Elephant And Other Stories [Paperback]

Raymond Carver (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Harvill (1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1860461018
• ISBN-13: 978-1860461019
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,427,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Raymond Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, in 1938. His father was a saw-mill worker and his mother was a waitress and clerk. He married early and for years writing had to come second to earning a living for his young family. Despite, small-press publication, it was not until Will You Please Be Quiet Please? appeared in 1976 that his work began to reach a wider audience. This was the year in which he gave up alcohol, which had contributed to the collapse of his marriage. In 1977 he met the writer Tess Gallagher, with whom he shared the last eleven years of his life. During this prolific period he wrote three collections of stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Cathedral and Elephant. Fires, a collection of essays, poems and stories, appeared in 1985, followed by three further collections of poetry. In 1988 he completed the poetry collection A New Path to the Waterfall.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars New Dawn Fades, January 25, 2011

By 

An admirer of Saul "Mr Wobble" (uk) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elephant and Other Stories (Paperback)

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.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Carver Collection, November 29, 2007

By 

Carver "carver76" (Omaha, NE United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Elephant and Other Stories (Paperback)

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.

1 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Carver is no Chekhov., January 26, 2000

By 

darragh o'donoghue - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elephant (Limited ed) (Paperback)

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.