Excerpts
“Everybody is pink.” An Excerpt from The Journals of John Cheever
God bless Blake for putting up with the likes of me. He truly celebrates diversity of tastes and temperments with letting me be a contributor. I love Cheever. I might love his journals as much as his short fiction. (I like his novels a bit less). Here’s an excerpt, a random one, from near the end of his life, when the world starts changing so fast on us, it dizzies us. I often think about aging and dying and how chaos and destruction eventually win our bodies whole. (Thanks Mom and Dad.) This excerpt is one of many strange and heartbreaking sections from his journals that show his delight in language and confusion as to what our time here actually means:
In town with D. His 65th birthday. The face is strong, his gray hair is long. We do not mention his remarkable wife, who choked to death during lunch a month ago. HIs mistress has called him from Australia and asked him to marry her, and I suppose he will. The barbershop at the Biltmore has been cut in half, and there are only three barbers on the job. Do people get their haircuts elsewhere or don’t they get it cut at all? One used to have to wait, reading copies of The Tatler. What is the sigificance of a dying barbershop? The barbers are all old friends, and we talk in Italian. I spend a dollar in tips for being whisk-broomed and drink a Martini at the bar, where there is a new, and more attractive, painting of a nude. The face seems unusually sensitive. But as I walk up Madison Avenue the city escapes me. What has happened to this place where I used to so happily pound the sidewalk? Where has my city gone, where shall I look for it? In the Playboy Club, The Century Club, the Princeton Club, or the Links? In the steamroom at the Biltmore, in L’s panelled apartment, in the skating rink, in the Park, in the Plaza, on the walks where someone behind me makes tonguing noises with his or her mouth? I don’t look. I know the city well, why does it not know me? A pair of well-filled boots, pretty legs, a tossed head. A restaurant where all the lights are pink, and so my hands are pink, and pink is the face of my friend. Everybody is pink. Fifteen of twenty men stand at the urinal in Grand Central. Their looks are solicitious, alert, sometimes wistful. They use the polished marble as a glass for pick-ups, and most of them are fondling or pulling thier various sized and -colored cocks. Why does the sight of fifteen or twenty men jerking off seem more sigificant than the string music in the Palm Court?
Tags: impending death, John Cheever
pr, thanks for this! i’ve never read much Cheever, only excerpts here and there, i think, but i like his sentences here. “A pair of well-filled boots, pretty legs, a tossed head.” has a great sound to it, which is something i’m always looking for in a writer and in my own writing.
also, checked out Priestess, they sound like Alice In Chains, which I dig!
pr, thanks for this! i’ve never read much Cheever, only excerpts here and there, i think, but i like his sentences here. “A pair of well-filled boots, pretty legs, a tossed head.” has a great sound to it, which is something i’m always looking for in a writer and in my own writing.
also, checked out Priestess, they sound like Alice In Chains, which I dig!
Priestess!
His journals are great. He was such a complicated man. He was very particular about words and stringing together images. My fave sentences from that excerpt are-
We do not mention his remarkable wife, whe choked to death on lunch a month ago.
What is the significance of a dying barbershop?
Everybody is pink.
And that last line, all of it, ending in….”more siginficant than the string music in the Palm Court?”
The only other journals i like as much are Nin’s and Plath’s. Then again, I read very few collections of journals.
Thanks for taking a look, Ryan.
It warms me to read about Cheever on this particular blog. Thanks, pr. Cheever is fantastic in ways that I think many of the younger writers nowadays neglect. (Watch me shake my cane now at all the whippersnappers) Most of his short fiction comes from a different sort of mindset than what normally graces this blog. I suppose it might be called old man fiction, but who cares? It’ll still wrangle a reader in and punch them in the gut with strong-hearted words and honest rendering. Cheever will engage lyrically, with thick pathos, and a suburban bleakness that’s still prevalent today. The throb and ache in his work is as functionally relevant as Tao Lin is to the disconnected milieu of the Burger King generation.
HTMLGIANT stands stronger and looms wider with posts that venture outside like this.
It warms me to read about Cheever on this particular blog. Thanks, pr. Cheever is fantastic in ways that I think many of the younger writers nowadays neglect. (Watch me shake my cane now at all the whippersnappers) Most of his short fiction comes from a different sort of mindset than what normally graces this blog. I suppose it might be called old man fiction, but who cares? It’ll still wrangle a reader in and punch them in the gut with strong-hearted words and honest rendering. Cheever will engage lyrically, with thick pathos, and a suburban bleakness that’s still prevalent today. The throb and ache in his work is as functionally relevant as Tao Lin is to the disconnected milieu of the Burger King generation.
HTMLGIANT stands stronger and looms wider with posts that venture outside like this.
i like Falconer. it sometimes seems like Sam Pink wrote it
i like Falconer. it sometimes seems like Sam Pink wrote it
haha! Right? He can be wierd and unsettling in the best way. like mr. Pink.
Thanks Brad! I’m “htmlgiant’s grandma”. I christen myself that. But I am a cool grandma? Like a harold and maude type? I hope. Cheever was not not radical. He wrote about being gay, for one. He wrote some surrealistic stuff, for sure. He loved words, most of all.
“most of them are fondling or pulling their various sized and colored cocks.”
this made me smile as well.
“most of them are fondling or pulling their various sized and colored cocks.”
this made me smile as well.
Fantastic. I never knew these even existed. Thanks, pr
Fantastic. I never knew these even existed. Thanks, pr
I just ordered it. I took Dan’s suggestion and tried to do so from Shaman first but they didn’t have it. That is my good deed for the year! Now back to Jack Daniels, prostitutes and free-basing the best cocaine I can find in the next 30 minutes.
I just ordered it. I took Dan’s suggestion and tried to do so from Shaman first but they didn’t have it. That is my good deed for the year! Now back to Jack Daniels, prostitutes and free-basing the best cocaine I can find in the next 30 minutes.
Cheever will go well with your plans for the evening. Dude liked to party and have wild illicit sex.
God bless Blake? Nah. God bless pr!
Priestess yes. Also, Baroness.
God bless Blake? Nah. God bless pr!
Priestess yes. Also, Baroness.
Just checked out Baroness on MySpace! Thanks soo much Matthew. Rock on. I heart metal.
BTW-most fucked up metal show I’vebeen to (I think, I forget things ) was High on Fire.
yeah actually i really really like falconer. the end makes me sit still for a long time.
yeah actually i really really like falconer. the end makes me sit still for a long time.