The Hill Bachelors

Rating:
Summary: ELEGANT AND ELOQUENT
Review: Following on the heels of his memorable Death In Summer (1998), the incomparable Irish storyteller, William Trevor, brings us a collection of 12 poignant tales that illuminate the human condition.

Acknowledged by many to be the master of his oeuvre, Trevor commands our attention with dignity and subtlety. Amazingly adept at shifting perspectives from male to female in varying locations and scenes, the author's championship form is again evident in The Hill Bachelors.

His initial offering, "Three People" is an incisive rendering of the toll of fabrication. A trio share a secret too dark for utterance which binds them together yet holds love at bay.

A lonely minister's life is compassionately observed in "Of The Cloth." The Rev. Grattan Fitzmaurice oversees three small churches, "...one of them now unattended, each of them remote, as his rectory was, as his life was." He lives alone in the rectory where "Emptily, all sound came twice because an echo added a pretence of more activity than there was, as if in mercy offering companionship."

Bea, a nine-year-old with long dark hair, in "Good News" hopes that a movie part will heal the rupture in her family, while Clione in "A Friend in the Trade" is a middle-aged woman with whom "Beauty has not finished." She knows what is unspoken and feels only pity for an unrequited love.

Trevor's spare prose shimmers in the summary paragraph of "The Virgin's Gift," as he describes a son's return to his now frail, elderly parents: "No choirs sang, there was no sudden splendour, only limbs racked by toil in a smoky hovel, a hand that blindly searched the air. Yet angels surely held the cobweb of this mercy, the gift of a son given again."

Another story takes place on the eve of a wedding when a game forces a young couple to confront the differences in one another. With "Against The Odds," Trevor displays his gift for knowing the female heart as an older woman rues her past while fearing she has jeopardized a chance for happiness.

Both eloquent and elegant, Trevor's work is meat compared to the broth of some of today's fiction. He continues to astound as he explores the complexities of human relationships with sympathetic candor. The Hill Bachelors is yet another triumph for the most accomplished storyteller of our day.

Rating:
Summary: New short fiction favorite - William Trevor
Review: In several of Trevor's sparsely worded stories we find characters who give too much of themselves. "The Virgin's Gift", "Good News" and "The Mourning" all tell of those who turn their souls over to others, and are unsettled with the outcomes. I was sad when done, particularly when finishing "Good News", because I knew that the characters had been disappointed or were about to be.

I was drawn to the character of Clione in "A Friend in the Trade" - she was decisive enough to know that she was the object of unstated affections, but not strong enough to confront her admirer frankly. She was so powerful in her humor and her work, but she had long accepted her status quo, so she did not know how to be single-minded in adversity. She acted like a shallow school girl in telling her husband of their friend's affections, but she became more complex in that telling. I wonder about her still - I wanted to know more about her after the story was told.

Good stories, these. Minimalist short stories are my preference - they allow me to imagine, to dream, and to pretend.

Rating:
Summary: New short fiction favorite - William Trevor
Review: In several of Trevor's sparsely worded stories we find characters who give too much of themselves. "The Virgin's Gift", "Good News" and "The Mourning" all tell of those who turn their souls over to others, and are unsettled with the outcomes. I was sad when done, particularly when finishing "Good News", because I knew that the characters had been disappointed or were about to be.

I was drawn to the character of Clione in "A Friend in the Trade" - she was decisive enough to know that she was the object of unstated affections, but not strong enough to confront her admirer frankly. She was so powerful in her humor and her work, but she had long accepted her status quo, so she did not know how to be single-minded in adversity. She acted like a shallow school girl in telling her husband of their friend's affections, but she became more complex in that telling. I wonder about her still - I wanted to know more about her after the story was told.

Good stories, these. Minimalist short stories are my preference - they allow me to imagine, to dream, and to pretend.

Rating:
Summary: "Small gestures mattered now."
Review: These twelve new stories from William Trevor are "small gestures," resonating with meaningful nuances, requiring one's full attention. For this reason, it may be worthwhile to read each story twice to fully grasp the meaning from within its depths. Reading these stories will leave you in awe.

This was my first encounter with Trevor's short stories. Truly, he has mastered the form. Born in Ireland in 1928, Trevor now lives in Devon, England. The stories in this collection are drawn from those two countries. They are filled with barking sheepdogs, laborers, misty hills, tulips and bluebells, and rays of sunlight "like arrows in the sky" (p. 144). They are about everyday turning points in life, and lost opportunities. In the first story in the collection, "Three People," Trevor reveals a secret that binds three lonely characters together for fourteen years. In "The Mourning," we follow a lonely, 23-year-old Irish laborer as he carries a bomb through the streets of London. In "Good News," we find a nine-year-old actress "wondering in what way her dreams would be different now, reminding herself that she mustn't cry out in case, being sleepy, she ruined everything" (p. 62). A "melancholy" 51-year-old mother misses her children in "A Friend of the Trade." When she and her husband attempt to drop an "unpresentable" friend, she discovers "empty love is not absurd" (p. 106).

This is a collection of well-crafted short stories that has inspired me to read more William Trevor.

G. Merritt

Rating:
Summary: "Small gestures mattered now."
Review: These twelve new stories from William Trevor are "small gestures," resonating with meaningful nuances, requiring one's full attention. For this reason, it may be worthwhile to read each story twice to fully grasp the meaning from within its depths. Reading these stories will leave you in awe.

This was my first encounter with Trevor's short stories. Truly, he has mastered the form. Born in Ireland in 1928, Trevor now lives in Devon, England. The stories in this collection are drawn from those two countries. They are filled with barking sheepdogs, laborers, misty hills, tulips and bluebells, and rays of sunlight "like arrows in the sky" (p. 144). They are about everyday turning points in life, and lost opportunities. In the first story in the collection, "Three People," Trevor reveals a secret that binds three lonely characters together for fourteen years. In "The Mourning," we follow a lonely, 23-year-old Irish laborer as he carries a bomb through the streets of London. In "Good News," we find a nine-year-old actress "wondering in what way her dreams would be different now, reminding herself that she mustn't cry out in case, being sleepy, she ruined everything" (p. 62). A "melancholy" 51-year-old mother misses her children in "A Friend of the Trade." When she and her husband attempt to drop an "unpresentable" friend, she discovers "empty love is not absurd" (p. 106).

This is a collection of well-crafted short stories that has inspired me to read more William Trevor.

G. Merritt

Rating:
Summary: Actions/Consequences And There Debris
Review: This is the first time that I have read the work of Mr. William Trevor. If his collection of short stories, "Hill Bachelors", is any indication of the man's talent I will read whatever else has been published. The volume contains 12 stories that all share parallels, however they do not need to be read as a collection, they all can stand-alone.

The stories could be classified as redemptive, however at least one describes a Faustian Bargain. Many of the stories are dark, and others bear results that were never intended. Still others are the results from lack of attention or care, and they are of wreckage both physical and mental. I think it is valid to say they describe the fragility of many relationships, and the ignorance that prevents the forming of contact until a destructive event takes place. It is not a collection of tales that portrays the best in people, but it somehow does not read as oppressively as the storylines would seem to demand.

One story details a horrible crime and uses a snapped rose bush as a metaphor. The same unlikely force cleans up the debris from both, before the mess from either becomes too great. A wedding eve party shows how uncertain the next day's events can be when the smallest of unintended events does or does not take place. My favorite had to do with Priests and Ministers, burned out homes and lost congregations. In this story Mr. Trevor illustrates the senseless behavior of a people, a nation, and the religions they adhere to. He brings together that which should not meet, and the result is what should happen but somehow surprises when it does.

This is a wonderful set of stories that are all complete, however when read together have enough commonality that the Author's message is not so much repeated as it is reinforced as they are read. Marvelous writing, highly recommended.