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For example, I think we've all heard about the power of compounding--and how it can turn a modest savings into a significant nest egg over time. However, very few people take this to heart and apply it to their daily money management decisions, because they feel it requires too much work or they feel helpless in controlling their expenses. What the authors do is demonstrate, by using specific examples and crunching the numbers, that even minor expenditures today can have significant economic impact down the road. They show that by making certain choices early on in one's life, nearly ANYONE can build a fortune in America. It truly doesn't require a genius or lots of luck to become rich today. Moreover, the authors point out that one doesn't have to sacrifice all of life's pleasures or live like a pauper in order to achieve financial security. All it takes is a little prudent savings and investing. If you believe in the opportunity to achieve wealth in this country, but have trouble getting motivated and taking action, this book is for you.
The chapter on investing is excellent. The authors explain how trying to beat the market is futile, and "safe" returns can be riddled with risk over the long haul (due to inflation). If you believe that you are just as capable of managing your investments as paid experts, you'll like this book.
Most people aren't aware of the return on education; I know I went to college just because it was the thing to do (and my parents wouldn't have it any other way ;) This book describes how increasing one's education level can substantially affect (negatively and positively) one's earnings. It's very interesting reading.
What this book also emphasizes, that most other financial advice books neglect to mention, is that living a good lifestyle is not only satisfying but also FINANCIALLY rewarding. Practicing good ethics enables a person to feel good about him/herself (leading to a more productive life), and making healthy lifestyle choices extends your life (thereby allowing the power of compounding to work longer). If you want validation that doing the right thing and living responsibly is rewarding emotionally AND financially, then read this book.
The only point that I have a minor quibble with is: getting married is good for wealth building. I understand what the authors are trying to say, which (I think) is: being in a committed relationship and having a contributing partner can accelerate the wealth building process. However, I don't believe that the actual marriage contract is necessary for achieving wealth. While marriage may help some couples stay together, it can also provide a false sense of security for others (causing them to stop working as hard on maintaining the relationship). Some people choose not to get married because they have no desire to produce offspring, others do it to avoid the "marriage tax penalty". I think unmarried, committed couples are just as likely to build significant wealth (and live fulfilling lives) as married couples. Anyway, I'm being technical here, and what's important is that the authors do get their point across.
I really liked this book, and I am practicing all the principles described in it. I find my peace of mind higher than ever, knowing that I'm well on the path towards a secure future.
Anyway, the poetry shines here, which is good because they take up the majority of the book. The essays are nice as well, showing a slightly different side of the author. They may be more valuable to a Carver enthusiast like myself than to someone picking him up for the first time. The stories are okay, but I'd rather read "Cathedral" or "What we Talk About" for the stories. There is something precious about a final edition, the edition the author decided he wanted you to see when he wrote the piece. Most of these stories are earlier editions.
So. A good book for a Carver enthusiast. It has turned me on to his poetry, and I'll have to check more of it out now. Not the first Carver book you should read, though. That would be Cathedral, I think.
But here, you get a bonus, the essays that define his work like "On Writing" and a profound essay on his experience taking a creative writing class with the late author John Gardner as his teacher. Gardner had nothing published at the time, but he saw something in Carver and gave him the key to his office to write. Carver displays admiration and respect for Gardner.
As anyone who is familiar with Carver's books, you know he revised and retitled some stories. Most likely, the best original version of "Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fix It" is this early version, titled, "Where is Everyone?"
The bulk of work in this collection is the poems. The Charles Bukowski poem is here, plus others that reflect Carver's world. A poem "Distress Sale" depicts sadness that Carver endured early in his first marriage. If you like Raymond Carver, you will enjoy this book.....MzRizz.
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The Cunning Man is an examination of the life of a doctor, told by himself. Asked to recall the story of the strange death of Father Ninian Hobbes which he witnessed, he recounts his past; his childhood, his schooling, the work of his profession, the influences that have made him who he is. In doing so, he shares with us his observations on the nature of life, love, art, illness, friendship, and many other things. Davies lets us have a picture of life, complete with accomplishments and disappointments, dreams and dreams undone, and makes it real and interesting and intelligent. I can understand the appeal he has for his fans and I will be reading more of Davies' books soon.
Davies' narrator is Dr. Jonathan Hullah, a physician of unusual diagnostic skills and adroit healing powers. He is known as the cunning man, a term hearkening back to English village life in which a sort of village know-all could do a little of everything, from setting broken bones to doctoring horses. He was the wizard of folk tradition, the cunning man. The Cunning Man is Dr. Hullah's fascinating reminiscence of life, from boyhood apprenticeship with an old Indian healer to his service in the medical corps during World War II, then on to his unusual medical practice (which included such orthodox measures as having his patients strip off their clothes and lay on an exam table while he sniffed them.) Hullah narrates this while at the same time conducting a search into the mysterious death of his parish priest while saying mass. This combination memoir/mystery novel was, as I said earlier, the most pleasurable book I read in 2000. If the chief end of a novel is entertainment, then this book succeeded admirably.
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This book comes with four new stories recently discovered, a couple of great essays (the great "My father's life"), early stories, introductions, books reviews and a small uncomppleted fragment of a novel. Definitively, it's Carver for friends. If you are not familiar with his books, you should start with his most famous books, as "What we talk abgout when we talk about love", or his first collection of stories, "Will you please be quiet, please?". Any other case, you are welcome to enter this house.
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Professor Hallett's book provides nice background on literary minimalism's roots. In addition, Hallett does a nice job delineating minimalism from an overall economy of language (i.e. minimalism is not simply spare writing--a confusion too many book reviewers are guilty of spreading). Also, Hallett makes a decent comparison between the minimalists and the post-modernists, aruguing (rightly) that the two sides aren't so far apart.
Sure, I have some small concerns with this book. The background material on minimalism itself is more useful than Hallett's discussion of the authors themselves. If you're looking for a thorough examination of Carver, Robison, and Hempel, you're probably best off searching elsewhere. These three writers are sort of glossed over, no single story by any of them receives much treatment, and thus the reader is left with the feeling that he/she is reading synopsis rather than analysis. Of the three writers examined, Hempel probably receives the most (and best) attention. I'm not sure I've been further enlightened about Carver and Robison after reading this book.
Still, for those who want an introductory splash into a frequently misunderstood fictional movement, you should begin here.
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Well said. _Understanding Raymond Carver_ is the kind of thin textbook you would expect to read in an undergraduate Figures of Literature class at a public liberal arts college. Saltzman only scratches the surface of literary criticism and interpretation regarding Carver, but adequately. For students: you will find decent quotes to support your research papers. For nonacademic readers: you will find brief critical analyses of your favorite stories.
Here's an illustrative section:
"Because Carver's locations are unexceptional, they are deceptively lulling, seeming immune to eventfulness; yet all the while, in familiar homes and neighborhoods, acts of brinkmanship regularly take place. What, for example, could be less precipitous than a waitress serving a customer? Yet in 'Fat' the event looms monumentally in her consciousness. Breathless and repetitive, the narrator anxiously tries to 'sell' her friend on the significance of the tale of her incredibly fat customer as if she had just been implicated in some vague parable. However, she cannot pin down the reason its having unsettled her so: 'Now that's part of it. I think that is really part of it.' 'I know now I was after something. But I don't know what.' 'Waiting for what? I'd like to know.' "
"Perhaps it is the surprising dignity and pleasantness of the fat man that is so remarkable -- one can easily surmise what sort of course [sic] treatment she is accustomed to -- and that causes her to defend him against the rude remarks of her co-workers. Perhaps his use of the royal 'we' to refer to himself, as though he needed to measure up verbally to his size, makes her realize how dwarfed and submissive she has been. Or perhaps the jokes about her being 'sweet' on him lead her to evaluate her relationship with Rudy, who is similarly incapable of appreciating feelings she can hardly approximate. (During their lovemaking, she imagines herself to be so astonishingly fat that Rudy disappears within her bulk.) Her inarticulateness stakes out the limits of her growth of consciousness. Significantly, although she believes her life will change -- the meeting with the mysterious fat man surely heralds it -- she characterizes herself as passive, waiting for a transformation. 'Fat' concludes with the narrator prepared for something different but at a loss as to what that 'something' could be or how she would go about initiating it. Insight extends no further than dissatisfaction."
Saltzman provides an overview of Carver's style and themes; has a chapter for each of the four major collections (_Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?_, _Furious Seasons_, _What We Talk About When We Talk About Love_, and _Cathedral_); and one for selected poems. His conclusion "feels" dated (the text was published in 1988), but is otherwise adequate.
Overall, this is a good text, worth having if you are a dedicated Carver reader.
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If you are new to Raymond Carver's stories and poems, you may overlook this as you become ensconced into what has become known as Carver Country. Ruyon astutely explains these connections. An example: In the story "Intimacy", the last line, the narrator sees the need to pick up the leaves strewn, while the beginning of the next story, "Menudo", the narrator is unable to put up with the accumulation of leaves.
In Carver's story "Collectors", narrator Slater, waiting for the mailman, would "look through the curtain" while the next "What Do in San Francisco?", the narrator becomes the mailman who tells that the resident, Marston, would be "looking out at me through the curtain".
This is, indeed, an excellent book that not only gives us this insight, but it has interpretation of the stories we, as readers, may or may not agree with. There isn't a need to search for these connections, but the noted premise doesn't hurt. Excellent reference material. ....MzRizz.
"This interview with the late RAYMOND CARVER 'provides a window on the interplay between the writer's life and art, throwing light on the stories' origins and revealing overlooked aspects, such as their humorous side. . . . a stimulating introduction to Carver's work' (Library Journal).
"Kay Bonetti conducted this interview with CARVER in May 1983, just after he won the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters."
Okay, that's what the cassette cover says, and for the most part, it's accurate. Carver does talk about the origins of some of his stories, but the "humorous" side is basically limited to two stories - "Put Yourself In My Shoes," which is identifiable as humorous without Carver or Bonetti telling you so; and "A Serious Talk," where the only direct humor comes from Burt's theft of six pumpkin pies, "one for every ten times she had ever betrayed him." Bonetti and Carver admit there's some "dark" humor in the story, but leave it at that.
Leaving the cassette cover, let's talk about content. I'd have to give this item 3 stars for content - much of the information that Carver and Bonetti discuss is available elsewhere. It's not really a secret that Carver admired Chekhov, liked to rewrite, and grew up in a white collar family. I don't think I really learned anything "new" about Carver from this interview.
I have to give this item 2 stars for sound quality, though. You will want to keep your hand by the volume knob. I can organize the difficulties with this tape for you:
*Carver tends to mumble. He often sounds uncomfortable during the interview, as if he'd rather be anywhere else.
*You can hear street noises in the background (car horns, and at one point a creaky door as someone enters or leaves the studio).
*The tape has not been digitally remastered. It was originally recorded in 1983, and it sure sounds like it.
Rounding out the scores, I'd give this item 4 stars for rarity. It's wonderful to hear Carver "in person". It's especially touching when he talks about about "Cathedral," which at the time of this recording had not been published. He discusses it in very abstract terms, describing it as an "opening up" of his work, something he'd never done before. I won't ruin the content for you, but I will say his discussion of the _Cathedral_ collection is one of my favorite sections of the interview.
Overall, I still say the item (sadly) deserves 3 stars; but if you're a real Carver fan, it's nice to have in your collection, and the price is very reasonable. Also great for teachers of AP Lit or Intro to Literary Figures.