“I like it when there is some feeling of threat or sense of menace in short stories. I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it’s good for the circulation. There has to be tension, a sense that something is imminent, that certain things are in relentless motion, or else, most often, there simply won’t be a story. What creates tension in a piece of fiction is partly the way the concrete words are linked together to make up the visible action of the story. But it’s also the things that are left out, that are implied, the landscape just under the smooth (but sometimes broken and unsettled) surface of things”
I agree with Carver. I agree with him absolutley 100% because even though a short story is only a few pages it should still have the same effect for the reader, and should stir up emotions, same as a long novel does. People dont read works of litterature just to pass the time, people pick up books because they want to be affected in some sense, they want to know that what they are reading has a point. Really now, if we humans wanted to fill ourselves with something that gives us no true meaning or value, we would just stick to filling our days watching ‘Jersey Shore’.
I think of it this way, a book is a movie that hasnt been filmed yet. And movies that have little to no plot certainly arent award winning films. Why waste your time writing something as an author, if it makes no difference in anybodys life. And why waste your time reading something as a reader if it makes no impact on you, and doesnt toy with your emotions at all. It is human nature to want to be surprised, and to want to be stimulated in some way. I think it is safe to say that we dont want to life boring lives.
I think that Carver follows his own advice with cathedral because with each sentence you read, you question the narrators sanity. Not in a way that you would think that he needs to be locked up, but in a sense that it arises questions within you, internally. Why does he keep jumping from topic to topic. Anyways i really enjoyed reading “cathedral.”
