This collection was filled with a diverse range of stories. There were great ones that truly captivated the reader, and then there were some that were not so good. Interestingly, there was an unnatural number of stories that took place in Italy, often involving American expats.

I purchased this collection with the anticipation of uncovering revealing tales about American suburbs. However, at times, I was presented with shorts such as "Goodbye My Brother," "Torch Song," "The Swimmer," and "Just Tell Me Who it Was." These stories possessed a certain muted beauty. They had the courage to look beyond the surface of our ordinary lives and explore the deeper, more hidden aspects.

Nevertheless, some of these stories did not age well. Cheever, being somewhat of a classicist, was sometimes influenced by 19th-century literature, which I'm not particularly fond of. This influence could be felt quite strongly in his work at times.

Overall, I'm happy to have read this collection. It provided an interesting and varied reading experience. However, I would probably not read it again. The stories that didn't resonate with me outweighed the ones that did, and I'm ready to move on to other literary works.

I have a long and rather eventful history with this collection of short stories. Years ago, during my college days, I purchased a copy. It accompanied me through various stages of my life, traveling with me from one place to another. However, I never got around to reading it. Sadly, in a subsequent move, it got so badly damaged that I had to discard it.

Finally, over the last month, I read it from a digital copy. In the past few years, I have read quite a number of large short story collections. With 61 stories and 693 pages, this one was of a middleweight size. In a collection of this magnitude, there are bound to be some stories that don't resonate with you, and that was indeed the case here. There were also a few that, despite my best efforts, I didn't fully understand. But overall, this collection was highly enjoyable and very readable.

The stories mainly revolve around marriage and families. Infidelity features prominently in many of them. From what I've read about the author, the recurrence of this theme might well be a reflection of his own life. If one were to generalize from these stories, it would seem that there was a significant amount of extramarital sex during the 1940s and 1950s. Cheever has a knack for engaging the reader quickly, often right from the first sentence, where you typically encounter the narrator, the protagonist, or someone else who plays a crucial role in the story. There is rarely any lengthy preamble or elaborate setting of the stage. I had quite a few favorite stories, and the ones by Cheever that are regarded as classics, such as "The Enormous Radio" and "The Swimmer," were as good as or even better than I remembered them. I'm certain that when I read "The Swimmer" as an assignment in school, I didn't appreciate it nearly as much as I did this time. Many of these stories would have made excellent fodder for book group discussions.

The quality of this collection was very good indeed. I have read one of Cheever's novels, and now I'm feeling motivated to revisit it and also consider reading the few other novels he wrote.

Parties and vacations are often times when people let loose and have fun. However, there is a concerning trend that has emerged. Some individuals seem to be getting buzzed off the fumes.

These people are described as "soused", which means they are in a state of intoxication. It is a rather alarming situation as it can have negative impacts on their health and well-being.

Perhaps it is due to the excessive consumption of alcohol or other substances during these social events. Or maybe there are other factors at play, such as the influence of peer pressure.

Whatever the reason, it is important to be aware of this issue and take steps to address it. This could include promoting responsible drinking and providing education about the dangers of getting buzzed off fumes.

By doing so, we can ensure that parties and vacations remain enjoyable and safe experiences for everyone involved.

August 22, 2015

As predicted (see earlier two posts, below), it took me months to complete this masterpiece. To repeat my earlier remarks, I read it from front to back and also from back to front. It turns out that wasn't the best approach, as the most powerful stories are not in the middle. I'm adding this note for two reasons.

First, I searched for the one story out of sixty-one that I didn't think worked on Google, and I discovered a wonderful New Yorker piece by Brad Leithauser about Cheever's style and turn of phrase. I was a drama major and dropped out of all the literature classes I started in school because the teachers seemed overly focused on the writers' personal lives, which I thought was nobody's concern. Maybe I had some bad teachers. I shouldn't mention where because it's a well-known school (Bennington), but if Mr. Leithauser had been there, I would have taken his course. Perhaps some other readers will be interested in his article.

Second, in addition to finishing Cheever's work, I finally gave in and bought a Kindle. I despise it. And knowing that I feel this way makes me even more grateful for the big, fat orange Cheever book I own. When I finished it, I kissed it long and hard before putting it on my shelf. And the fact that I can look up and see Mr. Cheever's name in large white letters against a two-toned amber background gives me comfort. I've heard many things about Cheever (my mother knew him) that make me quite certain he wasn't always enjoyable (yikes, none of my business! I apologize), but I'm so happy to have him physically on my shelf. He is now a permanent member of my library family. The Kindle can't come close to providing that kind of pleasure.

Feb. 18, 2015

An update to the earlier quasi-review (see below). I still haven't finished this book, and I'm in no hurry to. I'm reading from front to back and back to front, so when I finish, I'll be somewhere in the middle of the book - which, for inexpressible reasons, feels right. The stories cut me to the core, so one story a day, or every few days, is all I can manage.

Last night I attended an Authors Guild symposium where one of the panelists described reading as "an intimate social connection - between a reader and a writer." I was struck by the word "social." Intimate, yes, but social? I definitely don't want John Cheever in the room while I'm reading, and I don't really want to meet him. But, yes, I feel intimately connected and safe in that connection because it is private, in my mind.

I'm curious: do other people feel an intimate social connection with the writer of a book they're reading? And if so, what does that mean to them? Is there more that they want from the writer than the words and story in the book, privately? I'd love responses to this post. I'm truly curious.

Jan. 5, 2015

I lied. I haven't finished reading this, but I'm just going to get to the point and give it five stars. The stories in this 693-page work are presented in the chronological order in which Cheever wrote them. I started reading from the front, then began reading from the back.

I borrowed my copy of the book from the library, and since most of what I've read leaves me almost speechless with awe and in need of inactive time lying on my back on the couch to process, there's no way I'm going to finish this book in the two weeks allotted by the library. So in order to read this book in the time it requires, I'm going to have to buy it.

Buying books scares me these days. Here's why:


Nevertheless, I must take the risk. Five stars. The man was a master.

Children drown, beautiful women are mangled in automobile accidents, cruise ships founder, and men die lingering deaths in mines and submarines. However, you will find none of this in my accounts.

Back in January 2014, I read John Cheever’s Falconer as part of my ongoing Time project. As I wrote in the subsequent essay, I viewed the novel, which received some of his best reviews upon its publication in 1977, “as a series of vividly-drawn episodes that don’t really cohere as grandly as we expect a novel to. It’s those individual set pieces that I’ll take away more than the book as a whole.”

I liked what I read, even if I thought the sum was lesser than its parts. I realized I wasn’t done with Cheever and needed to judge him on what he’s best known for, the stories. I also needed to abandon my prejudices of the man, whom I’d been led by popular culture to believe was thoroughly outmoded, a legendary drunk, and a sexually confused sitcom punchline.

And so I finally took The Stories of John Cheever, the big book with the iconic cover, off my shelf and started going through the 61 stories, one by one, night after night, over the course of several months. I had read certain stories (“Reunion,” “The Country Husband”) in various contexts before, but this was the first time I went through the whole thing cover to cover, tracing the author’s evolution.

It blew my mind.

The prevailing thought on Cheever now is that he’s a stodgy relic of a bygone era, a stenographer for the country club set whose stories form the template of every Mad Men episode ever written. It’s not totally wrong; Cheever’s characters do fit a certain profile, and the first batch of stories, though immaculately written, seem to color inside these lines (“The Season of Divorce,” “Goodbye, My Brother”).

But keep reading and you start to see Cheever rebel against his preferred milieu. It’s a narrative jujitsu in which he seems to play both sides. He’s not merely the jaded outsider holding up the suburbs for detached ridicule but a deeply sympathetic chronicler of our darkest impulses and appetites. Cheever likes his characters too much to judge or hate them (it’s what separates him from his chief rival John Updike), and it’s the only reason you can read all 690 pages of this book and still want more.

To be sure, there are phases of Cheever’s career that do nothing for me. I don’t much care for the Italian pieces (“The Duchess,” “Boy in Rome”), and I prefer the late-era Cheever, which dives headlong into levels of surrealism and digressiveness the earlier stories, fixed more squarely in the prototypical New Yorker tradition, do not.

Exhibit A: “The Death of Justina,” whose placement about two-thirds of the way into the collection serves as a convenient line of demarcation, where Cheever by 1960 says goodbye forever to a certain kind of storytelling. Most of the subsequent pieces are really just extended exercises in voice that defy easy summary (try describing what “The Chimera” is getting at in a line or two).

There’s so much more that could be written about this collection. How about the range: any collection that can run from “The Enormous Radio” to “The Swimmer” (with “The Country Husband” in between) is pretty awe-inspiring. I also haven’t yet mentioned the writing itself, those long loping Cheever sentences floating along on their inimitable cadences, nor the too-many-to-count list of killer opening and closing lines.

I still have four of his novels to read, but I have the feeling that, like Falconer, they will suffer for the length and that the big red book is the prime Cheever. There’s a reason this book caused such a stir when it was published, sweeping most of the literary awards and single-handedly restoring Cheever’s long-festering reputation. It really was the best book of 1979, and had it been published 35 years later, I have little doubt it would be the consensus favorite of 2014. It is certainly mine.

———–

*”Cheever seemed to be constantly presuming his readers were East Coast sophisticates—probably with ancestral ties to the Mayflower crew,” Brad Leithauser observed about Cheever’s prose. “It took me a while to see that this assumption of a sort of clubby exclusivity was, as so often the case with Cheever, a kind of delicate, straight-faced joke.”

$2! For this huge thing! It's truly amazing that something of such magnitude can be obtained for just $2. I can't count how many times I've been told to read this. People around me have been emphasizing its importance, and now I have no excuse!

Perhaps it's a book that holds the key to knowledge and wisdom. Maybe it's a document that contains crucial information. Whatever it is, at such a low price, it seems like a steal.

I should really take the opportunity and start reading. Who knows what valuable insights and ideas I might discover? It could potentially change my perspective or open up new opportunities for me. So, without further ado, I'm going to dive into this "huge thing" and see what it has to offer.

Six Word Review: Love reading about white people's problems...

This six-word review seems rather interesting and perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek. It implies a certain fascination or enjoyment in delving into the issues and experiences that are often associated with white people.

One could wonder what exactly these "white people's problems" might entail. It could range from the challenges of social status and privilege to the more personal struggles within a particular cultural context.

Maybe the reviewer is attracted to the complexity and diversity of these problems, finding them a source of entertainment or a means of gaining a deeper understanding of different perspectives.

However, it's also important to note that this review might be open to interpretation. Some might see it as a form of satire or a comment on the prevalence of certain types of stories in literature or media.

Overall, this six-word review leaves room for further exploration and discussion about the nature of our interests and the ways in which we engage with different narratives.

Before John Cheever began publishing his novels in the late 1950s, he was able to earn a good living by selling short stories to The New Yorker and other prominent periodicals of that era.

Even after his novels started to appear, Cheever continued to write and expand the body of his now-legendary short stories.

Cheever's stories were almost always immediately marketable, and in this collection, we have the very best of the best: "The Enormous Radio," "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow," "The Swimmer," "The Country Husband," and many others.

This substantial volume is likely to provide anyone with a penchant for 20th Century American literature with entertainment, enlightenment, and pure pleasure.

It is unconditionally recommended.

Tal vez 3,5 sea lo justo. Pero la lectura de los sesenta cuentos de Cheever me desilusionó un poco. Tal vez el problema haya sido que comencé con los más famosos, y entre ellos una joya como "El nadador". Sin embargo, fuera de los diez mejores, el resto baja notoriamente el nivel.

Cheever cultiva el cuento largo, que a veces parece ser el germen de una novela. En muchos casos, las narraciones no tienen la intensidad y el ritmo que me gustan ver en los cuentos, pero tampoco desarrolla con profundidad esa historia. Algunos de los temas preferidos por el autor son la decadencia que trae el paso del tiempo, la hipocresía social y familiar o los peligros de la decadencia económica.

Aunque se lo ha comparado en cuanto a la valoración, como cuentista me parece estar lejos de un monstruo como Raymond Carver. De todos modos, la lectura de esos diez mejores cuentos es sumamente recomendable. Estos cuentos destacados pueden ofrecer una visión más clara y profunda de la habilidad y la temática de Cheever, y pueden ser una buena introducción para aquellos que están interesados en explorar su obra.

**"The Allure and Complexity of John Cheever's Work"**

Goodbye, My Brother stands as perhaps the pinnacle of short stories I've encountered. Its near-perfection leaves me eager to devour the entire collection, hoping for more gems to match. The more I reflect on this book, the deeper my appreciation for its elegant style grows. Yes, it has a WASP-y, male, and middle-class flavor that some might find off-putting. But the structure and syntax are a source of pure delight.

Cultural shorthand, especially for literature, often proves unhelpful. John Cheever, like many writers more known than read, has been pigeonholed into the broad and unfashionable category of "suburban fiction." However, after reading nearly 700 pages of his short stories presented chronologically, I can wholeheartedly recommend this book and assert that this label is incomplete and misleading. While many of his stories are set in suburban locales, they are imbued with darkness, mystery, and occasional surrealism that become more prominent as his career progresses. This combination makes his work far more interesting than the middlebrow pulp stereotype his name might evoke.

So why should anyone bother reading his work? In today's context, the mid-20th century New Yorker writers like Updike, O'Hara, and Cheever, all old white men, may not seem hip or laudable to some. Decried as middlebrow, self-obsessed, and sexist, they are curiosities to modern audiences. Updike's death was mourned, and he retains the best reputation, perhaps due to his prolific criticism as much as his excellent novels and short stories. O'Hara is nearly forgotten, though I found A Rage To Live quite solid. As for Cheever, his legacy might be overshadowed by revelations about his personal life, but I'm more interested in his work. I'll echo William Gaddis's sentiment: "What is it they want from the man that they didn't get from the work?"

In The Stories of John Cheever, the artist Cheever evolves before our eyes. We don't need to know the details of his personal life to understand his growth. The later stories show that he recognized the limitations of his earlier elegant masterpieces and made a conscious effort to transcend them. The suburban trappings remain in some cases, but the structure and narrative voice have changed significantly. While I may not always have grasped the full meaning of the later stories, and still think Goodbye, My Brother is among the best, it was fascinating to witness Cheever's progress and his efforts to change his art. The increasing encroachment of the bizarre in the middle and latter stories is all the more striking after reading pages of finely crafted prose.

From my perspective, Cheever's biggest flaw is his penchant for twist endings, which can verge on formulaic in his earlier stories but is somewhat abandoned later. If this is middlebrow, it's a middlebrow of exceptional quality. These stories explore themes of love, class, failed dreams, death, disgrace, and a particular slice of life on the east coast from the 1940s to the 1970s. Highly recommended.

The Stories of John Cheever

John Cheever was a highly regarded author who achieved great acclaim. In 1979, he won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer for this collection. Sadly, he passed away in 1982 at the age of seventy.

Cheever's stories are rich and profound, filled with soul searching and exploring the polarities within our minds and outward behaviors. His use of symbolism can be complex, and I'm sure there are aspects that I may not fully understand. However, his stories are generally easy to follow. His writing style and characters are often tempered, with only a few moments of over-the-top drama. Sometimes, his stories even end before the typical dramatic climax. I have a particular fondness for the stories of the older Cheever, when he was in his late forties to early sixties. Many of these stories can be found in the second half of this collection.

This collection contains sixty-one stories, and here are eleven that had the greatest impact on me and are wonderful examples of his writing and storytelling. Most of these stories are quite famous.

"Goodbye My Brother" is the first story in the collection and was written by a young Cheever. It is perhaps the most dramatic, highlighting the shocking capacity of humans to discard everything based on long-simmering resentment. It is a well-known story often studied at universities.

"Clancy in the Tower of Babel" features Clancy, a common man with good sensibilities but excessive pride. As a superintendent, he saves a wealthy man from suicide but refuses to accept a gift of money given to his wife when he loses his job while seriously ill. This is one of the most poignant stories in the book, reminding me of Bernard Malamud as it is set in a tenement building.

"The Season of Divorce" reflects on the state of marriages in the 1950s. A man named Trencher attempts to seduce the protagonist's wife, highlighting how many marriages were held together due to the economic disadvantages faced by women in a paternalistic world.

"Five Forty Eight" tells the story of a boss who sleeps with his secretary and then fires her. It turns out she has psychiatric problems, and as she chases him on the train, it becomes clear that he has crossed the wrong woman. It is a story of vengeance.

"The Country Husband" shows a family that doesn't really care when the father nearly dies in an airplane crash. He is insufferably self-centered and begins to act out, escalating from rudeness to his neighbors to plotting to seduce the babysitter. It is also a famous short story.

"The Swimmer" follows Ned, an alcoholic who decides to swim home, 8 miles away, by using the pools of his friends and neighbors. Readers witness his mind disintegrate in a single afternoon. It is a strange and fantastic story, one of his most famous.

"The World of Apples" features an aging poet filled with nostalgia who comes to terms with not winning the Nobel Prize. However, he gets an inspiration to write another poem that occupies him in his final days.

"Another Story" presents the protagonist's Italian friend, a minor prince who marries an American woman. She becomes resentful for giving up her opera career, and the story is an example of chauvinistic men not understanding their wives.

"Percy" is a story about a cousin and his mother, Percy. The cousin, a young concert pianist, gives up his career to marry a German immigrant, and Percy refuses to see her. It is a sad and well-written story about the folly of living vicariously through one's children.

"In the Fourth Alarm," the male protagonist struggles with his wife's newfound liberation as she joins an acting troupe. One of the plays involves the women getting naked and simulating sex with the king, leaving the husband at his wit's end.

"The Jewels of the Cabots" tells of a middle-class protagonist who has an interest in a wealthy family. He learns of a murder involving the family but remains silent when he discovers there is money left for him in the patriarch's will. It has some of the most beautiful descriptive writing in the collection, despite the dark undertones.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed most of the stories in this collection. It adds to the label of Cheever as the'master of suburban ennui,' but there are also many excellent stories about tenements and his travels around the world. I would rate this collection 5 stars.

"The Swimmer" was one of my favorites in the collection. It was a story that truly captured my imagination. The protagonist, a passionate swimmer, embarked on a remarkable journey through a series of interconnected pools. His determination and love for the water were palpable as he faced various challenges along the way. The description of the different pools and the surrounding landscapes was vivid, making me feel as if I was right there with him. The story also delved into the swimmer's inner thoughts and emotions, adding depth and complexity to his character. I found myself rooting for him throughout the entire narrative, eager to see how his adventure would unfold. "The Swimmer" was not just a simple tale of a man swimming; it was a profound exploration of the human spirit and the pursuit of one's passion.