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3.6 AVERAGE
3.6 AVERAGE
Aan de kust in de fictieve havenplaats St. Botolphs woont de familie Wapshot. De niet zo stuurvaste zeerob Leander Wapshot en zijn vrouw hebben twee zoons, Moses en Coverly. De familie wordt onderhouden door de oude, excentrieke nicht Honora. Zij heeft het familiegeld tot haar beschikking en heeft één doel: de naam van het vermaarde, de wereldzeeën bedwingende geslacht Wapshot in stand houden. Ze wil niets liever dan dat Moses en Coverly een net meisje huwen en zorgen voor een nieuwe generatie Wapshots. Maar dat is nog niet zo makkelijk...
In deze nog niet eerder vertaalde debuutroman geeft Cheever een onvergetelijk beeld van het leven in New England, de thuisbasis van vrijwel al zijn verhalen. Geestig, verrassend en met tal van fantasievolle uitweidingen laat Cheever de keerzijde van de American Dream zien. Gebruik makend van de conventies van de familiekroniek roept hij een beeld op van een wat duisterder Amerika, waar de spanningen rond geloof, klassenverschillen en seksualiteit onder de oppervlakte broeien.
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"'Flonkerend proza.' *****" – NRC Handelsblad
"'Een van de grootste schrijvers van de vorige eeuw (...)duizelingwekkend en ontroerend.' *****" – Het Parool
"'Cheever stijgt hier boven zichzelf uit.'" – De Groene Amsterdammer
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John Cheever (1912-1982) wordt gezien als een van de grootste Amerikaanse schrijvers van de twintigste eeuw. Hij ontving onder andere de Pulitzer Prize for Fiction en kort voor hij in 1982 overleed, werd hem nog de National Medal for Literature uitgereikt.
In deze nog niet eerder vertaalde debuutroman geeft Cheever een onvergetelijk beeld van het leven in New England, de thuisbasis van vrijwel al zijn verhalen. Geestig, verrassend en met tal van fantasievolle uitweidingen laat Cheever de keerzijde van de American Dream zien. Gebruik makend van de conventies van de familiekroniek roept hij een beeld op van een wat duisterder Amerika, waar de spanningen rond geloof, klassenverschillen en seksualiteit onder de oppervlakte broeien.
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"'Flonkerend proza.' *****" – NRC Handelsblad
"'Een van de grootste schrijvers van de vorige eeuw (...)duizelingwekkend en ontroerend.' *****" – Het Parool
"'Cheever stijgt hier boven zichzelf uit.'" – De Groene Amsterdammer
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John Cheever (1912-1982) wordt gezien als een van de grootste Amerikaanse schrijvers van de twintigste eeuw. Hij ontving onder andere de Pulitzer Prize for Fiction en kort voor hij in 1982 overleed, werd hem nog de National Medal for Literature uitgereikt.
Enjoyable portraits of the Wapshot family. Touched on themes also discussed in his short stories, but wasn't as compact and focused. While the characters were interesting I felt it lacked a plot in which to structure any connection between them, so the events felt a bit disjointed.
Themes of boating and life along the water, homosexuality, relationship troubles, parenthood, the simplicity of the outdoors.
Themes of boating and life along the water, homosexuality, relationship troubles, parenthood, the simplicity of the outdoors.
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Well this is an odd one. I was very uncertain the whole time I was reading this what era we were in. Looking back, I suppose it must have been set in the 1950’s: rockets and some kind of programming on tape. But there’s a fin-de-siecle feel to the whole thing, a kind of Edwardian stiffness that infused the whole awkward telling that for me held it in an earlier time. It’s a world in which the young seem to be in thrall to their elders, who, by dint of custom and a kind of intergenerational extortion, hold their young relations in a kind of stunned compliance. But maybe that is just what 1950s America was like. But if that was supposed to be the 1950’s, it’s a post-war America with remarkably little residue of the two great wars, the Depression, let alone all the other social and political upheaval the country saw at that time. But perhaps that’s the point, this insular New England microcosm, where time moves more slowly and the memories that accrete are not part of the national or international arena, but come from a much smaller stage. It’s a novel, for me, of surfaces; I felt as though I was being shown these people, these scenes, the action, at some distance, by some omniscient third person narrator who didn’t really want to disclose much. I’ve been puzzling over how the author managed it. There are a lot of words here; time is taken - certainly no superficiality here - and ideas are beautifully expressed, but somehow this distance between the observer and observed remains. The closest thing to the expression of a character’s internal state came in old Leander’s diary, which is written in single words or very short phrases, writing that both hints at and obscures complex experiences and emotions, always indirectly or by suggestion. This sense of distance, of alienation from the subject of the narrative, is itself a writerly achievement to admire. It’s quite funny, often. Perhaps it was intended as a kind of post-structural comedy of manners, having a little laugh at backwater New Englanders. But it’s very uneven, with deep dives into certain episodes, followed by a section of continuity or background, then another episode. Maybe that earns it the title “Chronicle”, but doesn’t feel quite whole, somehow. As a consequence, I found it unsatisfying as a novel in the conventional sense, but one that’s pock-marked with moments of madness, brilliance and deeply human confusion. So worth the read, but requires some patience.
I was going to try and read this before my trip to Colorado so I could give it back to my step-mom, but I read the first 50 pages or so and I just can't get into it. I quit.
1958 National Book Award winner. Slow starter, but if you can make it to the sex and the car crash, you'll find the plot picks up.
Excellent characterization, which is so lacking in the newer literature, and exquisitely written. A joy and a treat to read.
Originally published on my blog here in March 2000.
It took me a long time to get into The Wapshot Chronicle, the supposedly hilarious story of the old family of the Wapshots in their New England small town. Most of it I found not interesting enough to be funny..
There are occasional amusing paragraphs, but it is not until near the end when I realised that the section about Moses Wapshot's married life was a parody of Henry James that I began to enjoy it more.
It took me a long time to get into The Wapshot Chronicle, the supposedly hilarious story of the old family of the Wapshots in their New England small town. Most of it I found not interesting enough to be funny..
There are occasional amusing paragraphs, but it is not until near the end when I realised that the section about Moses Wapshot's married life was a parody of Henry James that I began to enjoy it more.
"Man is not simple. Hobgoblin company of love always with us."
― John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle
The Wapshot Chronicle is a twin Bildungsroman of sons Moses and Coverly, framed by the letters, journaling, and loneliness of their father Leander. It is a crazy beautiful 20th Century Great Expectations-like novel of a family's depth and breadth, its secrets and its flaws. The two brothers are saddled with the albatross and obligation to insure ensure that Old Honora’s keeps paying the bills (future) for the boys and (current) for their parents.
Cheever fills his novel with dominating mothers, idiosyncratic and co-dependent guardians, changeable wives and costly lovers. The trinity of Wapshot men, float throughout Cheever's novel in a wayward, rudderless boat. Their lives are constantly taking on water and they seem destined to be blown further from the shore by the dominant humor of the nearest strong-willed female.
The characters in The Wapshot Chronicle were amazing. Its language and narrative were incredible. Cheever's satire and ribald humor constantly bit this reader in his lusty-for-good-literature ass.
― John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle
The Wapshot Chronicle is a twin Bildungsroman of sons Moses and Coverly, framed by the letters, journaling, and loneliness of their father Leander. It is a crazy beautiful 20th Century Great Expectations-like novel of a family's depth and breadth, its secrets and its flaws. The two brothers are saddled with the albatross and obligation to insure ensure that Old Honora’s keeps paying the bills (future) for the boys and (current) for their parents.
Cheever fills his novel with dominating mothers, idiosyncratic and co-dependent guardians, changeable wives and costly lovers. The trinity of Wapshot men, float throughout Cheever's novel in a wayward, rudderless boat. Their lives are constantly taking on water and they seem destined to be blown further from the shore by the dominant humor of the nearest strong-willed female.
The characters in The Wapshot Chronicle were amazing. Its language and narrative were incredible. Cheever's satire and ribald humor constantly bit this reader in his lusty-for-good-literature ass.