Customer Reviews

The Journals of John Cheever (Vintage International)

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I devour published journals, diaries, notebooks, sketchbooks and even letter collections like no other category in literature. When they're good and not merely dull notation - "Supped at 7:30 and went to bed early," BLAH! - there's nothing quite like them. To me, they're the hidden ground of consciousness, the unpretentious flashpoint of self-understanding and creation. Of the (by this time) hundreds I've read, Cheever's journals lead the pack. For sheer honesty, beauty of perception and phrase, he transcends the genre.

John Updike wrote a review of the book complaining that there wasn't enough context, no footnotes to make sense of the entries. Respectable as he is, Updike got it wrong. No context is needed, because from beginning to end, Cheever maintains a singular perspective, a transparent love of the world in all its complexity that illuminates even the murkist turn of events. He called it the "CAFARDE," that downward-spiraling sense we sometimes get of the trap, the uselessness of it all. The home we can ill-afford and the relationship that requires more giving than receiving. And as much as he dodges it, the big let-down is STILL a thing of beauty, an invitation to be awed by life.

It's the small, gritty, real things that he loves the most and notes with an obsessive joy.

Cheever was a husband, father, a veteran, thinker, artist, bisexual, homeowner, traveler, charmer and comedian. All of this comes through in prose as light and essential as thought itself. If you are at all interested in the cartography of another person's soul, this will become an essential text for you, as it has for me.

I never met John Cheever in person, but it hardly matters. With this book, I have met him in a way that would have been forbidden, even impossible, at some random cocktail party. He knew what he was doing, writing these words. He was reaching across the decades, generations and the arbitrary change of style, reaching toward an unknown hand. I hope you'll take it and feel the warmth that, through Cheever's distinctive genius, hasn't cooled one degree since the words were typed.

The sheer, physical elegance of John Cheever's stories, and novels, is equally on display in his journals. The journals, of course, is a more intimate look into the inner life of a fine writer, with all of Cheever's craftsmanship on display. The journals give you a full picture of Cheever's spirit and mind, in the pure, and eloquent language Cheever worked hard at.