Cathedral (short story collection) explained
| Cathedral |
| Author: | Raymond Carver |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Short story |
| Publisher: | Knopf |
| Pub Date: | 1983 |
| Media Type: | Print |
| Pages: | 228 |
| Dewey: | 813/.54 |
| Congress: | PS3553.A7894 C3 1983 |
Cathedral is the third major-press collection of short stories by American writer Raymond Carver, published in 1983.[1] It received critical acclaim and was a finalist for the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[2]
Reception
Cathedral was enthusiastically received by critics. In The New York Times book Review, critic Irving Howe wrote:
The Washington Post wrote that "there are no arid places in Cathedral. Instead there are a dozen stories that overflow with the danger, excitement, mystery and possibility of life."[3]
The stories
The collection contains the following stories:
- "Feathers" - A couple visit another couple who have a peacock and a baby.
- "Chef's House" - Wes rents Chef's house by the ocean and asks wife Edna to come live with him again.
- "Preservation" - Sandy's husband has taken to the sofa since he lost his job as a roofer three months before.
- "The Compartment" - Myers, vacationing in Europe, takes a train to meet his son, who he hasn't seen in eight years.
- "A Small, Good Thing" - An extended version of his earlier short story "The Bath". Scotty, 8, is hit by a car.
- "Vitamins" - Patti decides to sell vitamins door-to-door.
- "Careful" - Lloyd and wife Inez are living separately but she helps him with a problem.
- "Where I'm Calling From" - At Frank Martin's drying out facility with JP, Tiny, and other residents.
- "The Train" - Miss Dent waits in a train station late at night after she used a gun to force a man to kneel and plead for his life.
- "Fever" - Carlyle has trouble finding a babysitter after his wife leaves him and the kids for California.
- "The Bridle" - Marge, a woman who supervises an apartment building in Arizona with her husband Harley, tells the story about a family that moves into an apartment after being displaced from their farm in Minnesota.
- "Cathedral" - Narrated by a man whose wife is old friends with a blind man, the story shows the husband/narrator's distaste for the blind man who is coming to visit him and his wife for a few days. At times it seems that the man is jealous of the blind man for being so close to his wife; at other times it seems that the husband is disgusted by the man's blindness. In the end they bond in a way through the communication they share about what a cathedral looks like.
References
- Carver, Raymond. Cathedral New York: Knopf (1983); London: Collins (1984)
External links
Notes and References
- Web site: CATHEDRAL | Kirkus Reviews. www.kirkusreviews.com.
- Web site: Cathedral, by Raymond Carver (Knopf). The Pulitzer Prizes. November 3, 2023.
- Web site: Ordinary People From An Extraordinary Writer. Jonathan. Yardley. September 4, 1983. www.washingtonpost.com.
