Oh, What a Paradise It Seems

My local library had this on cassette, and I listened to it many times. It's short, but there's not a wasted word in it.

Lemuel Sears,an elderly but sprightly gent, is distraught when unscrupulous town hall officials in cahoots with organized criminals, designate his favourite beauty spot-Beasley Pond-as a dumping site, befouling and polluting the water and surrounds. In between a couple of love affairs-one a man , one a woman, and a near brekdown he enlists the help of Chisolm,an environmentalist to fight his corner. We also get to meet Betsy who doesn't get on too well with her neighbours.... And all wrapped up in 100 pages! This is an entertaining novella that had the same feel for modern life as Saul Bellow's 80's novellas 'The Actual' and 'A Theft'. With good humour Cheever questions the road the modern world is taking-despoiling our environs and lives for ever faster ever changing ways that seem to serve no other purpose than greed. The world constantly changes,the human psyche demands it, but-as Cheever suggests-we're moving away from paradise, not towards it. Another pleasing read from a master story teller.

"Oh What a Paradise It Seems," published shortly before John Cheever's 1982 death, is his fifth and final novel. It follows his previous novel, "Falconer," by five years and marks a return in tone and style to that of the earlier Cheever novels. If "Falconer" can be said to be Cheever's "prison novel," "Oh What a Paradise It Seems" is his "environmental novel." Lemuel Sears may be fast approaching old age but his interest in women, especially those younger than him, is as passionate as it has ever been. Always on the make, even when he finds himself standing in a long bank teller's line, Sears manages to strike up a brief conversation with an attractive, much younger, woman that leads him into a rather one-sided love affair. As with so many previous male characters created by Cheever, Lemuel is at a disadvantage in the relationship because Renee remains as big a mystery to him throughout the relationship as she was the moment he first spotted her waiting in line ahead him. Lemuel is a man of means who still enjoys some of life's simpler pleasures and he looks forward to the hours he spends ice-skating on little Beasley's Pond when it freezes over every winter. When he discovers that the pond is being purposely filled in and polluted by illegal dumping at the profit of the local mafia, Lemuel hires his own lawyer and scientist to fight those responsible for destroying the pond and endangering the health of everyone living near it. Even though, at barely 100 pages, "Oh What a Paradise It Seems" is technically more a novella than a novel, Cheever, always the master short story writer, includes in it an interesting subplot or two to more fully flesh out his characters. As is so often the case in Cheever's novels, too, one of the main characters is a reluctant, but active, bisexual male who struggles to control the guilt he feels about his hidden sexual nature. This is such a common theme in Cheever's work that it is a wonder that the truth about his own sexual nature remained a well-kept secret until after his death. Cheever barely lasted long enough to complete "Oh What a Paradise It Seems" before he died of cancer, and he may have intended it to be longer than it turned out to be. However, he packs so much into the novel's 100 pages that readers will find that it truly does read more like a novel than a novella.

I caught this title from the series 'Judging Amy'. Great triggers in that series. It was very thought provoking...so many levels...I must read it again. Would be a good discussion book, but I enjoyed it all by myself. Do they still read this in college? Maybe my nephew has thoughts...I never read this author before and I liked it.

This is lovely Cheever. So few pages, and yet so much substance. A book of great truths told through small details. Understanding the difference between those who would or wouldn't stop to pick blackberries on the shoulder of a massive interstate highway ... I would often pause and reread a paragraph - amazed that something so insightful could be so relatively insignificant within the context of the story. I thoroughly enjoyed myself in this read of an old man, feuding neighbors, love, dissapointment, insecurity, greed ... and American life. It's not my place to be glad for Cheever, but I felt a sense of satisfaction for him - for the fact that he got this wonderful work done before he died. My only critique is that the environmentalist message gets a little too preachy and loses the subtlety a message embedded in a novel should have. Mind you - I have no issue with the message - only with the way it is presented towards the end of the story. But like his main character - Cheever was an old man with a purpose. And if he was desperate for his cause - such that he stepped slightly over the line between fiction and nonfiction ... well for that he should be forgiven. A worthwhile read, which I read on a rainy evening as suggested. It is now 2:00 am, and the book is back on my shelf. I am only saddened that Cheever left no more stories after this one.

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.