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One response to “The Journals of John Cheever”

1. 

   Ed Farrell

   September 23, 2025

   Very well put: “phenomenologists of suburban hanky-panky, auto dealerships, and such.” In my student years reading Updike and Cheever was simply punishment. Neither were part of the English department curricula but everyone was reading them along with Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Joseph Heller, etc. And as near as I could tell, the lives of department faculty were mostly living examples of what they (Updike and Cheever) depicted. For me at least, mainstream literary fiction of that era was as wasteland of chic ennui. I briefly got immersed in some of the more outlandish works such as Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow” but even these were mostly just elaborate trinkets. There was real, unpolished life in the beats and some of the counterculture of the time, which is much more interesting to re-read today. There was an immediacy to it, with no mediating bullshit, that made its uneven quality beside the point.

   I did start reading Cheever’s journals but unfortunately it’s been stalled by my other reading and lots of summer work on my little mountain domain. Winter should bring more opportunity.

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