#Johncheever

[mariajosecodes]

«Sentirse abrazado y sostenido por el agua verde y cristalina, más que un placer, suponía la vuelta a un estado normal de cosas, y a Neddy le hubiese gustado nadar sin bañador, pero eso no resultaba posible, debido a la naturaleza de su proyecto. Salió a pulso de la piscina por el otro extremo —nunca usaba la escalerilla—, y comenzó a cruzar el césped. Cuando Lucinda le preguntó que adonde iba, respondió que iría nadando hasta casa. » 💦 Ya sé que a otros os encanta correr, pasear, hacer musculación o pilates; ver series en la bicicleta estática o meditar en la postura del loto. Lo mío siempre ha sido nadar, llevo toda mi vida nadando y he conocido muchas piscinas a lo largo de los años. Seguramente por eso me gusta tanto el famoso relato de John Cheever, El nadador. Feliz sábado 🌊🏊 #JohnCheever #Elnadador #literaturaamericana #relatobreve #piscinas https://www.instagram.com/p/CoO-U4jrHQu/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[marlowe1-blog]

"The Scarlet Moving Van" (The Stories of John Cheever)

Drunks and Fake Mysticism

This one shares a lot with Torch Song as the doomed protagonist enters into a fascination/relationship with a character that is the symbol of his doom. Consequently, many literary critics see mystical and magical elements in the character.

Instead of Joan Harris, the woman who gets the moniker of Angel of Death and Black Widow, this story brings us GG whose name is short for Greek God because he once was beautiful but now he's an angry drunk who is just happy to go to dinner parties, get very drunk and accuse everyone of being stuffed shirts as a prelude for taking off all his clothes and trashing the place.

CharlieGG , the protagonist, and his wife are the first couple to host GG and his wife. So they are ground zero for his antics. The wife cries over him. GG screams about teaching everyone and then the next day, Charlie sees GG and he's all nice and charming.

So then he goes through everyone in the neighborhood. He doesn't just drink too much at one place and pull the naked scream. He does it everywhere and Charlie is following his progress.

It's in the last act when the story reveals itself. GG calls Charlie to help him in a new place or Charlie calls GG. I kind of forget this part but GG is in a wheel chair because he pulled a muscle or tore something or broke something. And as soon as Charlie leaves, he's calling Charlie to help him out because he fell out of his chair that he claimed that he was ok with.

Charlie ignores him.

Only that's a temporary solution. But as Cheever tells us, Charlie is already doomed. The main reason why he's obsessed with GG (or why the story is telling us about GG from Charlie's perspective) is the fact that Charlie is drinking too much and like GG, he's going to have to move out soon as GG continues to move from place to place.

Given that ending which is one of those twist endings (or flip endings) where everything is seen in a completely different light, we can see that Charlie asking GG if he's ever going to stop drinking is Charlie seeing himself in GG. Charlie might not know that he's an alcoholic yet (and he doesn't completely admit to it even at the end when he's losing his home) but he's fascinated with the loss of status and money to the drinking.

It's like when Stephen King mentioned that he wrote The Shining without realizing that he was writing about his own alcoholism. I don't know where Cheever was in his alcoholic journey. This seems like a story that was written in the 1950s and published in 1959 so Cheever was still drinking at the time. My knowledge of his drinking is sketchy. As far as I know, he stopped drinking around the last 60s and spent his last decade sober or at very least in the program. I know that his daughter talked about how he would promote AA but he didn't push it because he knew that this wouldn't work.

So this is a great story about a delusional man whose life is unraveling but he doesn't understand that his life is unraveling because he can follow the travails of an even messier alcoholic.

Of course, literary critics are going to see GG as a mystical bacchus figure because that's how Charlie sees GG. But GG is just another drunk that Charlie can't look away from. Charlie gives GG a mystical significance because Charlie is one his way to blowing up his life and if he can blame GG and fate for his problems, he doesn't have to do the hard work of moving away from it.

Warning - What follows is some Therapy Related stuff. So yeah CW for child abuse, etc.

I was just telling my therapist today that I was fascinated with Justin Roiland and Linkara at the moment. My therapist didn't think it was as problematic as I did since everyone seems to like those Real Housewives shows. I'm just watching bigger disasters. I think it goes deeper, like these are the guys I could become if I wasn't constantly trying to understand myself and better myself. This reminds me of when a friend of a friend hated me and I was fascinated by her obsessive disaster personality (she was really into the friend and didn't admit to it. But she was also bitter against everyone who ever rejected her) but at a certain point, I had to admit that being in a better place emotionally than this woman didn't mean that I was in a good place. I was just in a slightly better position. And as I realized in my previous year of processing childhood trauma, I've been getting into very close non-dating but looks like dating relationships with women who have had similar personalities. And while I could fool myself into thinking that we just fell into conversations and couldn't stop (like every other week was like Before Sunrise and Before Sunset but without the off-camera sex at the end) I realized that it was really ADHD/neurodivergence and childhood trauma that really got us talking.

And you know what? It wasn't healthy (and pretty temporary) but it was better than getting obsessed with women who were nice to me at a point when i was feeling particularly lonely and vulnerable and then carrying on that obsession for months or even years (I didn't stalk them. I just used them as an excuse to feel miserable and lonely with the caveat that if only they would change their minds I would be happy - but of course, I chose to "fall in love" with women who were never going to want me that way.)

Abandonment Issues anyone? Hard to recognize abandonment issues because my mom had no clue about health boundaries and treated me like I was responsible for her happiness and only I could do it from a young age - well before I could take care of myself? Oh yeah.

I've been processing.

So this story. Great damn story. Seriously, the way that it depicts the ways that we are attracted to those who share our worst aspects and who can mirror our own self-destruction is going to stay with me for a long time.

No need to make GG magic. How many stories before i get to The Swimmer?

[docnad]

Limitation page

John Cheever's The National Pastime, Limited Edition https://attemptedbloggery.blogspot.com/2024/10/john-cheever-limited-edition-of.html #JohnCheever

[vintagebooksdesign]

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, John Cheever - variously referred to as 'Ovid in Ossining' and the 'Chekhov of the suburbs' - forever altered the landscape of contemporary literature.   Satirical, fantastical, sad and transcendent, A Vision of the World is a collection of stories that speak directly to the heart of human experience, and remain a testament to the wit and vision of one of the most important and influential short story writers of the twentieth century. #bookdesign #bookcover #newbooks #avisionoftheworld #graphicdesign #coverdesign #thriller #johncheever #shortstories https://www.instagram.com/p/CPGLv5KtwnA/?utm_medium=tumblr

[ancheoggisidormedomani]

"Questa avrebbe potuto essere una storia divertente se non fosse per il fatto che la gente ha bisogno d'amore e, Cristo, certe volte è triste pensare alle situazioni schifose che si devono affrontare per trovarne un po'." - Dai racconti di Richard Brautigan . . . Un po' di America del '900 nel catalogo di www.seunanottedinvernounlibro.it #libro #libri #libreriaonline #libreria #book #books #bookstagram #cit #citazione #seunanottedinvernounlibro #racconti #libriusati #librirari #instabook #instabooks #bookshop #bookpride #letteratura #richardbrautigan #johncheever #susansontag #mondadori #allenginsberg #gusvansant #minimumfax #einaudieditore #marcosymarcos #garzanti #primaedizione https://www.instagram.com/p/CDcKrX2nLyx/?igshid=10suq9l3f2ofp

[elinconsistente]

The Swimmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #TheSwimmer #elnadador #1968 #surreal #drama BurtLancaster #EleanorPerry #FrankPerry #JohnCheever #TheNewYorker #NedMerrill #masterpiece #classicfilm #cultfim #swimwayhome #pool #swimmingpool #obramaestra #granactor #greatactor https://www.instagram.com/p/CaaEoR1uaY1/?utm_medium=tumblr

[ladyroseofshallott]

For real this has been my entire life. I long to be back in Ireland and I’m homesick for countries like Norway, Japan, Korea that I’ve never been to. 😫 it sucks. #quote #JohnCheever #wordporn #wanderlust (at Lima, Ohio)

[anneeo]

The stories of John Cheever has Ben riding with me all of the forty-three states. I meant to read one a day but ya know. #johncheever #booksondashboards #dashboardlibrary #dashboard #vanlife #books #booklife #booksinvans #johncheeverstheswimmer #theswimmer (at Almaden Valley, San Jose, California)

[severeathletellamacalzone-blog]

“The excitement of alcohol and the excitement of fantasy are very similar.” #johncheever #american #novelist #shortstorywriter #readafuckingbook #thewaysomepeoplelive https://www.instagram.com/p/CILPmZXBZ1v/?igshid=1h4uskzedrjk9

[eating-their-words]

"The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God - if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That's what I think." 🌈 Maya Angelou 🌈 ~ I've been looking for an excuse to repost this vintage paperback rainbow so I'm sneaking in one last entry for #thebookstagrammy competition ('just books' category) at @bookstagramhay. Hope I can join you all next year! . . . . . . . . . . #bookstagram #bookworm #bibliophile #igreads #instalibri #culturetripbooks #vintagebooks #usedbooks #met_createchange #mybookfeatures #bookstagrammy #mayaangelou #bookstagramhay #bookrainbow #bookishrainbow #flaubert #johncheever #turgenev #indubiousbattle #steinbeck #jamesmcain #vonnegut #lawrencedurrell #henrymiller #nancydrew #hardyboys #carolynkeene

[yourdisappointedarms]

“Long ago when they first invented the atomic bomb people used to worry about its going off and killing everybody, but they didn't know that mankind has enough dynamite right in his guts to tear the fucking planet to pieces.” #johncheever #american #shortstorywriter #novelist #deathanniversary #practicedying https://www.instagram.com/p/CBlQuGqn9_-/?igshid=e4otqpnxkajl

[marlowe1-blog]

"The Duchess" (The Stories of John Cheever)

A very charming story

Since I don'[t have the book in front of me when I write up these rviews and since I am a terrible procrastinator, I sometimes get in the habit of reading other perspectives on these stories. As long as i have something original to say, i don't worry about accidental plagiarism. The habit has become more set due to the fact that I find a great deal to react to in these stories and it's interesting to see the perspectives.

Yes. Fiction is different for everyone. Even the same story means different things to different people. That's why when you found The Catcher in the Rye you were first disappointed that not everyone loved it as much as you did and then were very disappointed to find out that some of the people who loved it were just assholes.

But I digress.

For this story, I found a Romanian blog where the guy is always worried that he's reading a leftist. Or a Communist. I believe that the last time I found his blog, he was worried that Cheever was sympathetic to poor people and critical of the uselessly wealthy and that's really just the first step toward shooting business owners on behalf of Stalin. For this story, the Romanian critic wrote "Or perhaps John Cheever is really left wing-which would be a terrible disappointment to me- and dislikes nobility."

Which is weirdly hilarious since John Cheever was an American where we all pretend to be middle class or temporarily disadvantaged millionaires.

One can assume that Cheever's view of nobility was a mixture of fascination and curiosity by the story and by the fact that he grew up in America where nobility is not respected (but sadly money is). Also this story is about Italy more than nobility. Cheever does love Italy and a blonde duchess whose mother is an English singer and father is a noble with a broken hip who recovered in England is really the main character by virtue of her role within the family.

Beyond a scene in the war when the noble father got away with being critical of Mussolini, the majority of the story is about the Duchess refusing suitors, either subtly or overtly. And her suitors are the kind of nobles that show up in 19th and 20th century, rich in name, poor in money - eager to marry someone with money so that the family fortunes can be restored.

There's one that gets more of a scene than others mostly because she's older at this point and the question of her marriage is the only thing that becomes interesting at the end.

And then as soon as her parents die, she marries the humorless Brit who was in charge of the finances. Which is rather a sweet ending.

This is a slight story, nothing too heavy, nothing to talk about but it's just a story about Cheever being in love with Italy and a sweet love story that needs to wait for people to die.

As such, it's a rare Cheever story. Not just because it takes place in Italy and not Shady Hill but also it's got a happy ending about relatively well adjusted people.

I guess if anything, it's like Shakespeare setting his better tragedies and comedies in Italy instead of England because he's freer to make stuff up and not adhere to local morality.

timlieder.com

patreon.com/timlieder

[docnad]

Title page to John Cheever's The National Pastime, Limited Edition https://attemptedbloggery.blogspot.com/2024/10/john-cheever-limited-edition-of.html #JohnCheever #Baseball #TheNewYorker

[hemanchong]

Day 8. I a bit cannot already. #Falconer #JohnCheever. #Bookstagram #BooksOfInstagram #BookCover #CircuitBreakerPaintings #HemanChong #CircuitBreakerSg (at Depot Road) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-8jH1IFMx0/?igshid=1kpvm6355mq2m

[ancheoggisidormedomani]

Vecchie edizioni Garzanti dalle copertine bellissime che schiudono viaggi nella periferia americana e nella grande madre Russia. . . . Disponibili sul sito: www.seunanottedinvernounlibro.it #libro #libri #libreriaonline #libreria #book #books #bookstagram #seunanottedinvernounlibro #instabook #instabooks #bookshop #bookpride #letteratura #libriusati #librirari #johncheever #fedorsologub #garzanti #romanzo #narrativa #america #russia https://www.instagram.com/p/ByXZ8wUoQTL/?igshid=qa5ax634gkyz