Reviews

Falconer by John Cheever

roachmonk's review

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1.0

Not sure why this won a Pulitzer. It's not badly written, nor is it beautifully written. Maybe I'm missing something.

thetoreadlistpodcast's review against another edition

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3.0

"Wait, so there are no birds?!" - Episode 122, THE FALCONER MAN
https://sites.libsyn.com/150491/the-falconer-man

pjv1013's review

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5.0

COMENTÁRIO
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Falconer"
John Cheever
Tradução de José Lima

Falconer foi a confirmação perfeita de que John Cheever é um autor a ler tudo o que me for possível. Depois de ler nestas férias o "Crónica de Wapshot" a leitura de um dos seu mais destacados romances mostra a maestria na inovação que Cheever representa.

Desta feita, a obra situa-se numa prisão cujo nome dá o mote ao título do livro, quase sempre limitado ao "Bloco F" e a um grupo restrito de detidos.
O protagonista, Izequiel Ferragut está preso por assassinar o irmão, aparentemente numa discussão doméstica ingénua. Ferragut é também um heroínamo, depende da metadona que lhe é administrada na prisão.

Cheever parte assim do quotidiano de uma prisão, e num registo de escrita que nos faz lembra a torrente de delírio numa ressaca de abstinência das drogas, apresenta o dia-a-dia dos homens ali detidos. Esse fluxo, algo rapido, prende o leitor no desejo de conhecer melhor cada uma das personagens que se cruzam na vida do protagonista Ferragut.

Outro elemento interessante da obra está relacionado com as práticas sexuais entre os detidos apresentadas como óbvias mas circunstanciais. Este seria um belo tema de debate...

Uma última nota acerca do tempo da sua vida a em que Cheever escreveu este livro pois vais corresponder ao momento em que o autor deixa de consumir álcool, assumindo um problema de consumo excessivo (sobre isso falarei em outro momento).

nohoperadio's review against another edition

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3.5

On a page-by-page basis there’s a lot of beauty and intelligence in this short novel, and I’m not totally sure why the whole didn’t leave a stronger impression on me than it did. Let’s have some of that beauty first:

The light in the prison, that late in the day, reminded Farragut of some forest he had skied through on a winter afternoon. The perfect diagonal of the light was cut by bars as trees would cut the light in some wood, and the largeness and mysteriousness of the place was like the largeness of some forest–some tapestry of knights and unicorns–where a succinct message was promised but where nothing was spoken but the vastness.

I won’t say this is representative, because as well as lyricism like this there’s also a lot of bodily fluids in this book (I think all of them?). Our hero, who has had a luckier life than many of his fellow prisoners, has nonetheless been fucked up by: drugs, war, marriage, his parents, and of course What He Did, all of which his new life affords him plenty of time to think around-not-about. All this comes through in vignettey little flashbacks that somehow didn’t add up to much for me even when they were individually moving. Does this mean I should read his short stories, which apparently is mostly what he wrote?

Worth noting: the prison gayness here is more wholehearted than I expected, enough to send me on a not-unrewarded trip to the Personal Life section of Cheever’s Wikipedia page. 

blueskygreentreesyellowsun's review against another edition

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3.0

Nothing in particular happens in this book, but it kept me interested enough to keep turning pages until the end.

ben_miller's review

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4.0

I never want to go to jail.

kokonatsu's review

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3.0

Hmm. What a strange book. It says the place is a prison, but I think a mental ward is a better possibility. I enjoyed the book, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I’m unsure what the point of it was too. The conversations were the highlight, and the character Tiny. “Why you an addict?”

ellerbee's review

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dark emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

bettyvd's review

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4.0

Een bijzonder boek: in een nogal zakelijke stijl toch heel bijzondere beelden oproepen en karakters tekenen, je moet het maar kunnen. Zo zou ik wel willen kunnen schrijven!
Een man zit in de gevangenis voor broedermoord. Hij mist de vrijheid die we zo vanzelfsprekend vinden, maar hij vindt ook schoonheid en verlossing.

bundy23's review

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1.0

18 days since I started this and according to my kindle I'm at 28%... and now I've given up... I really wanted to like it and tried hard to push through but i couldn't read more than 3 or 4 pages before i stopped caring and lost the will to live... awful characters and dense writing...