Customer Reviews

Elephant and Other Stories

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Carver's last collection before his untimely death haunts the reader-not only for the quality of the stories, but knowing that Carver was expanding his scope and exploring new ground. What works have been denied the world ?
The stories are longer in this collection than in his earlier work (7 stories here as opposed to the 17 he squeezed into the same space in 'What we Talk about.....')and amidst the 'ordinariness' of his situations and characters, he expands into reflecting on the modern world they inhabit; how its soulessness affects the human condition and our search for identity and meaning.
'Elephant' is an almost comic story of a man propping up-financially and as an emotional focal point-his whole family in the easy credit/chronic inescapable debt world around him, predicting the 90's and the 2007 crash.
Like Carver himself the characters are all divorced/remarried/alcoholics/on the wagon. Drink and relationships oil and obliterate things in Carver's world.
The final tale, 'Errand' tells of the death of Checkhov and like one of Checkhov's plays,Carver gives roles to all those who were historical witnesses to the event;each playing a part in Checkhov's curtain scene.Its probably this story that (as I've said)leaves you with the sadness that Carver didn't live to further explore this new avenue he'd found.
A great writer, another great collection.

If you haven't read Raymond Carver before, this is probably the wrong book with which you should start. His stories "Cathedral", "Nobody Said Anything", and "Where I'm Calling From" (to name just a few of my favorites) represent his best work; the stories contained in "Elephant" do not. Although "Intimacy" and "Blackbird Pie" are two very strong stories in "Elephant", I would reach back further if you truly want to enjoy Carver at his best. This book is really only worth the money if you are a Carver completist looking to own everything he put into print.

What I can't understand is not the revered tedium of Raymond Carver, but how Robert Altman managed to use this sterile material to create one of the great, rich tragicomic masterpieces of the last twenty years. The closing story here, about the death of Chekhov, is an attempt to extend his range, but the flat biographical style, the phoney insertions of 'meaningful' details and 'significant' events, the clumsy gropings for understated emotion, are quite intolerable.