Guest Post by Chris Hooker
The main reason I love Raymond Carver is voice. Carver has a knack for telling voice-y, interesting stories, stories that are as sad as they are humerus. A Carver story may not tell you every single detail, but, without a doubt, you aren't left feeling empty.
Reading the differences between "The Bath" and "A Small, Good Thing" is such a strange reading experience, especially when read one after another. "The Bath" is a flash of sadness while "A Small, Good Thing" expands upon those emotions and forces the reader to face those problems head on with the family. Only one thing remains consistent: The family is tormented by an evil baker, who is playing possibly the worst thought-out prank in all of literature.
In your blog entries, discuss your own experiences in reading these two stories. What about them is similar? Or different? What kinds of changes did you notice in the writing?
And don't forget to include what you liked (or disliked) about them. Because let's face it, Raymond Carver is awesome.
When I read this I was forced to do a big time double take. You read "The Bath" and you get that story but then you switch to "A Small Good Thing" and your forced to totally switch your thinking. The second story is a continuation of the first. But as you read it you feel even more of the raw emotion that was missing from the first story.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the first one I came to realize that it really was just a big reflection piece. A surface story to how the characters were basically living. How on the basic level they deal with emotional damage. The second story really showed the reader how they are feeling. The pain and hurt that you have from losing a child. How you have to go on in life after that loss.
It's beyond shocking to read “The Bath” and realize how much they cut out from “A Small, Good Thing.” I guess this is something all writers have to be prepared for when having work published. I read “The Bath” first and, naturally, it felt very incomplete. Not only because the entire last third of “A Small, Good Thing” is gone, but because lots of details are taken out. We don't get to understand any of the characters as much and thus we can't relate to them as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Carver does not include every single detail, but I like that. We see everything we need to and we understand the emotional weight of this story. I especially like how both Ann and Howard really do not know what to do which makes them both more frustrated, with themselves and each other. Personally, I would've liked to learn more about the baker at the end, but that is not a major flaw. I simply wanted to see more conversation between someone who has never had children and a couple who lost their only child.
Even though “The Bath” and “A Small, Good Thing” had essentially the same plot, I really enjoyed how Carver made them different by changing the style. “The Bath” seemed to end abruptly, and I found myself wishing that the plot would continue…I wanted to know what became of the son, why the baker was prank calling the family, and how the mother and father were going to handle the prank calls. I felt that “A Small, Good Thing” provided a satisfactory ending, as well as cleared up a few questions and scenes that I couldn’t make sense of in “The Bath.” For example, on pg.125 of “The Bath,” I had to re-read the scene where the mother meets another family at the hospital because I didn’t realize that Nelson was the other family’s son. Carver makes this scene a lot clearer with more details in “A Small, Good Thing,” and even changes the son’s name to Franklin…”Our Franklin, he’s on the operating table. Somebody cut him.” I enjoyed both pieces about the same amount, but for different reasons. I think what worked well in “The Bath” was the fast moving plot. I think that the plot moved quickly for me because it wasn’t weighed down by lots of details. However, I felt that I received a more satisfying ending at the conclusion of “A Small, Good Thing,” because Carver included more details that answered the questions I’d had at the end of “The Bath.”
ReplyDeleteWhat stands out to me about these two stories is the difference between how well readers can connect to the characters. The first story does not go very deep into the emotional state of mind of the parents during this ordeal and not much is known about them outside of the hospital. Raymond Carver also does not go into a lot of detail about the characters physically, which leaves the reader some room to come up with their own pictures. One thing that I really liked about the first one was the ambiguity of the ending.
ReplyDeleteThe second story goes into a lot more detail, physically and emotionally. I felt like the mother and father were easier to connect to because they show more of their emotions. I also thought that the scene at the end with a baker was interesting. I was a little confused at first of the purpose of the baker’s scene with the mother and father. I understood how a constant barrage of calls about a cake could annoy them while their son was dying in the hospital, and how they let their frustration out on him. I also liked the end of the story because not only did the baker come off his own cloud of personal cares to sympathize with the parents, but how the theme of loneliness in all of their lives comes out and connects them.
I was really surprised when I read "A Small Good Thing" had been cut out. I was expecting that a lot of details would have been cut out, but not that an entire third of the story to be cut. While I liked the reveal that it was the baker pestering the couple about the cake, I did not like the last page of the story (the baker giving the couple 'magic bread' that makes them feel better- I'm sorry I was really tired the first time I read through the story and that was my first thought) and I understand why it was cut. It doesn't exactly fit with the rest of the story (and the style of "The Bath". In both stories, Carver shows a lot of emotions and acts without necessarily telling us what's happening (in "The Bath" more so than "A Small Good Thing") and that last page, just contained so much telling that I wasn't sure if someone else entirely wrote it or if Carver just had a deadline and rushed through it.
ReplyDeleteI loved Carver's voice throughout the pieces though. He presents things so simply and without explanation, but still so packed with emotion. In each of the stories, I felt like I was able to connect to the characters on different levels, but each left me feeling something.
While reading The Bath” I became quit frustrated with the dialogue. All the “He said, She said” in between each line really kept me from entering the story. I also found that I could not connect with the characters themselves or really hear their voice. The story it self seemed very monotone and dry. Although the subject is about a young boy being hit by a car on his birthday, I felt very little to no emotion at all. Although the mechanics of this story got in my way a little, I did find that I kind of liked the abrupt ending. In some ways I could then think of my own ending. However, the ending left me wanting more.
ReplyDeleteReading “A small, Good Thing”, Raymond Carver is elaborating all of the characters. He gives them names. Instead of stating “he said, she said,” we are able to enter the emotions of Ann and Howard. There was so much more detail and description in this story. I found it much easier to read and far more enjoyable. Not only does Carver give us more physical description but he also gives us far more emotional description. The ending to me was perfect. Although the boy dies, and the reader is sad, we then are shown the Baker giving this small act of kindness to the mother and father. Although it’s still a sad story I feel like it ends on a happier note. The baker opened up and tried to comfort them. To me that was a “small good thing”, that helped both Ann and Howard.
I agree with Jen about the feel of the two stories. It was much harder to be interested in "The Bath" than it was in "A Small, Good Thing." Probably because there was so much more emotion and detail in "A Small, Good Thing." It was a bit shocking to see just how much the two versions of essentially the same story differed. I expected details to be different or cut. I didn't expect that there would be several extra pages that had been cut.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I think I liked "A Small, Good Thing" more than I liked "The Bath" because it wrapped more things up and answered more questions than "The Bath." I didn't really like the ending though, compared to "The Bath." That ending was ambiguous and sudden, but it felt more natural than all of them eating bread together and everything being okay.
When I first glanced over the intro to Carver, I didn’t realize that these pieces were related to each other. So when I finished “The Bath” and moved onto “A Small, Good Thing,” I was extremely confused. I had to go back and make sure I hadn’t started reading “The Bath” again. It was amazing to see how a three or so page story could be transformed from something so simple to something way more complex. Especially because I just turned my three page story into something more than that recently, and it gave me a different few from where it was to where it ended. I liked how he introduced everyone earlier on in “A Small, Good Thing.” In “The Bath” that came off as kind of repetitive to me, yet interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Bath”, I didn’t find myself as invested in the story. I was able to read it and wonder what happened to Scotty, yet once I began reading “A Small, Good Thing” I immediately wanted to understand why Scotty wouldn’t wake up. I thought to myself how much I disliked Dr. Francis because he didn’t even know what was going on with Ann and Howard’s son. I felt much more emotion to the family and hate toward the baker in the second version of the story. I liked how I was able to see how much the story grew from the first version to the second version. It was a good experience.
There are definite differences between “The Bath” and “A Small, Good Thing.” The main thing that I noticed is that “The Bath” leaves out many more details. We discussed in class that Raymond Carver is a minimalist in terms of his writing and I think that “The Bath” really depicts his minimalist style better than “A Small, Good Thing.” I say that because in “The Bath,” Carver was less straightforward in many scenes, such as when Ann meets the African American family in the waiting room. It was much more difficult to understand when the only thing that really happened was the mother repeating, “Is it my Nelson.” I had to reread it a few times until I realized what was going on. “A Small, Good Thing” gives a lot more insight into that scene as well as others, such as the ending of the story. “A Small, Good Thing” has an ending that explains a lot more, but I’m not sure if I necessarily prefer it because I liked the image of the baker as a kind of mean guy. “A Small Good Thing” is longer, but I don’t think it clarifies more because it’s longer. Carver chooses how he says things very particularly and “The Bath” is much vaguer in its wording.
ReplyDeleteBefore I started reading, I noticed that “A Small, Good Thing” was a lot longer than “The Bath,” so I decided to read the former first to see how Carver managed to write a similar story but leave out many details. Both stories are centered on a tragedy- Scotty getting hit by a car and then going into shock- and both have this strange baker guy who keeps calling about the birthday cake. But “The Bath” is so condensed, so “minimalist” I guess, that I feel like if I hadn’t read “A Small, Good Thing” first I would have been really confused.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between these two stories is how Carver expands the scenes of “A Small, Good Thing” whereas in “The Bath” it seems like every sentence is short and kind of unclear. For example, on pgs. 121-122 he writes, “What’s this?” the father said. “Glucose,” the mother said. The husband put his hand to the back… In the second story, we stay in the scene more on pg. 129: “What’s all this?” waving at the glucose and the tube. “Dr. Francis’s orders,” she said. “He needs nourishment…” I liked reading the expanded version more- for me it seemed to flow easier, whereas “The Bath” feels kind of choppy. I’m not even really sure why he called it “The Bath”- it was such a small detail in both stories. I admire Carver’s writing style, though- I imagine it would take a lot of talent to be able to write both ways.
It’s been a while since I’ve read these two stories, but when I’d finished reading “The Bath” first I felt like there was more to the story, more specifically to the ending. But I thought I was just imagining it. But then when I read the second story I realized their connection and read the rest of the story with a heightened sense of awareness of this. I really enjoyed reading “A Small, Good Thing” directly after “The Bath” because I was able to directly compare the differences in style, language and character development. If I had read either story isolated from the other, I think it would’ve been a much different reading. I know that’s a broad description but usually I like reading a text separate from other drafts so I can appreciate it for what it is. But here I found it so interesting to compare the two.
ReplyDelete“The Bath” was much sparser in wording. Take for example the very first paragraph of “The Bath”, where the baker is the one actually “examining her” whereas in “A Small, Good Thing” the mother is the one not only examining his physical features but speculating about his personal life. And skipping to the ending, “The Bath” ends abruptly in the middle of the phone call and the son’s unstable condition. Not only do we not find out about how the boy turns out but we don’t even find out who the ‘mystery caller’ is with the ending we’re given in “The Bath”, compared to the ending of “A Small, Good Thing”. However, after finishing “The Bath” I did like the ending in a way, the unsolved mysteries and the suspense of the moment.
I read these stories pretty late at night, and became horribly confused as I moved from one to the other. I thought at first that it was a misprint. I even began comparing the opening sentences of each, which are the same, but somehow take up different amounts of room on the page. After I figured out the difference though, I really liked this pairing. It seems to me as though this is the best use of the format of Doubletakes so far.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to echo what everyone else has been saying; Carver shines in his use of minimalism. The characters were fully formed on the page before I even knew their names. It was an interesting way to go about character construction. The voice of both pieces was excellent. Carver spends a ton of time inside the heads of the characters, and getting to see exactly how each one is dealing with the situation makes the story vivid and real. If I had to choose, I'd say I liked "The Bath" better. It's just so crazy the way he's able to do as much as he does while saying so little. Also the ending was, to me, more satisfying.
David Foster Wallace made me really appreciate his unique way of writing. In “Forever Overhead”, there is a narrator who spoke directly to the reader, which I recently attempted to do. I did not do it as well though. The narrator was sympathetic to the birthday boy while coming off as really sarcastic and I definitely laughed at certain points. His metaphors also made me laugh, especially on page 622, “Her suit is full of her. The backs of her thighs are squeezed by the suit and look like cheese.” The mixture of tone, breaking the fourth wall, metaphor, and setting (which I also don’t do well) really impressed me.
ReplyDeleteThe settings were amazingly detailed, making it impossible not to picture. “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” was obviously a completely different story, at least to me. The narrator isn’t necessarily talking to us as the reader, but to someone who is “interviewing” him… Or maybe we are the interviewer? But, the narrator rambles on about himself and his lack of arm and how he uses it to pick up and get with women, which is slightly disturbing. However, the way this man talks about himself makes me think that he knows he is wrong, yet he still does it because he was wronged since birth. I thought that this was also extremely clever. All in all, I really enjoyed these stories by David Foster Wallace.
When I read Wallace's “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,” it faintly reminded me of Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” because of the use of a disability to describe a character. In Wallace’s story, Johnny One-Arm is discussing how he uses his disability/lack of a fully developed left arm as a way to maneuver his way into bed with numerous woman who feel pity for him which I kind of found hysterical. I do not necessarily understand why I found it so funny, I just really loved how he called it “the Asset” and how he quilted girls into his bed by playing the “I’m so shameful of the way my arm looks” card. I mean I, personally, would have expected more out of the girls than to just casually give into pity or whatever they felt just because they did not want to make him feel bad. I would hope that occasionally they would realize he has done this a thousand times before, but I guess not. I found that story to be slightly disturbing but also funny at the same time, especially when he says “More pussy than a toilet seat, man. I shit you not (629).”
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