Raymond Carver said it was possible 'to write about commonplace things and objects. Using commonplace but precise language and endow these things - a chair. a window curtain a fork . a stone. a woman's earring - with immense. even startling power '. Nowhere is this alchemy more striking than in the title story of Cathedral in which a blind man guides the hand of a sighted man as together they draw the cathedral the blind man can never see. Many view this story. and indeed this collection. as a watershed in the maturing of Carver's work to a more confidently poetic style.