Identify Containing Books The Wapshot Chronicle
Title | : | The Wapshot Chronicle |
Author | : | John Cheever |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | First Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 352 pages |
Published | : | June 3rd 2003 by Harper Perennial Modern Classics (first published 1957) |
Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. Literature |
John Cheever
Paperback | Pages: 352 pages Rating: 3.76 | 6679 Users | 348 Reviews
Explanation In Favor Of Books The Wapshot Chronicle
Meet the Wapshots of St Botolphs. There is Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea-dog and would-be suicide; his licentious older son, Moses; and Moses's adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly. Tragic and funny, ribald and splendidly picaresque, and partly based on Cheever's adolescence in New England, The Wapshot Chronicle is a stirring family narrative in the finest traditions of Trollope, Dickens, and Henry JamesPresent Books In Pursuance Of The Wapshot Chronicle
Original Title: | The Wapshot Chronicle |
ISBN: | 0060528877 (ISBN13: 9780060528874) |
Edition Language: | English |
Characters: | Leander Wapshot, Moses Wapshot, Coverly Wapshot |
Setting: | Massachusetts(United States) St. Botolphs, Massachusetts(United States) |
Literary Awards: | National Book Award for Fiction (1958) |
Rating Containing Books The Wapshot Chronicle
Ratings: 3.76 From 6679 Users | 348 ReviewsNotice Containing Books The Wapshot Chronicle
Meh. That is all the emotion with which this book left me. Somewhere I read that Cheever was heavily inspired by James Joyce, and it is so, so obvious here. I don't mean that in a good way either.Cheever is not a novelist, and it is quite apparent. He is a short story writer who wanted to jump ship for novels, but this book is nothing more than a short story that is about 200 pages too long. I got bored more times than I can count.Aside from that, he is a good writer. The book flows well, and heSo, there are two types of card games. One you play usually as an adult, and each hand has an effect on the following hand. You know, you keep score and there's an ultimate goal. Then there are the games you play, usually as a kid, where each hand stands completely on its own. No scoring. No advantage to winning a hand. And this book is like the second. If you're not really involved in the hand you're playing/chapter you're reading, there's no reason to pay any attention whatsoever, because the
I have found at times that the all American novel struggles to be deeply rooted in the social world, that in a Society so fluid and so ever changing fiction hardly has time to digest the way things really happen, tending to tread a path of unrealistic characters journeying through some sort of fantasy life. John Cheever's debut, The Wapshot Chronicle both confirms my suspicions but also contradicts them. The family under the spotlight here get the full treatment, making for a striking read, and
"Man is not simple. Hobgoblin company of love always with us." John Cheever, The Wapshot ChronicleThe 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 Honoras keeps paying the bills
Cheever takes a velvet hammer to the institution of the Olde New England Family, with a case study of the Wapshots, a family with few skills or resources for functioning in modern society. Some shakeups at home lead to them finally getting properly injected into the modern American bloodstream, after a car crash victim upsets the ruling order of the house. Patriarch Leander is first to crumble, falling victim to his domineering Aunt, who tries to turn the family home into a bed and breakfast and
The author was a famous short story writer and this was his first attempt at a novel. It won the National Book Award for 1958.Its kind of a coming of age story of two young men, although most of the plot follows not their youth, but the start of their careers. Their father was a river boat captain so theres a bit of sea lore. Were in a small New England sea town at the turn of the century, a time when autos are replacing horses. Theres a focus on change: nothing was anymore what it aimed to be
Cheever's sensory descriptions in this book made me nostalgic for things I've never even experienced. E.g. this whale of a sentence:"The attic was a fitting place for these papers, for this barny summit of the house--as big as a hayloft--with its trunks and oars and tillers and torn sails and broken furniture and crooked chimneys and hornets and wasps and obsolete lamps spread out at one's feet like the ruins of a vanished civilization and with an extraordinary spiciness in the air as if some
0 Comments:
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.