Oh What a Paradise It Seems

Rating:
Summary: An old man's quest
Review: "Oh What a Paradise It Seems," by John Cheever, is a short novel (100 pages in the paperback edition) about an elderly man named Lemuel Sears. He sets out to save Beasley's Pond, in the town of Janice, from destruction by polluters. The story follows both his quest and his active love life, weaving his life together with those of a number of other people: an environmental crusader, an amorous doorman, and more.

The book has a pretty straightforward story, but throughout there is a slightly weird feeling; some parts of the book have a quality that reminds me of a David Lynch film. The book takes a brief and oddly unsatisfying detour into the subject of bisexuality. Overall the book is OK--it held my attention, but didn't do much more than that, although Cheever's prose style is often quite lovely. Give it a try.

Rating:
Summary: An old man's quest
Review: "Oh What a Paradise It Seems," by John Cheever, is a short novel (100 pages in the paperback edition) about an elderly man named Lemuel Sears. He sets out to save Beasley's Pond, in the town of Janice, from destruction by polluters. The story follows both his quest and his active love life, weaving his life together with those of a number of other people: an environmental crusader, an amorous doorman, and more.

The book has a pretty straightforward story, but throughout there is a slightly weird feeling; some parts of the book have a quality that reminds me of a David Lynch film. The book takes a brief and oddly unsatisfying detour into the subject of bisexuality. Overall the book is OK--it held my attention, but didn't do much more than that, although Cheever's prose style is often quite lovely. Give it a try.

Rating:
Summary: A finely crafted novel by an American master.
Review: Oh, What A Paradise It Seems is John Cheever's last novel, published just before his death in June 1982. It differs from his previous works, which mainly focused on suburban commuters, as it tells the story of an older man, but it still retains Cheever's wit and surrealness. The astonishing thing about this book is how deep the story goes, and yet it is only 100 pages long. It would take other authors 400 pages to write this story. It is, as the first sentence says, "A story to be read in bed in an old house on a rainy night."

Rating:
Summary: oh what a good start to reading john cheever
Review: This book is only a 100 pages and their is so much in a few words. "She was as women go relatively punctual and He had come to believe that punctuality in engagements was an infallible gauge of sexual spontaneity. He had observed that,without exception, women who were tardy for dinner engagements were unconsciously delayed in their erotic transports and that women who were early for lunch or dinner would sometimes climax in the taxi on the way home." IF you like that passage you will enjoy this book. Read more John Cheever.