In Anatole Broyard's Intoxicated by My Illness, instead of confronting the reality of his illness, he tries to rise above it. From the moment he found out he had been diagnosed with cancer of the prostate, Broyard was composed about it. "He felt something like relief" he says. He figures you have two choices when your life is threatened, "you can turn towards it or away from it" He turned toward it and let the illness make him even more appreciative for being alive. Although he had realized for the
Ray Carver's collection "Where I'm Calling From" After reading more than a dozen of Ray Carver’s short stories from his collection Where I'm Calling From, I have to ask the question, "Where was Carver calling from?" On the surface, his stories seem very simple. They are about people with average jobs such as hotel managers, waitresses, salesmen, and secretaries, who live unsophisticated, mediocre lives. Below the surface, however, there is always more to be discovered if the reader is willing
Too close for comfort Yet the similarity between these two stories raises some interesting questions about how we read Carver. That he is adored as few late-century American writers are is not news -- as Bloom points out there's almost a cult of Carver. Readers treasure not only his taut, bleak, deeply moving short stories but the legend of his life, as well: unhappy, alcoholic, stifled by frustrating poverty and saddled with the overwhelming responsibilities of teenage parenthood ("[My wife and
Donald Barthelme has been called “probably the most perversely gifted writer in the U.S.'; As well as “ one of the best, most significant and carefully developing young American writers'; (Harte and Riley, 41). He was born April 7, 1931 to Donald and Helen Barthelme in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Barthelme had a wide range of careers during his lifetime. He worked as a newspaper reporter and as a managing editor of Location, and art and literature review (Harte and Riley, 41). His other