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A review by prolixity
Falconer by John Cheever
2.0
Maybe I’d like Falconer better if I had a penis.
That might seem obscene (not to mention absurd), but if you’d read this book, you’d understand that my bringing it up isn’t out of the blue. Farragut, the limp and apathetic protagonist of this novel, mentions his dick with stunning regularity. I might not mind so much but he finds a way to connect it to every anecdote, memory, and conception of himself, that it felt alienating at first and then just flat-out ridiculous. So maybe if I had a penis, I’d understand Farragut’s bizarre obsession with his own, how it busts in to deflate otherwise poignant recollections—but, seeing as I don’t, I can’t judge whether he’s got some sort of strange fixation or whether Cheever’s just writing a realistic male character. I might be generous if it weren’t for phrases like these:
“...he had been skeptical about his sensual responsiveness ever since he had, while watching the approach of a thunderstorm, been disconcerted by a wet and implacable erection.”
“Considering the fact that the cock is the most critical link in our chain of survival...”
“Considering the sovereignty of his unruly cock, it was only a woman who could crown that redness with purpose.”
I’ve known some women who speak of their genitals as “life-giving” and “magical” and whatever and I find it similarly stupid, but it’s undeniable that, in the Western world at least, Farragut’s brand of phallocentrism has been the dominating dogma for centuries, so I find it more difficult to be charitable here, especially when it actively got in the way of some of Falconer’s more clear-headed moments.
But enough about dicks. The dick-worship wasn’t my main problem with this novel. My complaint is the complaint of high-schoolers everywhere forced to slog through “the classics,” of reviewers of your favourite book that you hate-read late at night, of the child with nothing better to do than read some old dusty tome found on their grandpa’s shelf... This book is boring.
That’s really all it comes down to. Maybe it sounds infantile to say it so bluntly, but: It’s fucking boring. I won’t deny Cheever’s talent; there are some wonderful passages here, but they’re few and far between, and bogged down by the utter flab by which they’re surrounded. Farragut is self-absorbed, sex-obsessed, apathetic, irresponsible, immature, and classist, but on top of that, he’s boring. I don’t mind reading about a protagonist who’s not particularly likeable, but god, they have to be engaging at the very least, and Farragut is about as engaging as a piece of stale bread. A piece of stale bread with a dick.
The critical response to this novel is baffling to me; the glowing blurb from Newsweek stares out at me from the cover like that shaft of morning light that cuts between your blinds to burn right into your eyes and wake you up. I’m glad so many people got so much out of this book but frankly I can’t imagine what they got. I found it lifeless, ridiculous, boring, and, that dread adjective, pretentious. I felt that it was assuming a profundity and an insight that it frankly didn’t have, and in addition to boring me half to death it just made me roll my eyes.
That might seem obscene (not to mention absurd), but if you’d read this book, you’d understand that my bringing it up isn’t out of the blue. Farragut, the limp and apathetic protagonist of this novel, mentions his dick with stunning regularity. I might not mind so much but he finds a way to connect it to every anecdote, memory, and conception of himself, that it felt alienating at first and then just flat-out ridiculous. So maybe if I had a penis, I’d understand Farragut’s bizarre obsession with his own, how it busts in to deflate otherwise poignant recollections—but, seeing as I don’t, I can’t judge whether he’s got some sort of strange fixation or whether Cheever’s just writing a realistic male character. I might be generous if it weren’t for phrases like these:
“...he had been skeptical about his sensual responsiveness ever since he had, while watching the approach of a thunderstorm, been disconcerted by a wet and implacable erection.”
“Considering the fact that the cock is the most critical link in our chain of survival...”
“Considering the sovereignty of his unruly cock, it was only a woman who could crown that redness with purpose.”
I’ve known some women who speak of their genitals as “life-giving” and “magical” and whatever and I find it similarly stupid, but it’s undeniable that, in the Western world at least, Farragut’s brand of phallocentrism has been the dominating dogma for centuries, so I find it more difficult to be charitable here, especially when it actively got in the way of some of Falconer’s more clear-headed moments.
But enough about dicks. The dick-worship wasn’t my main problem with this novel. My complaint is the complaint of high-schoolers everywhere forced to slog through “the classics,” of reviewers of your favourite book that you hate-read late at night, of the child with nothing better to do than read some old dusty tome found on their grandpa’s shelf... This book is boring.
That’s really all it comes down to. Maybe it sounds infantile to say it so bluntly, but: It’s fucking boring. I won’t deny Cheever’s talent; there are some wonderful passages here, but they’re few and far between, and bogged down by the utter flab by which they’re surrounded. Farragut is self-absorbed, sex-obsessed, apathetic, irresponsible, immature, and classist, but on top of that, he’s boring. I don’t mind reading about a protagonist who’s not particularly likeable, but god, they have to be engaging at the very least, and Farragut is about as engaging as a piece of stale bread. A piece of stale bread with a dick.
The critical response to this novel is baffling to me; the glowing blurb from Newsweek stares out at me from the cover like that shaft of morning light that cuts between your blinds to burn right into your eyes and wake you up. I’m glad so many people got so much out of this book but frankly I can’t imagine what they got. I found it lifeless, ridiculous, boring, and, that dread adjective, pretentious. I felt that it was assuming a profundity and an insight that it frankly didn’t have, and in addition to boring me half to death it just made me roll my eyes.