I observe a short story writer who endeavors to ascend to a higher literary weight class, employing works such as Winesburg, Ohio as his model.

The commencement is robust, with the characters intricately intertwined in both time and place. Although we encounter the disjointed shifts in point of view that typify the entire book, the reader can assert that it predominantly revolves around the Wapshots; the Wapshot family serves as the protagonist. There are numerous lovely descriptions and sentences within these initial pages.

Subsequently, people depart. They venture off to engage in activities that bear no relation to their home and family. And we are unable to remain focused on anyone. No character, place, or family can be considered the protagonist. As Leander Wapshot might put it, 'Writer lost'.

The poignancy of this situation becomes evident when Cheever attempts to somehow unify it towards the end. Sentences like 'then x happened, then y' are interspersed, and then amidst all that, a sentence filled with elaborate description (reminiscent of his first section). However, now it no longer fits, as the reader's interest has already waned, and the tone is no longer suitable for attempting to describe anything with depth. Depth was forfeited when we trailed every character (even minor characters!) to the farthest reaches of the earth.

This story moves along with a charming blend of humor and old-fashioned New Englandness (if that's even a proper word!). I initially thought I'd give it a solid four stars. However, the ending was so wonderful that it made my heart sing, and I just couldn't be stingy.

I had some minor quibbles with Cheever in this. There are two elderly female characters who are single, wealthy, and use their wealth to exert power. They also desire to live in a chaste world. Well, almost. Honora Wapshot wants to leave her wealth to her nephews, but only if they produce sons. In any case, I couldn't identify with either of these women in any of the aspects mentioned above. Their wealth, power, and wishes were simply not mine.

There's quite a bit of lusting happening in this story, and often it gets fulfilled. Of course, it's not described explicitly, as this was first published in 1957. Cheever is especially humorous when the lusting is just wishful thinking. Much of the lusting here is equated with love. I found myself cheering and smiling, smiling and cheering.

The Goodreads blurb describes Cheever's works as expressing a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life, characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community, as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia. I'm not sure if "nostalgia" is the perfect word, but this world was definitely disappearing when this was first published and is probably long gone by now. I expect that many in my generation, and the few of the previous generation still around, will find Cheever's world familiar. Younger people, on the other hand, may wonder what makes this so special.

Cheever's debut novel presents the captivating tale of the idiosyncratic Wapshot family. They reside in the small town of St Botolph's, Massachusetts, which acts as their anchor as they, or at least the male members of the family, embark on an odyssey in pursuit of love and self-awareness.

This is a brilliant novel, told with an impressive and unique use of language. At times, it reminds one of Joyce, yet it has its own distinct flavor. Part of the story unfolds through the journal of Captain Leander Wapshot, in brief snippets of information, single words, quotes, and allusions. Initially, this may be difficult to follow, but it soon becomes immersive. Cheever also focuses on the details of touch and smell as experienced by his characters. While this can become repetitive after a while, at other times it is extremely vivid.

Themes of sexuality and the constraints of society are explored through the characters. The elderly Wapshot women, Honora and Justina, strive to suppress the desires of the youngsters, but things don't always go according to plan. This is sometimes hilarious and at other times rather poignant.

Overall, I adored the first two-thirds of the novel but found the final part a bit of a slog. The humor that I enjoyed earlier in the novel seemed to miss the mark as it progressed, and it became rather dull and repetitive, especially since much of the final third centers around Moses Wapshot, who, for me, is the least interesting character. This makes it hard to rate, with some parts deserving a 5* and others barely reaching a 2*. So, I'll give it a high 3* overall.

Grazie Paolo del Ventoso Est!

Your comment completely reflects all the pleasure that I have also had while reading this book!

I am falling in love with Cheever - and I am also reading his short stories, slowly.

One never finishes discovering authors that one likes - thanks to all the friends of Gr where I always find very valid indications.

It's truly wonderful to have such a community of book lovers who share their thoughts and recommendations.

Each new discovery is like a precious gift, opening up new worlds of literature and imagination.

As I continue to explore Cheever's works, I am excited to see what other treasures I will uncover.

His writing style is so unique and captivating, drawing me in and making me want to read more.

Once again, grazie Paolo and grazie to all the friends of Gr for this amazing literary journey!

\\n  “Crack your skull before you weep.”\\n

I am attempting to form an impression of this book, but the only thing that comes to my mind is that this book is like spending the most beautiful day of the year locked in a room. Yes, everything is wonderful, enchanting, and beautiful. But through the window. Locked. Pretty small. Basement-like. And then it becomes completely irrelevant what is outside, an oasis of beautiful things, when all you can see is a smear of greasy fingerprints on the glass.

Čiver's prose is perhaps the best I have encountered. It stands side by side with Nabokov's (among the good prose writers there are also Krouli, Pinčon, Ishiguro). It is quite ornate, to be sure, but it is a pleasure to read and then utter the sentences, they are so full of melody and that kind of beauty per kilogram that they often leave you without text. Plus, Čiver has a strange sense of humor. I'm quite sure I've never underlined more sentences than here. This is that beautiful window I'm talking about.

And then comes everything else, that is, the interior of the room. Maybe I'm exaggerating. Nothing is that bad – the characters and the narrative are quite satisfying, but they are just that, satisfying. And when they stand side by side with such spectacular prose, they just somehow fade. They blend into the background and the text becomes dry and unimpressive. Only the atmosphere, which is again closely related to the aforementioned lyricism of the text, manages to a certain extent to meet Čiver's standard.

I have never read a book where the aspects of the novel are so different. It can be seen that Čiver is primarily a writer of short prose, because it's as if he got lost in the length of the novel. In a way, everything reminds me of the sight of a hick wearing a Rolex – somehow everything leads to the idea that the Rolex is also fake. And then you look at some of Čiver's sentences again, and you completely instinctively bow down.

(Just so I'm not talking in vain:

- “Would you like some whisky?” Honora asked. “Yes, please,” Leander said. “There isn't any,” Honora said. “Have a cookie.”

- “After all, we only pass this way once.” As often as she made the remark about passage, it had not lost its strength. She was born; she would die.

- For who, these days, was rich enough to have bats in their kitchen?

-The foliage was dense and pungent and in the oaks were whole carping parliaments of crows.

-“Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.”

-“I have more tears than milk. I’ve cried my breasts dry.”

-On beaches the joy and gall of perpetual youth. Even today. smell east wind. Hear Neptune’s horn. Always raring to go. Pack sandwiches. Bathing suit. Catch ramshackle bus to beach. Irresistible. In blood perhaps. Father read Shakespeare to waves. Mouthful of pebbles. Demosthenes?

-Shells stones, sea tack. All simple things. In the golden light memories of paradise perhaps.

-On the table near where he stood someone had stuck a candle into a root and beside this was a detective story, its first chapters eaten by mice.

-She was weary of trying to separate the power of loneliness from the power of love and she was lonely. )

4-

I was hesitant to embark on reading Cheever. For some unknown reason, I held the belief that his fiction wouldn't captivate my interest. Moreover, I was even more skeptical about commencing with a novel instead of his highly regarded short stories. However, this novel proved to be nothing short of outstanding, intensifying my excitement to explore his short fiction.

The Wapshot Chronicle narrates the story of a single family's life in and around St. Botolph's, a fishing village on the northern coast of Massachusetts. The novel predominantly focuses on the incredibly complex relationships between the family patriarch and his two sons, who are as different as can be. As the sons strive to chart their own paths, both geographically and emotionally distancing themselves from their hometown, the full force of their family bonds unexpectedly emerges, time and again.

As my summary implies, the story is an age-old one, yet the expression is entirely unique and wonderful (albeit sometimes slightly uneven) to read. At its peak, Cheever transitions smoothly from the third person into the minds and hearts of his characters, reimagining their journal entries and revealing their deepest anxieties. He also makes some of the most effective use of the second person I have ever witnessed. For instance: "You walk and walk and walk, changing your suitcase from hand to hand. You pass lighted store fronts, monuments, theaters and saloons. You hear dance music and the thunder of tenpins from an upstairs bowling alley and wonder how long it will be before you begin to play a role against this new scene."

Cheever's prose, whether in the second person or not, is replete with such density and richness. It compels you to linger over sentences and reveals the power of small moments and gestures. Its meaning lies in its intricacy, and its strength is such that it compensates for any shortcomings the novel may have in terms of its plot. This novel may not be a page-turner, but it is well worth the effort.

Someone once made a comment about Theodore Dreiser (and here I'm paraphrasing), stating that "He has the ability to pen a great book, yet he struggles to construct a decent sentence." In my opinion, this book by Cheever presents nearly the opposite issue.

When we look at the writing in close-up, it is truly masterful. The details are exquisitely crafted, and the language flows with a certain elegance. However, when we step back and view the work through the wide-angle lens, the composition appears rather cluttered.

The individual stories seem to lack a sense of cohesion, failing to come together and form a unified whole. It's as if each story is a separate entity, not quite fitting seamlessly into the larger framework. This lack of unity somewhat detracts from the overall impact of the collection.

Despite the beautiful writing within each story, the disjointed nature of the collection makes it a bit of a disappointment. It leaves the reader with a sense that something is missing, that the potential for a truly great work has not been fully realized.

This work not only won the National Book Award in 1958 but did so competing against true giants of the novel: A Death in the Family (James Agee), The Assistant (Bernard Malamud), Pnin (Vladimir Nabokov), and The Town (William Faulkner). It doesn't surprise me. Cheever is damn good. He is so good that he is able to make a somewhat irregular and unbalanced novel like this one huge.

We are in the 1950s and the Wapshot family is an old and proud one, belonging to Saint Botolphs, an old river town in New England. It is one of those conservative and tradition-loving villages where things are done as everyone knows they should be done, where everyone knows everyone and knows everything about everyone. And in which the eccentricities of a few are only tolerated with a certain condescension, as long as they are few and only constitute local curiosities, because until now everything has gone well and it is hardly possible to be better.

In this family chronicle, we find chapters that function as authentic and magnificent stories, along with digressions that could easily have become so. This apparent dispersion is skillfully managed by Cheever, admirably leading us through a procession of events, experiences, and anecdotes, each more remarkable, which march in parallel to the main story and which imbue us with that end-of-era atmosphere portrayed by the author with great doses of nostalgia.

If there is anything I have to reproach Cheever for, it is precisely that those digressions I refer to did not go further or that some of the characters were not given a greater protagonist role, such as the haughty and dictatorial Justina, whose voice, imperious and hoarse, is capable of covering "a complete octave of satisfied social ambitions", or the interfering, extravagant and wonderful, as long as she is not your own aunt, Honora. But, above all, I would have liked to know much more about Sarah, the mother of the Wapshot clan.

\\n  "She was more admired among the ladies than among the men and perhaps the essence of her beauty was disenchantment (Leander had deceived her), but she had put all the resources of her sex into that infidelity and had been rewarded with such an air of offended nobility and luminous vision that some of her partisans sighed when they saw her cross the square, as if through her face they saw a life pass."\\n

And it is that the female characters of the family are a hundred times more powerful than the male ones, beings unable to direct their lives, and in whose task they are clearly replaced without much resistance on their part. However, it is these, the male ones, the backbone of the novel: Leander, the editor of a diary in which, among lamentations for those tickles of which he is still a victim despite his obvious physical deterioration, he describes to us with a peculiar, effective, and powerful style the longing for that dying way of life of which he is a worthy representative; and his two sons - Moses and Coverly - who, expelled from paradise by their aunt Honora, will experience firsthand the impact of that end of an era whose shine is strengthened after the shock with the new reality.

Along the way, we will find praise for life in the open air, the traps of marriage, the relief and misfortune that alcohol provides, doubts about homosexuality, the powerful impulse of lust, the great weight of guilt, and, in short, a lot of pity for the many human weaknesses and even lyrical flourishes like this:

\\n  "All the things of the sea belong to Venus: the pearls and the shells, and the gold of the alchemists, and the algae and the salty smell of the dead tides, the green of the water near the coast and the purple further out, and the joy of distances, all this is of Venus, but she does not come out of the sea for all of us. She came out for Coverly through the revolving door of a snack bar."\\n

It's a pity that this novel had such a regular sequel in The Wapshot Scandal…

Imprescindible.

It is a word that holds great significance. Something that is imprescindible is absolutely essential, indispensable, and cannot be done without.

In our daily lives, there are many things that we consider imprescindible. For example, food, water, and shelter are imprescindible for our survival. Without them, we would not be able to live.

Similarly, in other aspects of our lives, such as work, education, and relationships, there are also things that are imprescindible. Good communication skills, for instance, are imprescindible in building and maintaining healthy relationships.

We should always be aware of the things that are imprescindible in our lives and make sure to take care of them. We should not take them for granted, as they are the foundation upon which our lives are built.

Imprescindible is a powerful word that reminds us of the importance of the things that we need to survive and thrive.

Moses and Coverly Wapshot, the two sons of the dissolute Leander, find themselves in a rather unique situation. They have to navigate through the America of the mid-Twentieth Century, yet they are armed with the airs and attitudes of Nineteenth-Century New England. Their elderly aunt Honora describes their hometown of St. Botolphs as "like a pumpkin pie, no upper crust."

However, there is only limited space for the two boys in St. Botolphs. As a result, they embark on their seriocomic adventures. "The Wapshot Chronicle" is a comedy, and it is often extremely funny, despite (or perhaps because of) John Cheever's well-known tendency to have brief outbursts of anguish.

"The Wapshot Chronicle" makes for fine reading, and it may even be surpassed by John Cheever's subsequent novel, "The Wapshot Scandal." This latter work was inspired in part by Cheever's stay in Italy with his wife, son, and a new son who was born there.

The Wapshot Scandal is another engaging read in the Wapshot series.

What if your destiny was sealed by an old will that dictates the course of your life?

Welcome to the unique universe of the Wapshot family, a gloriously dysfunctional clan that would make any therapist blush. In "The Wapshot Chronicle", John Cheever presents us with a tale of absurd inheritances, half-built dreams, and the eternal struggle between the desire to escape and the inability to do so. It's a novel where drama mingles with the ridiculous, melancholy laughs at itself, and irony becomes the ever-present guest.

We have a small New England town, St. Botolphs, seemingly frozen in time, a charming yet disastrous patriarch, two sons who haven't quite found their place in the world, and, as the cherry on top, a tyrannical millionaire aunt who manipulates the strings of fate with the subtlety of a dictator. The future of the Wapshot family depends on a capricious will that demands the impossible: to live according to the rules of an America that no longer exists.

From here, Cheever treats us to a series of episodes that range from the hilarious to the tragic, in which each character attempts - with more pain than glory - to figure out what to do with their lives without completely breaking free from the weight of their surname.

Don't expect a conventional plot here. "The Wapshot Chronicle" is not a tightly plotted novel, the classic story with a beginning, middle, and end. Because John Cheever, before being a novelist, was above all a short story writer. And not just any short story writer, but the master of the craft. That's why "The Wapshot Chronicle" is like opening a box of old postcards: each scene is a small universe, with its own sparkle, its own wound, and its own cruel irony. You don't follow a plot, you follow moments, vignettes that seem isolated until, suddenly, you realize that together they form something bigger. An echo of what life itself is, with its chaotic parade of absurdities and fleeting epiphanies.

Cheever's style is a combination of elegance and a sharp sting: elegant yet biting, lyrical yet without cheap sentimentality. His descriptions of life in New England are filled with a disturbing nostalgia, that feeling that happiness slips through your fingers just when you think you've caught it. He describes with lyricism, yes, but also with a sharp scalpel that lays bare the pathetic, the beautiful, and the absurd of existence. His irony is so subtle that sometimes it arrives late: you laugh, turn a few pages, and then realize that, in reality, the laughter had a melancholy edge that leaves you with a pang in your chest. Because his handling of humor is a delight: it's not about obvious guffaws, but a fine irony that transforms the ordinary into a masterful tragicomedy.

Because here lies the trick of Cheever: he makes you laugh just before hitting you with a punch. You read a scene, let out a laugh, and when you let your guard down, the blow arrives with the precision of a right hook. A ridiculous character suddenly has a moment of devastating lucidity. An absurd situation hides a terrifying truth. It's a perfect balance between the comic and the tragic, a tightrope on which Cheever walks with the elegance of someone who knows that the fall is inevitable.

What I find most fascinating about "The Wapshot Chronicle" is that, beneath its appearance of an eccentric family tale, it hides a biting critique of a post-war America that is losing its identity. Moses and Coverly, the sons, represent a generation adrift in limbo: they don't fit into the traditions that shaped them, but they also can't find their place in the modern world. Because they're not just two disoriented guys; they're the portrait of an entire country that no longer knows where it belongs. And the novel is something more than just a family story: it's the testimony of an America that is losing its footing, a world that is crumbling while its inhabitants continue to play roles that no longer make sense. The old morality is disintegrating, the new rules are still unclear, and in the midst of all this, Cheever's characters try to hold on to anything that gives them the illusion of stability. Even if it's a tyrannical aunt with an absurd will.

And then we have Leander, the patriarch: a man who, in any other novel, would be a colorful secondary character, but who here takes center stage with his mix of tenderness and tragedy. He's a dreamer trapped in a life that's too small for him, a man with a longing for better times, a captain without a crew or a course, a navigator without an ocean. His obsession with boats, with water, with that promise of escape that never comes, is not just a whim. It's the reflection of a life trapped on the shore, looking towards a horizon that it can never reach. And the beautiful and terrible thing is that he's not the only one trapped. In the Wapshot family, everyone is adrift, but no one knows how to set sail.

“Leander never took his sons aside to talk to them about sex, even though the continuation of the numerous favors of Honora depended on their virility. If they looked out the window for a minute they could see the passage of things. He felt that love, death, and fornication, extracted from the rich pea puree of life, were only half-truths, and therefore his manual of instructions was so general. He would have liked them to understand that that imperceptible passing of the ceremonious aspects of their life was a gesture or a sacrament in honor of the richness and continuity of things. On Christmas Day he was going to skate - sober or drunk, sick or healthy - because he thought he had the responsibility to the town to appear on Parson's Pond. «There's Leander Wapshot», people said, and he heard them. A splendid symbol of continued and innocent sport, which he hoped his sons would follow. The cold bath he took every morning was ceremonial, sometimes it was just that, since he almost never soaped up and came out of the tub smelling strongly of the sea salts of the old sponges he used. The jacket he put on for dinner, the prayer he said at the table, the fishing trip he took every spring, the bourbon he drank at sunset, and the flower he wore in his lapel, all of it were forms that he hoped his sons would understand and perhaps imitate. He had taught them to fell a tree, to pluck and season a chicken, to plant, cultivate and harvest, to fish, to save money, to straighten a nail, to make cider with a hand press, to clean a shotgun, to navigate a boat […]”

But the jewel in the crown is Aunt Honora, the aunt that no one would ever want to have but who, deep down, holds the family together with her iron fist. Honora is such a tyrannical and crazy character that she turns every scene she appears in into a spectacle of black comedy. An elderly woman with a fierce will who maintains financial control of the family with the coldness of a banker and the theatricality of a Shakespearean actress. If there were an Olympus of dominant literary matriarchs, she would be sitting in the front row, adjusting her gloves and judging everyone with a raised eyebrow.

“Honora had been presented to the President of the United States on one occasion and when shaking his hand she had said: «I'm from Saint Botolphs. I suppose you know where that is. They say Saint Botolphs is like a pumpkin pie. It has no crust on top...».”

The wonderful - and disturbing - thing about this novel is that, when you finish it, you realize that the Wapshot family is not just a relic of the past, but a mirror of any family clan with absurd traditions and impossible expectations. No matter how fast you run, the weight of your surname always finds a way to catch up with you.

So here we are, closing the pages of this "The Wapshot Chronicle", asking ourselves the same question as its protagonists: can one ever escape the family legacy, or are we condemned to be, in the end, just one more note in the great history of our tribe?

If you haven't read "The Wapshot Chronicle" yet, do yourself a favor and read it. It's one of those novels that, without warning, shakes you and leaves you with a twisted smile and an uncomfortable truth in your head.

And now, shall we launch into a debate about whether Moses had any real chance of breaking free from the Wapshot family or do we accept that, whether we like it or not, we all carry a small Wapshot inside?

The author was a renowned short story writer, and this novel marked his first foray into the longer form. It achieved great acclaim, winning the National Book Award for 1958.

It is a coming-of-age story of two young men. While most of the plot focuses on the start of their careers rather than their youth, it still offers a rich exploration of their growth and development.

Their father was a river boat captain, adding an element of sea lore to the narrative. Set in a small New England sea town at the turn of the century, a time of significant change with autos replacing horses, the story emphasizes the theme of transformation.

There are numerous accidental deaths by drowning or in car crashes, adding a sense of danger and unpredictability. The story mainly follows the two brothers, interspersed with excerpts from their father's diary, which reveals family secrets and provides a deeper understanding of their lives.

An unmarried aunt controls the family fortune. When she sees her nephews getting involved with the local girls, she sends them out into the world. One goes to New York, and the other to Washington DC. Both eventually marry, but their marriages are troubled.

The story has a quasi-autobiographical element, as Cheever had a brother to whom he was closely attached. He grew up in a New England seaport with ship captain ancestors, similar to the setting in the story. In real life, his mother also supported the family by opening a business in a failed factory, just like in the novel.

The portrayal of the two marriages in the story seems to parallel Cheever's own life. The men are depicted as relatively normal, while the women are filled with anxieties and almost seem crazy. This may reflect Cheever's own experiences with his wife and his insistence on taking her for psychological counseling.

The novel also contains what would have been considered graphic sex for the time, and Cheever holds the distinction of being the first to have the f-word allowed in selections chosen by the Book of the Month Club. Towards the end of the book, there is a chapter about one of the brothers having a homosexual experience, which was a bold and controversial topic for the 1950s.

Despite some flaws, such as the story dragging at times and the unrealistic portrayal of the marriages, it is still a pretty good read. I would rate it a 3. Cheever wrote a sequel, The Wapshot Scandal, but I think I will skip it and instead read some of his short stories.

The postcard of Quincy Market in 1904 and the photo of the author add an interesting visual element to the review. Overall, this novel offers a fascinating glimpse into the life and work of John Cheever.