"What we talk about when we talk about love" or "Beginners"

After reading these two stories I could say that "Beginners" is the one I liked the most. The reason why I enjoyed this story more was because I was able to relate to it a bit more. In both stories there are two couples sitting around drinking and talking about love, yet Lish's  version comes off as more believable and realistic. I like Lish's version better because of how sentimental he made the characters. The best part of this story was Mel (Herb) 's story about the old couple. In Carver's version it just mentioned the accident, the couple's life and how they reunited in the hospital. Whereas Lish's version places the old couple in a hospital room together in body casts which prevented them from seeing each other and he mentions how distraught the old man was just because he could not see his wife. Just the story about the older couple alone made me favor Lish's version even more. I think that Lish brought out more emotion in his version than Carver did. Although they were both great I think that "Beginners" provides a better message about what love is and how it is expressed.