Cathedral

By: Raymond Carver

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

This is Raymond Carver's third collection of stories, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, including the canonical titular story about blindness and learning to enter the very different world of another. The 12 stories in Cathedral mark a turning point in Carver's work and "overflow with the danger, excitement, mystery and possibility of life...Carver is a writer of astonishing compassion and honesty...his eye set only on describing and revealing the world as he sees it. His eye is so clear, it almost breaks your heart" (Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World).

©1983 Tess Gallagher (P)2017 Tantor

Disaffected performance

I appreciate that with recordings of work, the performer has the license to perform the work in the way they see fit, presumably in a way that might help the listener understand the nuance of the writing.

I simply found the choice for the performance of this work to be overwhelmingly distracting, rather than effective. Norman Dietz reads through the prose as if he's reading a dictionary. Particularly, the insistent, unvaried rhythm he reads at paints Carver's stories as monotonous rather than restrained. While he does choose to alter his voice for some characters' dialogue (very slightly), and throw in an inflection when a character is raising their voice (again, slightly), overall, I feel he's only been able to accomplish sucking the emotion out of each of these pieces, leaving behind what sounds like to me a recitation of individual words wholly unconcerned with the word that came before it, or that comes after.

This is a work I wished I had read myself, rather than listened to here.

Narration is TERRIBLE

I'm a big fan of Carver however I couldn't listen to this narration. The narration is incredibly awkward and doesn't flow.

Good book, annoying narration

The story will carry you along, very well written;however, the narrator’s tone is somewhat grating and over-accented/flat.

Excellent

A t l e a s t f i f t e e n w o r d s

Fantastic work of Carver destroyed by performance

I love Carver's work in general, but I was so disappointed in the performance. Dietz seems to constantly fluctuate a dry, scratchy sounding voice trying to sound laid back. Man, the performance upset me!!!

Disappointing

This book includes some of Carver’s best known stories and while some can be very powerful when read sparingly, reading them back to back can be painful. Too much of a bleak thing I suppose. But it also highlights some of his limitations as a writer - the depiction of women, the near exclusive focus on a certain group of people down on their luck, and the harshness of his prose. The matter is made even worse by the narration - to my ear, all the characters sound much older than they really are and the accent chosen just isn’t pleasant to hear.

Reader is flat

The reader was poorly matched to the text — no “life” in the characters at all

Poor Carver!

This reading by a misogynist octogenarian creates an interpretation of R. Carvers work that may keep this reader from pursuing further work.