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Beginners , Raymond Carver

First volume of the original versions of the great American novelist: 17 successes.

The news which gives its title to this collection features two couples seated before a bottle of gin. Inquiring about love, his reasons, his inconstancy, they tell stories, their past relationships, their divorces, their expectations, images of other couples who are a possibility of happiness. For all the characters CARVER try to be happy, to believe in something that could be likened to happiness. A cake that heralds the birthday of a child, three days of fishing with friends, a bingo game, a few dance steps outlined in a kitchen after a night without sleep. Moments of happiness, but mostly respites in a life always on the verge of collapse, where violence is ready to burst, where fate, whoever breaks the boys in the car or the one who is immersed in alcohol, transforms the human characters in little dramas of everyday life.
Alcoholism, madness, divorces, accidents, adultery, ... If this is not the most flattering part of the human being as portrayed in these new CARVER incredible power, the fact remains that his characters often try to project themselves to another place they would look to the future in a more happy. In vain.
This first volume of the complete works of American short story is, next to all literary qualities, a history of specific edition. The texts were, when they were first published in 1981, heavily modified by the editor, Gordon Lish. To read the moving letter that the author address (set out in Annex of the collection), it is understood that this was not mere corrections but a reworking, distorting a work that seems so yet capital, even vital, in the eyes of the writer. So here for the first time an edition based on the original manuscript. It would appear that the corrections have focused on Lish cut in the text, reading news, one wonders why this "castration". Nothing is ever too. Each story is a world in itself, a story in which a few lines, the reader is immersed. Through a detail, a phrase, a place, the author manages to create extremely realistic atmosphere where, through cigarette smoke, will play these little tragedies. The style is brilliant, but apparently built extremely simple, fair, and for me who am not generally a fan of short stories, which manages to never let the reader unsatisfied. Carver's talent is how to stand on that narrow line between the drama of the melo-drama, the tragedy of soap. Knowledge of the corners of the soul which enables him to capture his characters in a line, a scene, and remain always on the edge of emotion in restraint.
A first volume, which in my case, is a first step in the work of an author that I will continue to rapidly discover and I recommend you insist.

A big thank you to the Globe Sebastian -player who, by enticing ticket, made up the book on top of my PAL.

Reference:
Raymond Carver, a Complete Works, Beginners , translated from English (United States) by Jacqueline Huet and Jean-Pierre Carasso, Editions de l'Olivier, 2010.