Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? Book Review

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (WYPBQP) was my second slice of the Carver cake and helped to affirm my previously tentative positive opinion towards its works, exploring themes as equally as interesting as those in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love such as eating disorders, mental illness and solitude. Carver’s brief, minimalist, bare writing style continued to dress proceedings and whilst this caused a few misses, with regards to the tales of the collection, for many it increased their intensity and had an overwhelmingly positive effect. As always Carver uses very relatable characters, ‘sales[men] for…machine parts firms’, characters who would uses phrases such as ‘you dumb chickenshit’ as part of their everyday vocabulary or who would refer to depression as a ‘bummer’. These are characters who just want to ‘live a good honest life without having to worry about money and bills and things like that’ and who are believable, relatable and so more sympathetic than the fantastical characters of some of his contemporaries.

As in the first Carver collection I read, in WYPBQP disconnect and loneliness continued to be frequent themes among the tales. The issue is explored in a variety of intriguing means which I shall now endeavour to outline. Primarily in the story entitled What Do You Do In San Francisco work is presented as a tool for covering up the issue of loneliness and disconnect, neutralising it almost as seen in the line ‘a man who isn’t working has got too much time on his hands, too much time to dwell on himself and his problems’, delivered near the end as we realise that the protagonist’s own seemingly stable state is only due to his occupation. Carver also frequently describes many fathers being disconnected from their family units, as exemplified by the following quote from Jerry and Molly and Sam where the father notes his children and wife as returning from ‘someplace or another’, his lack of knowledge over the specifics indicating his isolation somewhat, whilst in Sixty Acres the father (Lee) is noted as being ‘left by himself’. However, the most striking example of a father’s disconnect from his family comes in the story The Father. Despite sharing a sense of brotherhood with his baby, the baby ‘[being] a boy too’ the titular character is conveyed as follows:

‘the father was sitting at the table

with his back to them.’

The body language in the above extract seems to suggest a complete withdrawal from those around him, the father not even giving eye contact to the rest of the family unit as he faces his ‘back’ to them. In the tale entitled Fat, Carver successfully employs the use of the first person plural to highlight the fat man’s solitude, the plural at least giving the sense of some form of comradeship. This is illustrated by his noting that ‘we don’t mind’. Carver also uses vacant conversations that only ‘scratch the surface’ as it were to highlight this sense of disconnect, as exemplified by the empty repetition of the line from Neighbours, ‘have fun…have fun’. Actions often speak louder than words in Carver’s works, as showcased by the disconnect as expressed in ‘staring past, over me’ in the tale What Do You Do In San Francisco. Two instances of parent-child disconnect in the collection struck me in particular that of Why, Honey and Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes. In the former the protagonist’s son becomes nothing more than a stranger as their relationship reaches its destruction as conveyed in the following line:

‘I should be the proudest mother in all the land

but I am only afraid.’

The juxtaposition between the overt superlative of ‘proudest’ and the timid adjective ‘afraid’ highlights the thwarted situation as a mother cannot be happy for her son’s vocational success thanks to their non-existent relationship. The following quote from Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes follows the father taking battle with a local in front of his horrified son. The father who is the protagonist notes that a similar event happened to him during his childhood, leading to his recalling of his father’s ‘one fist fight as if it were all there was to him’. Evidence of a similar occurrence happening in the present-day is presented by the following line’:

‘he moved to kiss his son,

but the boy began talking.’

The obvious wish to avoid physical connection to his dad on the son’s part is rather upsetting to the reader (the father’s one mistake being portrayed as rather understandable) and is made even more so by the transition from the familial ‘son’ to the distant ‘the boy’  in just this one line.

Mental illness, more specifically being a psychopath, is also a theme explored by Carver in the collection, in They’re Not Your Husband he paints a particularly interesting portrait of the issue. In the disturbing tale, a control freak husband demands his wife to ‘give a diet some thought’ following an ear in to society’s opinion on her looks. He then proceeds to implement an impersonal, dictatorial regime on her, as exemplified by the following few lines:

‘at home he had Doreen take off all her clothes and get on the scale. He frowned when he saw the veins. He ran his finger the length of one that spouted up her thigh’

Indeed, the husband seems more like a doctor than a close relative. The tale gets its name from the man’s defiant defence of his controlling manners of his wife, as others ‘[are] not [her] husband’, they cannot challenge his authority over her. An equally interesting portrayal comes from the pointless cruelty detailed in Night School when the protagonist coldly thinks of the women he’s left waiting outside in the cold for a lift in the quote ‘the women, they weren’t there when I left, and they wouldn’t be there when I got back’. It comes across as rather ironic to the reader than a previous conversation he had with these two women involved the horrors of ‘being betrayed by somebody in your family’ when they are on the brink of being betrayed by a stranger. However, for me, the most striking betrayal of cruelty and mental illness was that of Why, Honey? In the tale, the protagonist’s mother frets over why her son is continually lying to her, unable to compute as to ‘what…he gain[s]’. It becomes rather apparent that what he gains is a sense of power, being part of that elite who know the actual truth being rather satisfying to him and thus it barely shocks the reader that is eventual occupation is one of great power (he becomes a politician). His psychopathic tendencies, if not made clear thus far, are made evident when the mother, in noting a bundle of clothes ‘full of blood’ in the backseat of his car sees him devilishly staring at her ‘watching out of the window’. If ever there were a face of evil, this is one.

Two new themes that sprung to the forefront in WYPNQP that were by no means so prominent in WWTAWWTAL were weight orders and smoking. Interestingly weight is at the centre of two of the early tales Fat and They’re Not Your Husband. Carver portrays weight as a label for life as outlined in the tale Fat when a character reminisces of his schoolmate ‘Fat’, this being ‘the only name [he] had’. The fat man’s acknowledgment of this fact is showcased by how he self-consciously ‘wear[s] a coat’ for decency’s sake almost. Carver equally illustrates weight as being an issue created by society, the protagonist of They’re Not Your Husband not taking his wife’s size as an issue until he overhears two passers-by mocking her because of it. ‘Fatness’ is also seen as being mostly psychological, the ‘emotional fatness’ of the fat man being passed on to the protagonist at the rather ambiguous ending as seen in the line ‘I feel I am terrifically fat’. Smoking as a subject was so prominent in this collection that I was shocked actually when it was not mentioned in a story and naturally Carver paints the issue in a variety of ways. First and foremost smoking is portrayed as a tool of preoccupation, as seen in Neighbours when the protagonist, away from the alluring beauty of his wealthy friend’s flat turns to smoking to fill the void. Smoking is seen as a quintessentially manly thing to do, as can be emphasised in They’re Not Your Husband by it being a ‘man [who] lit a cigarette’. In Nobody Said Anything smoking is a tool for rebellion whilst in What’s In Alaska smoking is used for digression as exemplified by the line ‘I need to be diverted tonight’ as the wife asks for a ciggy. One of the more interesting presentations of smoking is as an indicator of mental illness in Jerry and Sam and Molly. The following quote conveys this:

‘when you’re depressed it shows all over you,

even in  the wat you light a cigarette.’

Finally, and most obviously, Carver places emphasis on the addictive nature of smoking, the protagonist of Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes in fact attempting to give it up. The following section was particularly revealing of the difficulty of such a feat…

‘he reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette.

Then, breathing deeply, he passed the back of his hand under his nose.’

Here the physical action of drawing a cigarette out of his pocket seems to be ingrained in the protagonist and smoking is portrayed as the natural go-to in stressful times. Without smoking, a vacant hole is left that is filled up with difficulty.

Those who have read my earlier article on Carver may remember my extensive exploration of his portrayal of the male characters in particular, who are often seen as primitive sex pests. This is seen also in WYPBQP though less frequently so, however the few times Carver adds to this thesis it is done completely transparently. In Nobody Said Anything Carver plainly supports this thesis, two males primitively competing over a kill as seen in ‘neither of us letting go of his end of the stick [that carried the fish]’. Equally in Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes the brutal fight that occurs between two otherwise respectable men degrades them to the status of mere animals. The stagnation of relationships and general stagnation of life is a theme Carver also uses religiously and he expresses it in a variety of intriguing ways. In Are You Not A Doctor? the stagnation of a relationship is portrayed in the dialogue used, the formal speak of ‘Arnold. Arnold Breit speaking’ to a partner clearly suggesting that things are drying up. A sense of numbness towards life is also often portrayed, most evidently so in Nobody Said Anything in which the mother merely ‘glance[s] at the TV’ despite having earlier instructed her son to not turn it on. Stagnation is also seen in the setting, the dull repetitive, closed-off suburbia Carver often uses exemplifying this. For instance in What Do You Do In San Francisco people in the local area ‘aren’t used to seeing mean wear beards’ indicating a lack of variety and thus an overarching sense of boredom. Carver also portrays this sense of stagnation physically in the bodies of his characters, most frequently that of the trophy housewife. The following two lines demonstrate this…

‘she looked tired, irritable…older’ (Jerry and Sam and Molly)

‘thighs that were rumpled and gray and a little hairy and veins that spread in a bezerk display’ (They’re Not Your Husband)

The emphatic ellipsis of the former illuminates this type of physical decay whilst the unappealing semantic field of revolting adjectives helps the firm conclusion to be reached that happier, healthier days have passed.

Many of the actions that cause the disputes and the overall plots of many of the tales are done by impulse, uncontrollably so, almost as if a reflex action (which, in biological terms, does not use an impulse that passes through the brain but via the spinal cord, indicating no thought of the possible repercussions). This sense of impulse is used in many ways, primarily in relation to eating disorders, in Fat it being noted that ‘there is no choice’ in gluttony. Impulse is also associated with infidelity (a favourite topic of Carver’s) as seen in the titular tale when an unfaithful wife defends herself with the following words:

‘it was impulse, that’s all I can say.

It was the wrong impulse.’

Finally, impulse is showcased in association with evil, the protagonist of Jerry and Sam and Molly exclaiming soon after he has abandoned his dog, ‘what have I done’, as the sheen of impulse fades away. Carver is perhaps trying to outlie how our will can only get us so far in life and that often in the moment it fades to nothing as we complete actions our sensible selves would look at with horror. 

This seems to thus suggest an understanding towards cheats and wrongdoers and that we should look at them more kindly than we do, anyone can make a mistake when following their impulse.

The wish for a better life, with abounding wealth etc. is the main theme in the tales Neighbours and Signals. Such a wish manages to temporarily elevate one couple whilst it immediately destroys another. The former couple in Neighbours enjoy, for a short period, a more fruitful sex life than ever before due to being faced with the allure of wealth in housekeeping for their rich friends. This being completely struck by the lustre of wealth can be seen how, in following a visit to the house, the wife notes how ‘[she] didn’t feed Kitty or so any watering’, this being the task she had set out to do in the first place.  Thanks to these visits however, there is a revival in their sex life, as seen in the unexplained demand following a visit on the husband’s part of ‘let’s go to bed, honey’. However, once this holiday ends as they lose the keys to the apartment, the usual misery returns, the couple ‘lean[ing] into the door as if against a wind…brace[ing] themselves’. In the second example, a divide surfaces between the refined wife looking for an increased standard of living and the brutish husband (he refuses a guided tour of an exquisite wine cellar for instance). This is highlighted by the husband’s remark that ‘[he does not] like the group [his wife has] been keeping company with lately’.

As always with Carver, there were a many hits but a few misses in this collection. The most noticeable examples of the latter were What’s In Alaska where I found his plain, everyday style of writing as weakening the tale rather than being an asset to it. The dull periods of converse when ‘cream sodas’ were ordered and eating arrangements were settled rather bored me but of course that is a natural risk of adopting such a style as Carver’s, it can be and often is successful, making the tale more relatable and believable, however occasionally, as it does this time, it borders on being dull. I also found the tale entitled Collectors as rather pointless, its meaningless nature, I believe, can be summed up by its anticlimactic ending:

‘all right’ he said,

and he shut the door

However, for every weaker tale, there were many breathaking masterpieces. I particularly liked Why, Honey, being intrigued by the psychopathic tale in which a relationship was destroyed irreversibly. I also thought Put Yourself In My Shoes and Will You Please Be Quiet Please as very successful in gradually building up tension from nothing. The latter particularly I thought was Carver at his best as can be illustrated by the following four quotes one at the beginning, two at the middle and one at the end of the tale:

‘he and Marian understood each other perfectly’

‘he screamed…she whimpered’

‘Marian on the floor, blood on her teeth: “Why did you hit me?”’

‘he held himself…as long as he could. And then he turned to her’

The first quote is one of perfect unity and comprehension, the ideal, stable couple. The second example shows the arising of conflict, as emphasised by the contrast of the two verbs ‘screamed’ and ‘whimpered’. The third quote adds an even more serious note as physical violence occurs whilst the fourth a gradual reconciliation. Carver manages to do this very successfully, making for rather gripping reading.

In conclusion, although I found WYPBQP less cohesive than WWTAWWTAL holding a huge variety of themes that often did not link from tale to tale, this sense of variety made for less repetitive reading than the former where relationship decay and divorces were found in literally every tale. Yes, it was hit and miss throughout, but that’s bound to be expected by any short story writer, you’re bound to have some stories you love and some you loathe. Overall, at his best WYPBQP made for a very enjoyable read, someone whose work I can enjoy not just in an academic and studious mind-set.