SOURCE: Aarons, Victoria. “Variance of Imagination.” Literary Review 27, no. 1 (fall 1983): 147–52.

In the following excerpt, Aarons emphasizes the significance of “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” in Carver's short story oeuvre.

Writer Guy Davenport, in the title work of his collection of essays, The Geography of the Imagination (North Point Press, 1981), argues that the imagination, that process that governs the way we perceive the world, has boundaries, boundaries we cross while trying to shape and define our experiences. He begins “The Geography of the Imagination” with a definition of the imagining process, emphasizing the differences that emerge from divergent perceptions of and responses to the world:

The difference between the Parthenon and the World Trade Center, between a French wine glass and a German beer mug, between Bach and John Philip Sousa, between Sophocles and Shakespeare, between a bicycle and a horse, though explicable by historical...