I had read only a couple of John Cheever's short stories before, and listening to these offerings as read by well-known actors (with two read by Cheever himself) made me realize what a sad gap in my reading life that was. I will have to read more, and soon.

Without going into a protracted and possibly irritating analysis of all the things that make these stories so effective, so well-written, so evocative, and so knowing, I simply can't give a good account of all their fine qualities. What struck me was not how "dated" the stories sounded but how rich with detail, observation, and perspective they were. I haven't done a proper study of the evolution of the American literary tradition in the short form, but many of the offerings of more recent vintage that I've come across seem to have jettisoned these traits in favor of a more immediate and more cartoonish approach. It's as if writers have conceded that readers can't be counted on to show up and pick their way through ALL THOSE WORDS just to find out that ordinary people are more complicated and more flawed than we usually believe them to be. So, kapow, they instead pare things down to the hastily drawn, the fantastic, the outlandish, and, it seems, the relatively pointless.

Or, no, not the pointless. I've read a lot of contemporary stories that are bristling with points. But somehow the points don't come leavened with a necessary helping of recognizable humanity. They don't linger. They don't, for lack of a better word, instruct.

See, this is just what I was talking about. I can't give a proper critique of Cheever's stories, because there's a context here that's important to my enjoying them as I much as I have. Let's just leave it at that: I really liked them.

( )

no quede del todo satisfecho. no se si fue por la seleccion de cuentos por que por otro lado me parece evidente que sabe escribir. sabe como narrar, es un buen observador, es un prosista elegante. pero los cuentos son un poco repetitivos. muchos hombres borrachos insensibles y abusadores, y mujeres frustradas. mucho resentiemiento. algunas situaciones medio facilongas y esquematicas. lo mas interesante y lo que mas me tuvo pensando fueron los gender roles. muchos cuentos tienen que ver precisamente con esas relaciones y esos roles. desde hoy dia es escalofriante que las mujeres recibian allowances. los que leen los cuentos en audio me parecieron -con excepcion de plimpton- muy buenos. cheever leyendo su cuento es un chiste. sorprendente que haya pasado por heterosexual. ( )

Preparing for career week in high school, the guidance counselor asked what type of job I wanted to have. I told him I wanted to be an author. He asked what type of writing I wanted to do, and I replied that I wanted to write stories based on the suburban experience. "You should read John Cheever," he suggested and then assigned me to an internship with the local newspaper. Of course, I didn't listen to his suggestion and didn't read John Cheever until now (with one exception).

I was drawn to the Audion Collection from an episode of To The Best of Our Knowledge which featured clips of the stories read by Meryl Streep, Blythe Danner, George Plympton, and Cheever himself among others. I am pretty amazed by these scenes of middle-class life in post-WWII America. The stories describe a time gone by but still very familiar as it captures an era that was coming to an end in my childhood. Cheever captures the everyday grief, mundacity, and petty jealousies of his characters. Sometimes his stories take on a surreal Twilight Zone feel as in "The Enormous Radio" where the titular device broadcasts the conversations of other residents in an apartment building or "The Swimmer" where a man attempts to swim home through all the backyard swimming pools in his neighborhood on a journey that takes years. There also is a time an O'Henry feel in stories like "Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor" where in an ironic twist a poor elevator man requires more gifts than he knows what to do with.

The stories are grim, the characters are unlikable, but there's something in the gritty humanity of Cheever's stories that make me like them and want to read more. Credit should be given to the voice actors who bring these stories to life as well. ( )