Cheever v. O'Connor

Cheever…what the hell is that? So, I’m reading this story, and slowly at the back of my mind something starts to tickle as I realize this guy is off his rocker. I honestly thought at the beginning, it would be pretty funny to see this guy pool hopping across the county. Stupid, but funny. Then you start to realize that time seems to have sucked him through the water, the water being years. With every pool this guy enters the more time he loses, he can’t go back because he’s stuck in this cycle. He wants to finish what he started though he’s losing everything he had. Yet, he prevails for what? He finishes his deed for the satisfaction of finishing it and yet, nothing comes of it. He comes home to an empty house, a poor man, a broken man, with no discernable clue as to where his family is. However! He still has his pride at swimming across the county…and even that is almost a loss. It’s a fast paced tale, confusing, and hard to keep up with. He doesn’t really develop the characters around him. It’s a focus on the main character and what he is doing himself. He creates the setting, the movement, and the story line but nothing else really comes to touch him. Ned doesn’t LET anything touch him. He has to keep moving, keep going through with his plan.

O’Connor…wow. At first I thought this story was going to be about the nosy old lady; apparently not. This story is almost as depressing as the first, but for some reason Cheever makes you feel a little more light-hearted than this one does. No one wins in the end. It’s people tricking people. They keep referring to this elusive good country people but yet she never comes out and tells you exactly what that is. Its left open for discussion I suppose. Her characters are fully developed, except for the late comer (the Bible seller). She gets down to the surface of them, their habits and such but let’s the reader come to the conclusion of what makes them tick. Helga for instance; she says she’s gotten degrees, she’s bitter about her leg, and she’s a fema-nazi I believe for the most part. She considers herself above the rest of the ‘good country people’ and doesn’t believe in anything; or so she says. When it came down to the end though the Bible seller calls her out when he steals her leg. It’s actually a really weird plot. Who wants someone’s used peg leg? It’s USED! Besides, what is he going to do with it? Just weird really.

These two authors are both a little unconventional. They try to make a point, but it seems to be in the translation of the interpreters. Both kind of rely on societies norms. Cheever talks about the whole ‘I’ll call you’, Hollywood upper class kind of thing and O’Connor is about the simple, country folk. It’s stereotyping. Helga thought the Bible dude was ignorant; he pulled the con on her. Ned thought he was above everyone and went off on his little adventure, but in the end ended up being screwed over somehow. I believe O’Connor’s would be easier for a reader to read. Cheever is just confusing. It actually made my head hurt to read it, trying to write about it makes it even more frustrating. He’s writing at a furious pace, keeping the movement of the piece going, and not letting the reader catch up with the main character until his final laps in the pools. It is a really busy piece. So much is going on and it’s hard to keep track of. O’Connor writes with a lot of detail. It’s hard to separate out who she’s talking about. She throws in a lot of random facts and characters that don’t really pertain to the story but add to the character solely to the character outlines. I’m not going to lie. I didn’t much like either piece; if I had to pick one I’d pick O’Connor’s.