Customer Reviews

Falconer

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The hero of Falconer, murder convict Ezekiel Farragut, strikes me as an utterly postmodern man. He lack the primitive valuation of taboo, nor are his actions disciplined by the (early) modern understanding of will. Instead, he succumbs to his desires, most especially his craving for heroin, but also for sex in any form, including homosexual frivolity in the prison. He is a sort of deranged Nietzschean ubermensch, actively disregarding convention and humanity while he at the same time thinks himself a moral man.

The plight of Farragut failed to make an impression on me, surely he is a man who deserves to be imprisoned. Even his wife's self-absorbed lamentations evoke sympathy once we fully understand the extent of his depravity and his willingness to set the world on fire if necessary to get his fix. 'Farragut, why is you an addict', asks the guard, and while we understand that Farragut must have lived through a surreal childhood, it still remains that his addiction is mostly the result of his wanting to be an addict, without even trying to live in society on society's terms.

The most interesting aspect of this book is that Farragut's complete alienation from society and its norms seem to describe in an exaggerated way the same problems most people struggle with in advanced industrial societies. Society has become complex and fragmented, and many of us are unable to find a life situation where we can handle the meaninglessness and loneliness of it all. We resort to drugs, alcohol, recreational sex, fundamentalist religon or trash tv to escape from the burden of trying to figure it all out.

This was my first John Cheever novel, and I was very impressed with the fluidity and elegance of his prose. He seems to have a style which is his own, and it makes for an enjoyable read.

It's difficult to argue that Mr. Cheever is not a writer of deserved renown. His work, "Falconer", is extremely well written and generally critically admired. The subject matter and the eyes belonging to Farragut through which we see this story held little appeal to me. I plan to try another of his books to see if this was the odd book out, or I am the odd reader out.

This is a not quite so typical prison story, which appears to be historically based predicated on the time periods and the names of prisons he uses. Why he chose to change them in this work of fiction I found puzzling, as they and there histories are well known even infamous. Farragut has been imprisoned for the crime of Fratricide. His version of the crime, and those related later in the work are so entirely different in detail and degree, the reader may reasonably ask what other events may fall into this category. Farragut's sexuality in and out of prison, his wife's and many of those we meet are discussed at length, and they compete on several levels none very pleasant. It may be that the haze or thread of a variety of addictions from sex to heroin blurs the message of this book. It may be the time he speaks of was so defined by what the Author emphasizes, that you either are absorbed in it, or feel that it is tired.

Mr. Cheever did not earn the repeated notice of his skills as a writer and the awards that followed without reason. So in the end it may have been my lack of interest in the self absorbed characters, and pieces of plot I found absurd, that doomed the book for me. Jody and his escape plan is pure farce, and Farragut's final act was also stretching credulity for me. Farragut's wife was the person he should have been imprisoned for harming, I cannot readily remember a more nauseating character.

Hopefully just the wrong book picked first, you will have to decide for yourself.

More than just a prison novel. More than just a Cheever novel. This book transcends genre and defies catagorization. "Falconer" is the absolutely gripping story of one man's struggle with himself in an environment more brutal than you can imagine. By that, I mean emotional and spiritual brutality as much as physical brutality.

The book allows us to enter Farragut's life so completely and understand the motivations that drive his decisions. We can identify with his struggles, even his drug addiction, which he feels is "a beautiful illustration of the bounds of his mortality." We yearn for his redemption, but we fear he may never achieve it. This is truly a profound and moving novel.

. . . and I agree! As implausible as it sounds, Cheever achieved literary greatness in a prison novel with its central character a college professor and murderer who is also a heroin addict and a guilty, closeted homosexual. "Oh Farragut, Farragut, why is you an addict?" asks his guard, and through flashback and reminiscence we learn how and why. One of those rare books that takes place largely in the mind but is truly gripping--and the Attica-like prison Farragut is confined to holds a few surprises of its own. It is hard to overpraise "Falconer." Honestly, if you don't like this book you don't like modern American fiction.

I came to this book recently after a period of reading basically junk, so I may have liked it much better than otherwise because it was so superior to the low rent popular fiction I had been consuming. Much bleaker than I would have expected of Cheever, this story follows a man imprisoned for murder who must come to terms with how totally his life has changed. Slow paced and thorough, the 'plot' occurs more in the actions of the protagonist's mind than in the external world of the prison, yet maintains its hold on the reader.

One aspect of the story that stood out for me was the matter of fact way in which the protagonist takes a same sex lover, explaining how important real human contacts - physical and otherwise - were to maintaining sanity. I think these scenes are both believable and understandable to the most heterosexual of readers. A further testiment to Cheever's talent as a writer.

I can't say that this is a pleasant book. But it kept my interest till the end, and I haven't been able to really put the book behind me. On the other hand, I couldn't even tell you the titles of the other books I was reading at this time.

This book is a must read for any Cheever fans like myself and any one who likes prison novels or novels about junkies. Strikingly different from his other writing and wonderfully life affirming in the end without being sentimental in any way. Entertaining, moving, sympathetic, and funny.

I wasn't very impressed with Falconer. Other than a few short stories, it's the only thing I've read by Cheever. I bought it at a second hand store, mainly because the cover featured a giant asterisk which announced "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize." Its ambiguous placement led me to believe the book itself won, although I now know it was referring to Cheever only, as he won for The Collected Stories (which seems like a cop-out way to win, don't you think?). The story had its high points ("I'm intensely interested in what happens next," I believe was how the warden put it), but I certainly didn't feel it lift my soul, or even, for that matter, challenge the way I looked at or felt about life. I don't think anybody should to go out of the way to add this to their hallowed shelf.

This internal exploration by John Cheever into regret, battered hope, and the nature of human interaction in the crucible of prison is executed with a rare combination of precision and primal emotional instinct. Farragutt has been convicted of killing his brother, but it would seem that the crime for which he is really imprisoned is the crime of looking too closely at what life truly means to him, and finding evidence for nothing but retreat. Cheever chronicles a constant weather pattern of darkness over the landscape of a good soul.

I had such high expectations. Sadly, after only 57 pages, I felt the only appropriate place for this book was at the bottom of a litter box and in the trash...hopefully no one else will get their hands on my copy. It's disappointing that so many believe this book to be a worthy work. Or maybe they feel they must like it because someone said they should.

I'll stick with Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, James Joyce, Zora Neal Hurston,....so many GOOD things to read, so little time.