Diary<\/em>. I wonder if he was referencing this story when he chose to make handwriting analysis such a major part of his novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe plot itself is clich\u00e9, even for its time. This is the basic plot of tons of pulp thrillers and Hitchcock films. I don’t think it is supposed to be a parody. It just reads like a standard psychological thriller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Redeeming Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The one thing I really liked about the story was how the random act of violence changed the characters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We don’t like to think about it, but these types of things can and do happen all the time. They change people forever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man and the woman have opposing trajectories. The man starts confident, but by the end of the event, he is shattered, face down in the dirt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The woman starts timid and self-conscious, but is confident and restored after the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m not sure I like the message: revenge can be fulfilling and helpful in overcoming someone that has wronged you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goodbye, My Brother<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
“Goodbye, My Brother” I have a bit more respect for. It is told in first-person, but overall it reads like an ensemble piece. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The impressive part is how he gets such a large number of fully developed characters into such a small space. Having more than two or three main characters is difficult to handle in short stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cheever achieves this by setting up a large number of tightly written scenes to get different combinations to interact with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, the house itself almost becomes a character. Each of the characters derides problems with it or takes comfort in memories from it. This aids in fleshing out the family history. Not that he’s doing anything original with this technique, but it fits the story well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like that even though there is no action, there is still a lot of tension and forward motion that gives way to moments of emotion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is interesting how he can achieve this by making it feel like something is always about to boil over into a major catastrophe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It does, in fact, eventually happen, but I won’t spoil it here if you haven’t read it. There is a very intense scene between the main character and his brother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is the only bit of action, and the slow build-up makes the release far better than if there had been action the whole time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Final Verdict on John Cheever Stories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Now that I’ve gone through the major Cheever stories, I can say that I can see hints of greatness throughout. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is still a mystery to me why he is heralded as one of the best. He is very good, but so are a hundred other people. My guess is that his material spoke to a particular demographic that had most of the literary power of his time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This lengthy article dives into my experiences with several of John Cheever’s most famous short stories. A Word on Stories I have a confession. I don’t get why John Cheever’s short stories are so loved. If you look at my past blog posts, you’ll see that I could pontificate for hours on the greatness of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/amindformadness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/john-cheever-swimmer.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11666,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions\/11666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}