John Cheever

[Teasing the Korean]

I had The Collected Stories of John Cheever a long time ago.  I read many of the stories.  I re-purchased it a few years ago, and have thus far read most of the stories.  I plan on reading them all.  

I have never read any of his novels. 

I love the film adaptation of The Swimmer and the short story also.

What are your thoughts on John Cheever?

 

 

 

[Larry Kart]

I like the stories by and large; some of them are near magical. The novels don't work so well for me, kind of shaggy at times; I think his imagination benefited from the compression of the story form.

[T.D.]

41 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I had The Collected Stories of John Cheever a long time ago.  I read many of the stories.  I re-purchased it a few years ago, and have thus far read most of the stories.  I plan on reading them all.  

I have never read any of his novels. 

I love the film adaptation of The Swimmer and the short story also.

What are your thoughts on John Cheever?

 

 

 

Very much agreed on The Swimmer. I read quite a few of his short stories over the years, but no novels.

Weirdly, I read Cheever's short story Torch Song in an anthology (of American Short Stories or the like) 15-20 years ago, and it creeped me out so badly that I never read anything more of his. Well-written, but something about that story deeply disturbed me. I even pitched my copy of the anthology. So I guess you could say that I find Cheever's writing extremely powerful!

[medjuck]

5 hours ago, T.D. said:

Very much agreed on The Swimmer. I read quite a few of his short stories over the years, but no novels.

Weirdly, I read Cheever's short story Torch Song in an anthology (of American Short Stories or the like) 15-20 years ago, and it creeped me out so badly that I never read anything more of his. Well-written, but something about that story deeply disturbed me. I even pitched my copy of the anthology. So I guess you could say that I find Cheever's writing extremely powerful!

I read the Complete Shorts Stories and found them very depressing. 

[ejp626]

I've dipped into the short stories (eventually I upgraded from the old volume to Library of America's Collected Stories and Other Writings) but haven't gotten through all of them.  I'm pretty sure I read The Wapshot Chronicle in my early 20s but none of his other novels.

[Teasing the Korean]

I'm curious about the similarities or differences between the St. Botolph's location in the novels and the Shady Hill location in the short stories.  

[catesta]

John Cheever?! Dad, you and John Cheever?!