Chapter 17 [postscript]

small two When the collection of short stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, was published in April 1981, traditional realist writing in America was languishing, replaced by experimental postmodern writing of all kinds, novels There is a dizzying array of genres, such as "ultrafiction," "nonfiction," "introspective fiction," and "fable fiction," to name a few.At the same time, the sales of short story collections are extremely difficult. Even short story collections by famous authors can only sell a few thousand copies.Carver's collection of short stories is like a shot in the arm, injecting new life into American short story writing and playing a decisive role in the revival of American realistic writing tradition.The short seventeen stories in the collection also made Carver, who was unknown at the time, a high-profile novelist, and won him the title of "America's Chekhov". After the publication of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", imitators flocked to it, and Carver became the most imitated writer in the United States after Hemingway.American literary magazines of that period often received submissions that editors dubbed "Carverian novels." "Esquire" once published a must-read book list (75 books in total) for modern people, and "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" is one of them.

This literary phenomenon has also received attention in the literary world of another English-speaking country. Bill Buford, editor of the British literary magazine Granta, published a special issue of American fiction in 1983. He said in the introduction : "There seems to be a new kind of fiction emerging in America, a weird and haunting kind of fiction. Not only is it different from what's happening in Britain today, but it's also very different from the usual American novel." From the looks of this category Fiction has similarities with realism, but its narrative techniques are significantly different from traditional realism.Critics have attached various labels to this type of fiction, such as "neorealism," "surrealism," "hyperrealism," "photorealism," and more, while Buford calls it For "dirty realism" (dirtyreali*).Two years later, the Mississippi Review launched a special issue of this kind of "new fiction."Editor Kim Herzinger expresses similar sentiments to Buford in an introduction titled "On the New Fiction": "I suspect that a new class of fiction has emerged, evidenced by the recent publications by major American publishers. tone and structure and the degree to which they receive media attention." In the introduction, Hezinger first applies the term "minimalism" (minimali*), a term usually applied to music and the visual arts, to a literary work.Since then, Carver, the leading figure in this new novel, has been called "the father of minimalism" by some critics.Carver had published four important novel collections during his lifetime, but when mentioning Carver's novels, the first thing people think of is "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", which has almost become a collection of Carver's novels. is a registered trademark, known as the "Bible" of "minimalism" literary writing.

The reason why "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" has such a huge response is that Carver has used a series of refreshing writing techniques in this collection of stories, such as critics often mention unreliable Narrators, non-deterministic narratives, omissions and gaps, etc.The specific manifestation is that the common modifier words in the novel and the explanatory text reflecting the author's point of view are missing.The sentence structure and wording of the novel are simple, and the narrator often stays away from the subject of the event and narrates with a restrained tone.Novels are often composed of several life fragments that seem to be recorded by cameras and tape recorders, and some organic connections between these fragments are artificially omitted, making the plot of the novel vague, and the story is not strong and ambiguous.At the end of the novel, Carver often does not give a definite end, but hints in a vague tone that an upcoming, but probably worse, result.As for the characters in the novel, most of them are manual workers, such as restaurant hostesses, sawmill workers, garage workers, salesmen, motel managers, and so on.These ordinary people have ordinary aspirations and do ordinary things, but they find themselves struggling to survive, unable to achieve life goals that ordinary people don't think are ambitious.Their lives are full of embarrassment and unsatisfaction, broken marriages, unemployment, alcoholism, bankruptcy and so on.Carver's unique narrative technique makes readers feel confused and uncomfortable during the reading process, which helps readers understand the struggle and hopelessness of the characters in the novel.In addition, the form of short stories is also helpful to express the fluidity and transience in modern society, the marginality of people and the fragile self-awareness of modern people.

Carver's most used technique in this collection of novels is omission and vacancy, including the omission and vacancy of the cause of the event, the important plot of the story and the ending.For example, in "Why Don't You Dance", Carver did not explain why "he" sold all the things in the house as second-hand goods, but I believe that readers can find the correct answer after reading this novel ( Although not a definite answer).In "Framing", Carver did not explain the specific situation of "I", not even the name and gender of "I", but readers can read the current situation of "I", a middle-aged man, whose wife and children are separated.In "Tell the Women We're Going Out", Carver omitted the specific description of Jerry's motive and process of killing, making this "sudden" incident even more shocking.In , Carver is lying in the hospital with great concern for the reader

There is no explanation for the fate of the children in the movie.In the little novel "Popular Mechanics", the story ends abruptly at the most tense point.The last sentence of the ending ("This problem is solved in this way.") seems to be the end. In fact, Carver does not explain the fate of the baby here at all, but it is not difficult for readers to imagine the most likely encounter with the baby.This type of ending is what Carver calls an "open ending", and this type of ending abounds in this collection of novels, such as the endings of "Gazebo", "There is so much water at the doorstep", and other novels.

Carver avoids expounding the thoughts and opinions of the characters in the novel.In the last novel of his life, Carver used his literary idol Chekhov to express his own literary point of view: "...do not believe in things that cannot be felt by the five senses...due to the lack of political, religious and From a philosophical point of view... I have to limit myself to describing how my heroes fall in love, get married, have children, die and how they talk to each other." Carver believes that people's thoughts and behaviors in the real world are mostly unconscious, It is contradictory in many cases.For example, in "Paper Bag", the married "I" condemns his father's betrayal of marriage from the heart, but on the other hand, he is attracted by a member of the opposite sex in the bar from time to time.Likewise, Mel in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" accuses his wife of the violence of her past boyfriend while taking pleasure in violent fantasies about hurting her ex-wife.And, although Mel kept talking about his ideals, they were just random and contradictory thoughts.It is through this that Carver creates real characters.

Carver has always been fascinated by people's deficits in communication and expression.The characters in Carver's novels are often unable to articulate themselves, and in many cases, communication between characters is flawed, dialogue is often disjointed, and they can't hear or are willing to listen to each other.The characters in almost every novel in this collection are unable to communicate and express themselves, such as the couples in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" and "There Is So Much Water at Our Door".In "Serious Talk", Burt has been trying to communicate with his ex-wife, but he lacks the ability to communicate, and what he says and does only deepens the gap between them.In "Why Don't You Dance", the girl seems to have a sense of life at the end, but she can't express it in words.At the end of "One More Thing", Carver fully expressed the actor LD's lack of communication skills:

L． D．Tucking the shaving bag under his arm, he picked up the case. "I just want to say one more thing," he said. But he couldn't remember what it was. Rather than saying that Carver changed the way novels are written, it is better to say that he changed the way readers read them.Carver's concise writing style leaves a lot of room for the readers' imagination.Those incomplete plots and stories that seem to have no ending force readers to think, to care more about what is not written, and to draw different conclusions according to their own understanding.This kind of interventional reading is extremely stimulating to the brain and enhances the pleasure in the reading process.Canadian poet and writer Margaret Atwood called Carver's novels "everything that happens is hidden between the lines, and much of it is stuff you don't want to know... Still, you want to know them, and there's nothing stopping you Do it this way."

It was the first time I read Carver's novels in Su Tong's "A Lifetime Literary Collection". Su Tong chose "Horse Bridle" translated by Mr. Zhu Wan.In the process of reading this novel, I experienced an unprecedented feeling and was overwhelmed by Carver's unique narrative technique.After reading all of Carver's short stories, I had the desire to faithfully introduce the works of Carver, a famous short story master, to Chinese readers, so that everyone can experience the unique subtle feelings in the process of reading Carver's novels.Carver's works seem simple, but there are certain challenges in translation, mainly how to accurately express its unique intonation in Chinese.In addition, Carver likes to use slang in the novel, some of which are no longer popular, which also adds a certain degree of difficulty to translation.By translating Carver's works, I got to know a large number of Carver lovers.I am grateful to the Carver fans gathered in the Douban Carver group for their expectations, encouragement and support.Thanks to Yilin Publishing House for giving me the opportunity to translate Carver's famous collection of novels.Finally, I would like to thank my wife and two daughters for tolerating my neglect of them due to my focus on translation and for giving me great encouragement and support.