitresses and lots of alcoholics, people down on their luck, in lousy relationships, getting divorces, growing apart. But these stories are so well written that they are completely engrossing and leave me with a feeling of having seen something amazing nearly every one. Raymond Carver works some kind of magic over ordinary people and situations that leaves an imprint on the brain, an epiphany, almost a feeling of enlightenment. I feel like reading these stories has changed me for the better. I cannot give high enough praise.

Carver's voice is unmistakable, mesmerizing, and real. I was drawn into every story through the power of this voice, even the stories that didn't touch me. But many of these did touch me. My particular favorites are "Feathers," "A Small, Good Thing," "The Train," and "Cathedral." At times the overbearing depression of the stories weighed on me, as if their repetitiveness--too much drinking, recently broken marriages--made each one more depressing than the last. Personally I most enjoyed the ones with glimpses of hope at the end; not idealistic turnarounds, just the potential for hope: "A Small, Good Thing" and "Cathedral" being perfect examples. Regardless of my personal reaction, Carver has one of the most distinct and graspable show more American voices of the past century. show less