I’ve been rereading Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love collection. His fiction meant a lot to me in college, but I really only read his stories once. I’ve read Cathedral a few times, I’ve listened to it too, but for the most part it’s been one and done. I notice that it makes an impact on me, I note it, but what are you supposed to do with that?
I’m rereading the collection now. The stories are so short that I’ve been reading them a few times over. Two or three times in a row. Trying to figure out both why I like them and what they “mean.”
Meaning is supplied by the reader. I firmly believe that. I believe that the writer has something, sure, but that’s not so much meaning but intent. They’ve got a feeling that brings them to the end, which may be a transformation of what their intent was, and then the reader takes that and translates it to their own experiences.
But reading the stories a few times over, they start to change. They start to talk to each other. Themes and ideas are repeated and a structure is formed. The collection takes on a cohesive, lined form. It is not disparate. It is not wandering. They all feel like they come from the same tree.