What do you think?
Rate this book
Viewfinder
- GenresShort Stories
Unknown Binding
24 people want to read
About the author
Raymond Carver
359 books5,142 followersCarver was born into a poverty-stricken family at the tail-end of the Depression. He married at 19, started a series of menial jobs and his own career of 'full-time drinking as a serious pursuit', a career that would eventually kill him. Constantly struggling to support his wife and family, Carver enrolled in a writing programme under author John Gardner in 1958. He saw this opportunity as a turning point.
Rejecting the more experimental fiction of the 60s and 70s, he pioneered a precisionist realism reinventing the American short story during the eighties, heading the line of so-called 'dirty realists' or 'K-mart realists'. Set in trailer parks and shopping malls, they are stories of banal lives that turn on a seemingly insignificant detail. Carver writes with meticulous economy, suddenly bringing a life into focus in a similar way to the paintings of Edward Hopper. As well as being a master of the short story, he was an accomplished poet publishing several highly acclaimed volumes.
After the 'line of demarcation' in Carver's life - 2 June 1977, the day he stopped drinking - his stories become increasingly more redemptive and expansive. Alcohol had eventually shattered his health, his work and his family - his first marriage effectively ending in 1978. He finally married his long-term parter Tess Gallagher (they met ten years earlier at a writers' conference in Dallas) in Reno, Nevada, less than two months before he eventually lost his fight with cancer.
Rejecting the more experimental fiction of the 60s and 70s, he pioneered a precisionist realism reinventing the American short story during the eighties, heading the line of so-called 'dirty realists' or 'K-mart realists'. Set in trailer parks and shopping malls, they are stories of banal lives that turn on a seemingly insignificant detail. Carver writes with meticulous economy, suddenly bringing a life into focus in a similar way to the paintings of Edward Hopper. As well as being a master of the short story, he was an accomplished poet publishing several highly acclaimed volumes.
After the 'line of demarcation' in Carver's life - 2 June 1977, the day he stopped drinking - his stories become increasingly more redemptive and expansive. Alcohol had eventually shattered his health, his work and his family - his first marriage effectively ending in 1978. He finally married his long-term parter Tess Gallagher (they met ten years earlier at a writers' conference in Dallas) in Reno, Nevada, less than two months before he eventually lost his fight with cancer.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 7, 2016
He does take the minimal style and go interesting places with it, one thing developing organically out of the other.
August 22, 2018
When a hooked photographer can't shoot motion.
December 11, 2020
This was read as part of This Is What We Mean When We Talk About Love. It wasn't one of my favorites, but still enjoyable.
A photographer with hooks for hands takes a picture of a man's house, sells it to the man, and the man invites him in to talk about his hook hands. The man offers him coffee to see how he holds it and has the photographer go around his house and take more pictures.
A photographer with hooks for hands takes a picture of a man's house, sells it to the man, and the man invites him in to talk about his hook hands. The man offers him coffee to see how he holds it and has the photographer go around his house and take more pictures.
December 9, 2021
simple and minimalistic. i think i might just be too young to fully grasp the idea of a spouse and children leaving you and the impact that has on a person, but i liked the language and the story overall.
October 4, 2025
Why Don’t You Dance? Viewfinder and Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit by Raymond Carver
Very good, if somewhat bizarre narratives
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
Why Don’t You Dance?
In the first narrative, we have a man that is selling all his things in order to or being in the process of starting all over again.
A young couple is interested in some of the items on display…
- How much for the bed?
- 50
- Will you take 40?
- Yes
- How about the TV?
- 25?
- Will you take 15
- Ok
They are also interested in a desk and the girl had established the protocol to follow before the owner came up, with a bottle of drink.
- Whatever he asks for, you suggest 10 dollars less…
The man selling the stuff offers his clients a drink and the boy is pouring it in paper cups, with water for his partner.
She insisted on the young man kissing her, while she was testing the bed, which I found somewhat inappropriate, I am not sure why.
After they agree on the price for the bed and the TV, the drinking fellow is asking for an offer for the desk.
- I will put some record and you know, they are for sale…
- Why don’t you dance?...and ergo the title of the story
Viewfinder
The second short tale has two characters.
One is the owner of the house being photographed by the second.
The photographer is selling his pictures and he has no arms.
- Come in…I made some coffee
- May I use your bathroom
- Yes, it is down the hall
The owner of the house wants an offer for more pictures that he wants and he gets at three for one dollar.
Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit
This last story is also a bit bizarre.
The narrator finds his mother, who is over sixty, kissing a man on the couch.
Sixty is the new forty, but still…
His wife is also “giving it away”.
The man responsible for the infidelity of the wife is walking with a limp.
He had been shot by his first wife and he has too many children.
Very good, if somewhat bizarre narratives
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
Why Don’t You Dance?
In the first narrative, we have a man that is selling all his things in order to or being in the process of starting all over again.
A young couple is interested in some of the items on display…
- How much for the bed?
- 50
- Will you take 40?
- Yes
- How about the TV?
- 25?
- Will you take 15
- Ok
They are also interested in a desk and the girl had established the protocol to follow before the owner came up, with a bottle of drink.
- Whatever he asks for, you suggest 10 dollars less…
The man selling the stuff offers his clients a drink and the boy is pouring it in paper cups, with water for his partner.
She insisted on the young man kissing her, while she was testing the bed, which I found somewhat inappropriate, I am not sure why.
After they agree on the price for the bed and the TV, the drinking fellow is asking for an offer for the desk.
- I will put some record and you know, they are for sale…
- Why don’t you dance?...and ergo the title of the story
Viewfinder
The second short tale has two characters.
One is the owner of the house being photographed by the second.
The photographer is selling his pictures and he has no arms.
- Come in…I made some coffee
- May I use your bathroom
- Yes, it is down the hall
The owner of the house wants an offer for more pictures that he wants and he gets at three for one dollar.
Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit
This last story is also a bit bizarre.
The narrator finds his mother, who is over sixty, kissing a man on the couch.
Sixty is the new forty, but still…
His wife is also “giving it away”.
The man responsible for the infidelity of the wife is walking with a limp.
He had been shot by his first wife and he has too many children.
November 26, 2025
Not one of my favorite of Carver's but it is perfectly weird enough and perfectly short enough for the Night School High School English course I am teaching. So, we read it. None of the students had read a Carver before and even fewer had any idea what the fuck they just read. I, on the other hand (hook), found it sufficiently sad. But, I am prone to like Carver's minimalism and easily fall for this type of bizarro realism. A very Coen Brothers vibe to this one.
Read, ripped, and printed from archive.org.
Read, ripped, and printed from archive.org.
September 28, 2024
Read again as a part of his collection, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." I mean, I get the minimalism, I get the writing about simplicity and loss and such. But is it really that profound as some say it is? Not really. Did I enjoy it more than the previous story? Yes, I'd say so. What I enjoyed about it was that there was meaningful interaction, and the characters had more...character to them, you could say.
January 13, 2016
Read as part of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews