Falconer

by John Cheever

Stunning and brutally powerful, Falconer tells the story of a man named Farragut, his crime and punishment, and his struggle to remain a man in a universe bent on beating him backwards into childhood. Only John Cheever could deliver these grand themes with the irony, unforced eloquence, and exhilarating humor that make Falconer such a triumphant work of the moral imagination.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Novels, Literature, Literary Fiction, Crime, American

211 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

John Cheever was an American novelist and short story writer, sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs" or "the Ovid of Ossining." His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the suburbs of Westchester, New York, and old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born.

His main themes include the duality of human nature: sometimes dramatized as the disparity between a character's decorous social persona and inner corruption, and sometimes as a conflict between two characters (often brothers) who embody the salient aspects of both--light and dark, flesh and spirit. Many of his works also express a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life, characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community, as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia.

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

SING SING


“Falconer” nasce durante un corso di scrittura creativa che Cheever tenne nell’Ossining Correctional Facility, comunemente chiamato carcere di Sing Sing.

Farragut viene da una famiglia che era stata milionaria e poi aveva perso pressoché tutto, una famiglia che sembra uscita da un film di Wes Anderson, uno a caso, nei suoi circola sempre gente estrosamente scollegata. Non per niente all’immagine materna Farragut associa un quadro di Degas che raffigura una donna con un vaso di crisantemi: non proprio il concetto della serenità e accoglienza materna. Non che l’immagine paterna potesse essere granché più fulgida: Farragut non lo ricorda, per forza di cose, ma il suo genitore invitava a cena il medico che avrebbe dovuto procurare a sua madre l’aborto che invece non ci fu e Farragut venne al mondo.


Edgar Degas: Donna con crisantemi, 1865.

Farragut viene dal matrimonio con una splendida donna che sembra un’attrice di cinema o una modella, e che ha sempre usato il sesso per dominarlo, schiacciarlo, umiliarlo, concedendoglielo a dosi controllate e sempre a compensazione di un particolare sacrificio impostogli, una specie di premio.
Farragut viene dalla seconda guerra mondiale nella quale ha combattuto, e il medico militare per mandarli all’attacco di giapponesi, giungla, zanzare e quant’altro, li imbottiva di uno sciroppo contro la tosse che nel corso del tempo lo portò a consumare benzedrina e poi diventare eroinomane.
Farragut viene da un consorzio umano la cui tacita regola è conformarsi agli editti crudeli di una società blasfema, dove la sua bisessualità viene facilmente interpretata per omosessualità, la quale viene considerata una depravazione, e quindi deve reprimere il suo istinto e la sua sessualità.


”Once Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Qualcuno volò sul nido del cuculo”.

Può il carcere di Falconer essere una prigione più limitante e rigida di quanto è stata la sua vita finora?
Falconer, che è stato condannato per aver ucciso il fratello (lo ha colpito con l’attizzatoio del caminetto, il fratello è caduto e picchiando la testa è morto), ha un nome biblico, Ezechiele, e il fratricidio rimanda sempre alla bibbia.
Ho letto che Falconer rappresenta un Cheever molto diverso dal solito – e io non posso né confermare né smentire perché ho conoscenza diretta ridotta, questo, Il nuotatore e poco altro – e ho letto che questo romanzo viene comunque considerato una delle sue vette più elevate.



Cheever lo iniziò a scrivere mentre teneva un corso di scrittura nel carcere noto come Sing Sing: racconta un’istituzione fatta di sbarre e cancelli e grate e chiavi e manette e catene. Ma siamo lontani anni luce dal tipico romanzo carcerario, la “prison novel”, e ancora di più dal filone cinematografico sull’argomento.
La comunità dei detenuti mi ricorda piuttosto i mattarelli, quali veri e quali presunti, del film Once Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Qualcuno volò sul nido del cuculo. E Cheever ce li mostra tutti umani, più che umani, li racconta usando e suscitando tenerezza, simpatia, empatia.
Ma altrettanto mi pare si possa dire del mondo delle guardie, quelle autorizzate a esercitare repressione e punizione, che vivono la tensione del lavoro, provano la paura, sono capaci di un gesto gentile accompagnato da parole urticanti, fanno regali ai prigionieri (Tiny porta a Farragut i pomodori del suo orto).


Chen Chieh-Jen, People Pushing, 2007-2008.

E per quanto il finale, con quell’evasione alla Conte di Montecristo, che segue un’altra evasione altrettanto rocambolesca, ma questa se non altro pianificata e preparata, sembra rientrare nel filone più noto, il tono che Cheever adotta è sempre tutt’altro: molto ironico, a tratti divertente, quasi sognante. Chi lo ha definito uno ’spiritual’ secondo me è andato molto vicino al vero.


Carlo Traini: Anime timide.

[°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Το «Φάλκονερ»θα μπορούσε να είναι ένα σωφρονιστικό ίδρυμα δυο χιλιάδων ατόμων που έχουν διαπράξει εγκλήματα, μια μικρογραφία της διαβρωμένης αστικής κοινωνίας στην Αμερική, ένα κολαστήριο βασανισμένων ψυχών γεμάτο αίμα-σπέρμα-χρήμα-πόνο, ή μια βαθύτερη ανάλυση της ανθρώπινης ψυχοσύνθεσης όταν έχουν ξεπεραστεί κάποια όρια και κινούμαστε ανάμεσα σε παραίσθηση και πραγματικότητα.

Ο συγγραφέας κατάφερε να με πείσει μόνο για την τελευταία έκφανση,ποιότητα και υφή της αυτοβιογραφικής του ιστορίας.
Σε όλες τις υπόλοιπες εκφάνσεις που αναφέρεται περνάει επιφανειακά,ασυναίσθητα,υπαινικτικά και κάπως ψεύτικα.
Σε καμία περίπτωση δεν αισθάνθηκα πως όλη η πλοκή και η εξέλιξη του βιβλίου διαδραματίζεται ανάμεσα σε καταδικασμένες υπάρξεις μέσα σε μια φυλακή. Δεν ένιωσα συμπόνια,απόγνωση εγκλεισμού,απελπισία,φόβο,
έλλειψη βασικών ανθρωπίνων αναγκών και καταστάσεων.
Δεν συναισθάνθηκα την αποξένωση,την ματαιότητα,την ταπείνωση και το βαθύ αίσθημα αγάπης που διατείνεται πως πραγματεύεται.

Ο Φάραγκατ είναι ένας καθηγητής πανεπιστημίου που καταδικάζεται για τον φόνο του αδελφού του και περνάει τις πύλες του σωφρονιστικού ιδρύματος Φάλκονερ.
Συμφιλιωμένος με τον εθισμό του στις ναρκωτικές ουσίες,θεωρεί πως οι αναμνήσεις της νιότης του πριν γίνει οπιοφάγος είναι αξιοκαταφρόνητες.

Προέρχεται απο εύπορη οικογένεια που ξέπεσε και έχει έναν αποτυχημένο γάμο και ένα αόρατο -στην ιστορία μας- παιδί.

Ποτέ δεν μαθαίνουμε τα ακριβή αίτια του εγκλήματος εκτός απο κάποιες αναμνήσεις παιδικές που δεν διαχωρίζονται ξεκάθαρα απο την παραισθησιογόνα κατάσταση.
Δεν αναφέρεται σε λόγους,αιτίες και αποτελεσμάτα με διευκρινίσεις δεδομένων και ζητούμενων ώστε να καταλάβει ο αναγνώστης τους λόγους που αυτός ο αποτυχημένος αλλά και σταθερός στο χρόνο γάμος του Φάραγκατ και της συζύγου διατηρείται σε πολικές συναισθηματικές θερμοκρασίες.
Παράλληλα υπάρχουν αναμνήσεις που εκφράζουν έρωτα και πάθος ανάμεσα τους μέσα σε μια ζοφερή ατμόσφαιρα ακατανόητη.

Και ενώ ο καθηγητής έγκλειστος πλέον και νοσταλγός της ελεύθερης δυστυχίας του διατείνεται πως:«Δεν αγαπώ,δεν αγαπιέμαι,και θυμάμαι την παραζάλη της αγάπης μονάχα αμυδρά»,λίγο αργότερα μας εξιστορεί την ομοφυλοφιλική σχέση του με έναν συγκρατούμενο και πασχίζει να μας πείσει τα πρωτόγνωρα που βιώνει μέσα απο αυτήν.
Μια τραγελαφική σύσφιξη σχέσεων ανάμεσα σε δυο τρόφιμους του ιδρύματος, ο ένας σπουδαίος γυναικοκατακτητής και ο άλλος μελλοντικός οικογενειάρχης ενώνονται με μια απίστευτα βαθιά αγάπη.
Η διάρκεια της αγάπης μικρή. Μετά, ο Φάραγκατ απελευθερώνει τους δαίμονες του,κάνει το σεξ με συγκρατούμενους καθημερινή ανάγκη και ο άλλος,αφού αποδράσει,δημιουργεί οικογένεια και όνομα στην κοινωνία αφήνοντας πίσω του στη φυλακή αξέχαστες εμπειρίες «αγάπης» βαθιάς...


Η σκιαγράφηση των υπολοίπων χαρακτήρων ελλιπής και επιφανειακή. Καμία σχέση με εγκληματίες ή χαρακωμένες ψυχές φυλακισμένες με κοινή τραγική μοίρα,απάνθρωπες συνθήκες διαβίωσης και αλληλένδετες εξομολογητικά πορείες προς τη λύτρωση ή την ελπίδα ή έστω την στωικότητα της παραδοχής και της εγκατάλειψης.

Ο Τσίβερ γράφει για σκληρά και ταπεινωτικά γεγονότα με ένα στυλ πρόζας σκοτεινό και εντυπωσιακό σε αρκετά σημεία μα στα περισσότερα παραπαίει ανάμεσα σε ποιητικά κωμική και επιφανειακή απεικόνιση γραφής.

Ωστόσο αξίζει να σημειωθεί- κι αυτό είναι το μόνο πλεονέκτημα του βιβλίου- πως καταδύεται στην ανθρώπινη ψυχή μέσα απο τα παραληρήματα του Φάραγκατ και χαράζει βαθιά με την πένα του ένα κειμενο ρεαλιστικό με χαίνουσες πληγές τις έννοιες ζωής,θανάτου,μίσους,αδιαφορίας,αποξένωσης,
εγωισμού και ματαίωσης.
Υπάρχουν περιγραφές ανθρωπιάς και απανθρωπιάς που αναλύουν εύστοχα την πανανθρώπινη ψυχή.

Η ειρωνεία στη γραφή του είναι άριστα συνδεδεμένη με τον χλευασμό,τις απατηλές αναμνήσεις και ελπίδες,την αλλοτρίωση και τον αγώνα για αλήθεια και λογική που αναζητούν δεσμούς με το παρελθόν και τον έξω κόσμο.
Οι δαίμονες των ουσιών δημιουργούν χίμαιρες και άπιαστα όνειρα.
Που είναι η ιδανική πραγματικότητα και η λύτρωση;

Η ελευθερία του πνεύματος νικάει τη σκλαβιά της σάρκας.

Τελικά,η ευτυχία που φθάνει στο τέλος είναι αποτέλεσμα υποσυνείδητης ενδοσκόπησης ή λύτρωση μέσα απο το θάνατο;

ΦΑΚΛΟΝΕΡ: «ρομάντζο ενός ναρκομανή και ενός απατεώνα μέσα σε μια φυλακή»
CHEEVER JOHN.

Τα συμπεράσματα δικά σας.

Καλή ανάγνωση!
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.

[Blaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

They were free and yet they moved so casually through this precious element that it seemed wasted on them. There was no appreciation of freedom in the way they moved.
...
“Farragut, Farragut,” he asked, “why is you an addict?”

Ezekiel Farragut has just arrived at Falconer, a New York prison, after being convicted of killing his brother while he was high. Goodreads describes this novel as “[s]tunning and brutally powerful... [about a] struggle to remain a man in a universe bent on beating him backwards into childhood... grand themes with the irony, unforced eloquence, and exhilarating humor that make Falconer such a triumphant work of the moral imagination.” I’m not sure Goodreads and I read the same book.

There have been a lot of novels, movies, and television shows about life in prison since the release of this book in 1977. These works have explored the brutality between guards and inmates, between the inmates themselves, gangs, race, drugs, sex, rape, etc. Falconer has almost none of these explorations. Farragut goes though methadone withdrawal. He briefly takes a male lover. There’s a riot with hostages taken, but it’s all off-screen and at another prison. In short, in 2020, there’s nothing here that I’d describe as stunning or brutally powerful.

More importantly, I also failed to see a “struggle to remain a man” or a “work of the moral imagination.” There’s hardly a plot. Farragut complains about his wife, who was cold to him. He complains about his father, who was verbally abusive to him. He writes letters complaining and remembering to the Governor, a bishop, and an old lover. He thinks a lot about drugs and addiction. But he never owns up to his crime, finally describing it late in the novel as:

Then Farragut struck his brother with a fire iron. The widow testified that Farragut had struck his brother eighteen to twenty times, but she was a liar, and Farragut thought the doctor who corroborated this lie contemptible.

He never wrestles with or accepts the truth that while high and in anger he took the life of his own brother. Absent that reckoning, I don’t see how Falconer is supposed to be a “work of the moral imagination.” Instead, the book is filled with a lot of 1970s-style writing about sex as a proxy for power, standing, self-worth, conquest. “Considering the sovereignty of his unruly cock, it was only a woman who could crown that redness with purpose.” Ugh.

I read this book because I'm working my way through the Pop Chart 100 Essential Novels. There are books on the list such as To Kill a Mockingbird that I already knew and loved. There are books that I’d never read, or sometimes even heard of, such as The Bridge of San Luis Rey, that I also loved. And there are books that I understand being on the list because they are historically important for one reason or another, such as Robinson Crusoe, but where the story didn’t work for me.

Sadly, I’d put Falconer into an even lower category in that I’m not sure why it’s on any contemporary lists of the 100 best or most essential novels. It seems to be a relic of its time that lacks too much to rate inclusion in such extraordinary company. But this is just my opinion, and Farragut isn’t wrong when he observes: “Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one and they all smell.”

Update: the good people at Pop Chart recently updated their 100 Essential Novels list, adding five new novels and removing five old ones. Falconer is one of the five novels that got replaced. Well done, Pop Chart!

[Lark Benobi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third fourth time I've read Falconer. It's a remarkable and perfect novel. It's one sentence following the next of words that are exactly right for the moment they appear on the page, until you get to the most beautiful, hard-earned, elegiac ending of all time. The above might be hyperbole. Not very much hyperbole, though.

[Quo · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Cheever's late-in-life novel, Falconer begins with a declension of the penal facility called "Falconer", once a jail and then by points of redefinition, a reformatory, a federal penitentiary, a state prison, a correctional facility & even a place oddly labelled "Daybreak House", a holding tank for "2,000 miscreants" but now minus the striped suits, water torture, balls & chains and with a softball field having replaced the area where the old gallows once stood.



Among the prisoners is

Ezekiel Farragut, age 48, (fratricide, zip to ten, #734-508-32) brought to the old iron place on a late summer's day. He wore no leg irons but was manacled to nine other men, four of them black & all of them younger than he. The windows of the van were unclean & he could not see the color of the sky or any of the lights & shapes of the world he was leaving. He had been given 40 milligrams of methadone 3 hours earlier & torpid, he wanted to see the light of day. The inestimable shyness of men seemed to paralyze most of them.

Thus, we have Farragut at Falconer for fratricide & as the novel unfolds, there are long, rambling passages, including an extensive letter to an archbishop & to the governor, that might remind some of Joyce but which in some cases seem like reminiscences of favored moments in Farragut's life, including a recasting of shared & seeming embellished memories of time with his wife, a woman who had declared her marriage to Farragut "a huge mistake even before he was incarcerated for fratricide."

Alas, there has been much criticism of Cheever's novel Falconer; in my own opinion some of it valid, in other cases much less so but I do consider the novel rather flawed, this appraisal after a 2nd reading. Perhaps, the novel represented the author's own attempt at a multiple rehabilitation, including his literary reputation, after years of bodily abuse through the addictive use of prescription drugs, alcohol & tobacco had rendered his once heralded writing career nearly dormant.

However, much of the book seems rather constantly genitally-driven in a manner I found distracting. The fact is that I can't say what prison life might resemble, while Cheever spent a long period volunteering at Sing-Sing near his home & felt himself imprisoned by his own addictions.



That said, in the case of a gifted writer like John Cheever, often even inherent flaws can be overcome by the author's ability to fashion prose, as with:

This was not pain, nothing so simple & clear as that. All he could identify was some disturbance in his tear ducts, a blind, unthinking wish to cry. Tears were easy; a good 10 minute hand job. He wanted to cry & to howl. He was among the living dead. There were no words, no living words, to suit his grief, this cleavage. He was primordial man confronted with romantic love. His eyes began to water as the last of the visitors, the last shoe disappeared. He sat on his bunk & took in his right hand the most interesting, worldly, responsive & nostalgic object in his cell.

On occasion, he shouts out to a prison guard named "Tiny", someone who seems almost sympathetic to Farragut, "Hey, Tiny, where am I?" Tiny understood & responded: "Falconer Prison. You killed your brother", at which point Farragut simply offered, "Thanks, Tiny."

So, on the strength of Tiny's voice, the bare facts would return. In order to lessen the troubling sense of otherness, he remembered that he had experienced this in the street as well. The sense of simultaneously being in 2 or 3 places at the same instant was something he had known beyond the walls. He could, standing in a highly disinfected office, catch the smell of a woodbox & catalogue his legitimate concerns about the tire chains, snowplows & supplies of groceries, fuel & liquor--everything that concerns a man in a remote country house at the beginning of a tempest. This was memory unwillingly seizing someplace in the present.

Farragut has a homosexual experience with a much younger inmate named Jody, a prisoner who later manages to somehow escape from Falconer Prison, dressed as an acolyte when a bishop visits the prison in celebration of a study program coordinated by "Fiduciary University", yes--yet another "F word". There is no further mention of the escape & seemingly no repercussions at the hands of the warden or others, just one of many elements within the novel that seem to represent a trespass on credulity. With Jody gone--"with the removal or this erotic & sentimental schedule--Farragut found his sense of time & place imperiled."

Not to reveal the ending of John Cheever's novel but there is a line, that details an equally improbable escape, intoning: "he put one foot in front of the other & walks on into the darkness-- that was about it." As has been said, Falconer is "not aimed at the hard-headed realists among us." This is not a prison tale, per se, but a story about confinement & liberation, in support of which I offer these additional words, as Farragut gazes out of his cell window:

Those on the outside were free & yet they moved so casually through this precious element that it seemed wasted on them. There was no appreciation of freedom in the way they moved. A man stopped to pull up his socks. A woman rooted through her handbag to make sure she had the keys. A younger woman glancing at the overcast sky, put up her green umbrella. An older woman dried her tears on a scrap of paper. These were their constraints, the signs of their confinement, but there was some naturalness, some unself-consciousness about their imprisonment that he, watching them between the bars, cruelly lacked.

Yes, these are just words strung together by an author who specializes in them but with certain authors, words can seem magical, even within a seemingly flawed book. When published, Falconer was called "the most somber, best-sustained long narrative Cheever has yet written, with an air of summing up, casting a light backward on his earlier work", these words from Walter Clemmons in a March 14th, 1977 issue of Newsweek.

*Tucked into my 1977 copy of Cheever's Falconer from my initial reading of the novel is the article by Clemmons + an ensuing interview with the author in that magazine by his daughter Susan & also a New Yorker review of the novel. **Within my review, the photo images are of John Cheever at his home; a Time Magazine cover featuring the author, & #3, Cheever with his close friend & fellow author, John Updike.

[Vit Babenco · Rating 4 out of 5]

“And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?” Genesis 4:9
God cursed Cain and sentenced him to a life of wandering.
Falconer is a modern fratricide story.
The state condemned Cain and sent him to prison.
“Long ago when they first invented the atomic bomb people used to worry about its going off and killing everybody, but they didn’t know that mankind has got enough dynamite right in his guts to tear the fucking planet to pieces.”
We’ve learnt to suppress our primordial murderous instincts but somewhere, deep down inside, the beast is dormant and it can be awakened so easily.

[Kemper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Falconer Correctional Facility certainly sounds dreary and no place I’d want to spend any time, but it doesn’t seem nearly as bad as many fictional prisons. In fact, it seems pretty dull. There weren’t any beatings from brutal guards. There’s no racial tension evident. No one gets shivved or shanked. The only riot in the story actually takes place at another prison and isn’t discussed in detail. There’s no escape tunnels being dug through walls. Compared to fictional prisons like Oz or Shawshank, Falconer seems like a Sandals Resort.

Farragut is a new inmate who was convicted of killing his brother. He’s a drug addict on methadone, and came from a formerly rich family. In a typical prison story he’d be fresh meat, but the worst thing that happens to him in Falconer is getting his watch stolen and a bad episode of methadone withdrawl. Other than that, Farragut mainly sits around listening to the other prisoner’s bitch and reflecting on his life. He falls in love with another inmate and has some tense moments when a neighboring prison has an Attica style riot and hostage situation that makes the Falconer guards nervous, but that’s about it.

This is a curiously ‘meh’ story to me. I was expecting a lot more from a book that was named one of Time’s 100 best novels. It’s not bad, and I don’t think I wasted my time reading it. However, when I was done, all I could think was, “Is that it?”

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't often read prison literature, so Cheever's 'Falconer' strikes new ground for me. Just as Ken Kesey went to work in a prison to find an outlet for his vision of an alternative America, Cheever went to his local jailhouse, but the results are startlingly different. All of Cheever's beautiful obsessions - with addiction, failed marriages and sexy men - come out in this book. Farragut, a university professor and drug addict who is serving time in Falconer State Prison is the central figure of the novel, he is an otherworldly guy for whom life has been a series of seminars and skiing trips. Confronted with himself in prison, and with plenty of empty time on his hands, he accepts his bisexuality and in real rhapsodic style embraces another inmate. Cheever captures the sordidness and loveliness of American life with wit, elegance and charm, but we are always reminded of the hell of doing time. Cheever leads us through a series of bizarre scenarios to Farragut's eventual redemption. Cheever is masterful in his narrative flow which allows us to gradually glimpse into the mind and memory of Farragut and understand his mother, father, older brother, wife, and son. These relationships, sometimes fulfilling and sometimes barren, have helped create the man. We gradually understand Farragut but Cheever never tries to make us like Farragut or take his side against the world. It is a novel that is literally lit up with the author's total honesty and authenticity easily making him one of America's greatest storytellers.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel of bracing honesty, above all. Cheever's matter-of-fact reporting and his characters are both frank and entirely convincing. I've heard Falconer described as a tale of redemption, but frankly I found little evidence of transformation in Farragut himself. He is an egoïste in the latter part of his life, whose tastes and desires are fully formed and which he has no intention to change, though in Falconer he must learn to live with infrequent satisfaction. (His libido in particular is reminiscent of... well, a Philip Roth protagonist.) Yes, there are themes of violence, the inhumanity of imprisonment, &c., but mostly there is Farragut's grappling with his past, and emerging unapologetically, in the sensory deprivation of the penitentiary. And though his crime was almost an accident—the consequence, finally realized by chance, of an old but not unusual hostility—there is an off-handed viciousness to his hedonism which can be more disturbing than the events in the prison itself. It's how close he is to us, or to people we know, that makes this book powerful.

[Comfortably · Rating 4 out of 5]

Υπερσυγκλο Τσιβερ!
Βι��λιαρα!

[Mia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I’d like Falconer better if I had a penis.

That might seem obscene (not to mention absurd), but if you’d read this book, you’d understand that my bringing it up isn’t out of the blue. Farragut, the limp and apathetic protagonist of this novel, mentions his dick with stunning regularity. I might not mind so much but he finds a way to connect it to every anecdote, memory, and conception of himself, that it felt alienating at first and then just flat-out ridiculous. So maybe if I had a penis, I’d understand Farragut’s bizarre obsession with his own, how it busts in to deflate otherwise poignant recollections—but, seeing as I don’t, I can’t judge whether he’s got some sort of strange fixation or whether Cheever’s just writing a realistic male character. I might be generous if it weren’t for phrases like these:

“...he had been skeptical about his sensual responsiveness ever since he had, while watching the approach of a thunderstorm, been disconcerted by a wet and implacable erection.”

“Considering the fact that the cock is the most critical link in our chain of survival...”

“Considering the sovereignty of his unruly cock, it was only a woman who could crown that redness with purpose.”

I’ve known some women who speak of their genitals as “life-giving” and “magical” and whatever and I find it similarly stupid, but it’s undeniable that, in the Western world at least, Farragut’s brand of phallocentrism has been the dominating dogma for centuries, so I find it more difficult to be charitable here, especially when it actively got in the way of some of Falconer’s more clear-headed moments.

But enough about dicks. The dick-worship wasn’t my main problem with this novel. My complaint is the complaint of high-schoolers everywhere forced to slog through “the classics,” of reviewers of your favourite book that you hate-read late at night, of the child with nothing better to do than read some old dusty tome found on their grandpa’s shelf... This book is boring.

That’s really all it comes down to. Maybe it sounds infantile to say it so bluntly, but: It’s fucking boring. I won’t deny Cheever’s talent; there are some wonderful passages here, but they’re few and far between, and bogged down by the utter flab by which they’re surrounded. Farragut is self-absorbed, sex-obsessed, apathetic, irresponsible, immature, and classist, but on top of that, he’s boring. I don’t mind reading about a protagonist who’s not particularly likeable, but god, they have to be engaging at the very least, and Farragut is about as engaging as a piece of stale bread. A piece of stale bread with a dick.

The critical response to this novel is baffling to me; the glowing blurb from Newsweek stares out at me from the cover like that shaft of morning light that cuts between your blinds to burn right into your eyes and wake you up. I’m glad so many people got so much out of this book but frankly I can’t imagine what they got. I found it lifeless, ridiculous, boring, and, that dread adjective, pretentious. I felt that it was assuming a profundity and an insight that it frankly didn’t have, and in addition to boring me half to death it just made me roll my eyes.

[diario_de_um_leitor_pjv · Rating 5 out of 5]

COMENTÁRIO
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Falconer"
John Cheever
Tradução de José Lima

Falconer foi a confirmação perfeita de que John Cheever é um autor a ler tudo o que me for possível. Depois de ler nestas férias o "Crónica de Wapshot" a leitura de um dos seu mais destacados romances mostra a maestria na inovação que Cheever representa.

Desta feita, a obra situa-se numa prisão cujo nome dá o mote ao título do livro, quase sempre limitado ao "Bloco F" e a um grupo restrito de detidos.
O protagonista, Izequiel Ferragut está preso por assassinar o irmão, aparentemente numa discussão doméstica ingénua. Ferragut é também um heroínamo, depende da metadona que lhe é administrada na prisão.

Cheever parte assim do quotidiano de uma prisão, e num registo de escrita que nos faz lembra a torrente de delírio numa ressaca de abstinência das drogas, apresenta o dia-a-dia dos homens ali detidos. Esse fluxo, algo rapido, prende o leitor no desejo de conhecer melhor cada uma das personagens que se cruzam na vida do protagonista Ferragut.

Outro elemento interessante da obra está relacionado com as práticas sexuais entre os detidos apresentadas como óbvias mas circunstanciais. Este seria um belo tema de debate...

Uma última nota acerca do tempo da sua vida a em que Cheever escreveu este livro pois vais corresponder ao momento em que o autor deixa de consumir álcool, assumindo um problema de consumo excessivo (sobre isso falarei em outro momento).

[mao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Το πιο δυνατό βιβλίο που διάβασα φέτος. Οι λέξεις δεν περισσεύουν στον Τσίβερ. Γράφει σαν να κόβει με το νυστέρι, βαθιά και με ακρίβεια, την ύπαρξη, τις διαπροσωπικές σχέσεις, την κοινωνική συνθήκη. Είναι σκληρός, οικονόμος και φλυαρεί μόνο όταν η σκηνή το επιβάλει. Η φυλακή είναι το εργαστήριο για να απλώσει τα υλικά του και να συνθέσει ένα έργο που μιλά για την ελευθερία όχι απαραίτητα ως αγαθό αλλά περισσότερο ως λύτρωση από την ανθρώπινη υπόσταση. Καλή μετάφραση αλλά θέλω πολύ να διαβάσω το επόμενο Τσίβερ στα αγγλικά.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Saul Bellow called Falconer elegant, pure, and indispensable. John Updike said it gives us back our humanity. Newsweek calls it a masterpiece. I would also like to sum it up just as succinctly, but I don't know how to spell that farting noise you can make with your armpit.

Ezekial Farragut is a wealthy upper-class heroin addict imprisoned in Falconer Prison for killing his brother. The narrative shifts back and forth between the day-to-day realities of prison life (which seem to aim for Kafkaesque but land on cliched) and Farragut's internal monologue, which is both self-pitying and deadly dull. I don't have much else to say about it, since I can't remember the last time I was so unengaged by a novel. I give it two stars for the elegance of the prose, but grudgingly.

[Randy · Rating 3 out of 5]

So here, then, is a John Cheever's great penal novel. Or should I say, penile novel. Yes, yes, the pun is too obvious to be anything but unfunny. But it's just shouting from the eaves to be thrust into the spotlight.

This is primarily because on cannot turn a page without finding cocks, balls, erections, ejaculations, peckers, dicks, tumescences, foreskins, pissings, and yes, at least one anal intrusion by a phallic object.

What would I expect, I suppose, from a prison novel. I've heard that song by Tool. I've seen Oz. I know what goes on there (or so I've heard).

But to be fair, Cheever writes of all of this stuff candidly, not pruriently. Even so, I can only assume that it was intended to be shocking and I suppose it was at the time of publication. Reading it now, however, these details, these celebrations of the male body and libido, come across as tired and sad. Reductive, even. And the allusions to Christianity don't help. As though the author intends to boil male experience down to God and cock and the spiritual turmoil that thus ensues. (In fact with Cheever this might have been the case...in more than one private musing he cursed his libido, his sexual predilections, and his penis.)

Those aspersions aside, Farragut is a complexly drawn and intriguing character. An addict and professor whose intellect and conscience are compromised by his desires (he both rationalizes and expounds upon his addiction and sexual recklessness). He's killed his brother and needless to say his family history is troubled. His marriage is superficial: a sham and a trainwreck. Also in the book's favor is the fact that it is written in Cheever's marvelously fluid prose which, unlike, say, Hemingway's chop-chop or Henry James's clockspring sentences, encourages the eye to glide across the page and seems to pour itself into the mind.

In summary, I felt quite a bit short of feeling "the ecstatic confidence of finishing a masterpiece" that Newsweek promises with its blurb on the empurpled back cover of the edition I possess. And the book has done little to dispel my predisposed disinterest in engaging the 'Great White Masters' of mid-to-late twentieth century American prose (Updike, Roth, Bellow). But I feel that I ought to at least confirm or change that opinion by basing it on some actual reading of some breadth of their work. So, on I plod.

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something both unsettling and beautiful about this compact Cheever novel. A novel of punishment and redemption, Falconer is also a story of addiction, of confinement, of an introspective man moving from his isolated past to his very human present. It is hard to compare Cheever's style to anyone, but there were moments where I felt I was floating in the same literary river as O'Connor, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Percy. His prose is amazing, his imagination is sharp, and the depth of his soul-searching is absolutely sublime.

[Stephen Durrant · Rating 2 out of 5]

More than forty years ago, Joan Didion wrote an important and slightly defensive review of John Cheever's"Falconer"(https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/06/ar...). She argues that people with no particular minority status, even white "Episcopalians," have a right to their anxieties, particularly a sense of homelessness and nostalgia. Didion regards Ezekial Farragut, the central character of "Falconer" as a powerful and extreme expression of Cheever's concern with just such persons. Farragut is a middle-class professor who has always been adrift and has become a long-term drug addict that his wife correctly brands "a lightweight." For no very good reason he murders his brother and ends up sentenced to life in prison. Didion concedes that many of us, not terribly enlightened in her view, will find him so unsympathetic that we will quite mistakenly ask why we should care. In fact, she seems to imply that he is almost a metaphysical embodiment of the homeless man. I have great respect for Didion, one of the great prose writers our time, but I confess to being precisely the type of reader she excoriates in her review. That I don't like Farragut is irrelevant--I actually prefer characters in fiction I don't much like or who at least unsettle me. The problem is I don't find Farragut particularly interesting or engaging. I suppose he is meant to be one of those rootless, superficial academics that anyone who has worked in a University will recognize, but I see little in him of either the pose or badly flawed "substance" such figures usually possess. To me Farragut is flatter than most of the more hardened criminals around him. His most redeeming and convincing moments are with his short-time lover Jody, who is actually more interesting than he is. Oh well, I won't go on but do encourage readers to turn to Didion whose review, as one can probably tell from my ramblings, is provocative! And then decide whether or not to turn to Cheever's novel, if you have not already done so.

[Aprile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sembra un romanzo autobiografico, preciso, chiaro, non vi sono esitazioni, si ha l’impressione che l’autore scriva di cose che conosce bene. Al tempo stesso il tono è distaccato, come se i fatti raccontati si riferissero a parecchi anni prima. Sembra che l’autore relazioni l’esperienza fatta da un amico che lo mette al corrente in un’unica seduta, in un intenso pomeriggio, senza dovizia di particolari ma badando solo all’essenziale. Sono giornate, mesi di vita in carcere di assassini, di uomini dimenticati, quasi nessuno ha più un nome, ma solo soprannomi e numeri. Si riesce ancora a stabilire la linea tra giusto e sbagliato, tra il mondo esterno e il carcere qui chiamato casa di correzione, tra caino e abele, ma emergono anche diversi livelli di colpa, alcuni dei quali rimangono impuniti e spesso sono proprio questi a provocare drammi e delitti perseguibili. A fine lettura si rimane con l’amaro in bocca, quasi a dire che siamo tutti uguali, che molto dipende dalla maggiore o minore fortuna che ognuno di noi incontra nella vita, dalla famiglia in cui si è allevati, dalle esperienze che ognuno, a volte, è costretto a vivere. Razza, luogo, ambiente

[Flora · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was inevitable, I suppose, that Cheever write a prison novel (a compelling prospect, theoretically), but aside from some moments of wonderful prose, this story of an incarcerated heroin addict wallowing in the pleasurable humiliations of jailhouse eroticism came off as banal, even callow. Instead of orienting the novel firmly in its setting, the prison -- the titular Falconer -- feels more like a pretext than a context, and the characters never really emerge from their arid, rambling monologues. Maybe it's an unfair comparison, but "Oz" knocks this one out of the park with its rich characterization, wicked humor, and scary-hot life-on-the-edge-of-death sex and terror.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Falconer”, escrito em 1977, é o último romance de John Cheever e por muitos considerado a sua obra-prima.
É um livro tão duro quanto belo, límpido na sua crueza, humano e impiedoso.

Parece-me revelador o que a filha de John Cheever, Susan Cheever, afirma sobre a fase final da vida do pai, fase esta que coincide com a escrita de “Falconer”:

"For me, the end of his life is triumphant. He stops drinking. He writes what I think is his best book [Falconer, a novel about a drug addict, serving time for the murder of his brother, who has an affair with another prisoner ]. He became the man he meant to be."

Com “Falconer” John Cheever redime-se.

[ALLEN · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Farragut, Farragut, why is you a addict?"
To me FALCONER is not just a prison novel, but a great American novel. Its themes are not always easy to take but in my opinion, it's a must-read among 20th Century American novels. John Cheever, writing out of the pain of his own life, speaks of fidelity, mortality and captivity, and sets his story in a fictional Upstate New York penitentiary in the post-Attica era. Of the four novels and one novella Cheever wrote, this is his best, and has the most to say about the human condition.

Ezekiel Farragut was a drug addict and a college professor until he killed his brother. Now he's a drug addict and an inmate in Falconer Correctional Center in upstate New York (think: Sing Sing or Attica). "Farragut, Farragut, why is you a addict?" asks his cell keeper, "Tiny," and this book, much of it told in flashback, attempts to answer why. It also speaks clearly about the American 1970s from which it sprang. We read ANNA KARENINA or FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and consider the "ugly parts" intrinsic to the story. I think FALCONER deserves the same respect.

[Nathalie Fytrou · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5*. Μου φάνηκε πολύ "κλασικό" αμερικανικό μυθιστόρημα (με την καλή έννοια). Επίσης, είχε κάποιες σκηνές συγκλονιστικές. Αλλά έχοντας διαβάσει το "Μισώ τα πρωινά" του Ρουιγιάν [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...] με αντίστοιχο θέμα, το οποίο ήταν συγκλονιστικό στο 90% του, δεν έπαθα και πλάκα, ενώ άλλοι φίλοι το θεωρούν ως ένα από τα καλύτερα βιβλία που έχουν διαβάσει.

[Descending Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good and short book. It's very entertaining, which being a "prison" book is hard to do. It keeps moving with a lot of wit and humor. I like how at different points in the story a character would basically tell their backstory of how they got there or as an insight to what's going on with our main character, stories in stories are always great.

[Mr. C · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I enjoyed Cheever's writing (as a thing in itself), the subject matter of this particular work may be a bit "over-the-top" for more reserved / conservative / thematically sensitive readers (or somewhat age-inappropriate for folks less than 16-18). Cheever explores some interesting aspects of institutional imprisonment, drug abuse, psychology, homosexuality, and violence in such a way (and with such detail) it is difficult to imagine that Cheever is not speaking from personal experience... which is in a sense, the culmination of quality writing.

Clearly, Cheever is a masterful short-story writer... my only "complaint" (more of an observation, really) from a construction oriented perspective is this: Falconer feels like several interesting short-stories cobbled together. In a sense, most novels / books are built this way, but there are usually more connective tissues fusing the "episodes" together.

As a device (a prison setting), Cheever's positioning is nothing short of brilliant. How else could a writer juxtapose so many disparate personalities and get away with it? By using prison as an apparatus / explanation for fusing these aberrant stories/people together, Cheever has free license to do what he does best; tell us interesting short stories rife with palpable details and descriptions. Where else (but prison) would you find such a ripe, unusual, oftentimes revolting cast of players? Cheever has no need to waste time justifying their relationships... he can just "go" and write.

Farragut's nonchalance toward the themes of addiction, sexuality, and freedom (hey, being a prisoner does guarantee 2 hots and a cot!) leaves us with much to ponder.

If you couldn't deal with watching "Brokeback Mountain", leave this on the shelf. Some folks need a happy ending. Falconer is an articulate and interesting nightmare (that you can happily wake from).

[Pat Settegast · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is both inventive and conventional; it would even make a pleasant beach read. John Cheever effectively manages both a broad lyrical range and--do I dare say it?--a plot! Yes, it can be done. Falconer wrestles out many of the sordid details of a heroin addict sentenced to prison for fratricide (the gay lover, the methadone, the riots, the cat killing) with a prosody that seems somehow unattainable. And, it's not by any stretch a victim's story. Where Cheever excels is where he is able to wrap his mind around all the mental games we play while at the same time making the games at once serious and awkward. He portrays the grossness of humanity with grace and wit and further exposes many of our prides and prejudices as the free associations of benevolent chance. Cheever further artfully deals with an explosion of rhetorical ideals within a man who is essential thrown into a featureless cell to be forgotten by society. This book is nothing short of a masterpiece, and in all honesty--if it were solely for plot--it's not one I would pick-up, read the jacket, and say, 'this sounds good...' Fortunately, I began instead with the first sentence, and couldn't put it down.

[Tasos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ήξερα ότι είναι στη λίστα των Times με τα 100 καλύτερα βιβλία από το 1923 μέχρι σήμερα κι ότι γενικά θεωρείται ένα από τα αριστουργήματα της αμερικανικής λογοτεχνίας του προηγούμενου αιώνα και ήθελα εδώ και καιρό να το διαβάσω. Από την ολιγοσέλιδη, αλλά διαφωτιστικότατη εισαγωγή της ελληνικής έκδοσης μαθαίνουμε ότι ο κεντρικός ήρωας Ιεζεκιήλ Φάραγκατ είναι το λογοτεχνικό alter ego του Τσίβερ κι ότι το βιβλίο γράφτηκε μέσα σε χρονικό διάστημα δέκα μήνών μετά την παραμονή του σε κέντρο απεξάρτησης από το αλκοόλ. Ο ηρωινομανής αδελφοκτόνος Φάραγκατ θα έρθει κατά τη διάρκεια του εγκλεισμού στις φυλακές Φαλκόνερ αντιμέτωπος με το παρελθόν, την εξάρτηση, τις ενοχές και την επιθυμία, θα γνωρίσει τον έρωτα, έστω ευκαιριακό κι απελπισμένο στο πρόσωπο ενός καιροσκόπου συγκατούμενού του και θα διεκδικήσει το αδιανόητο, την ευτυχία, λέξη που θα είναι (ειρωνικά ή όχι) η τελευταία αυτού του συγκλονιστικού μυθιστορήματος.

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm glad I read Falconer, I admire the writing, but I don't think I will want to reread this book.

Cheever masterfully wrote men (and I do mean men, not women) in their most degraded state. Because of this, the humor, when it came, made me belly laugh, and, for that, I love the book. Degraded men stuck in a cage with nothing to lose have nothing to do but talk. And talk, they do.

I grew up near Sing Sing, which I'm guessing is the model for Falconer. Cheever, who lived near me, may have even been an acquaintance of my parents; my mother Edna Robinson revered his writing. I've come late to the party, but I understand the reverence. Next, I'll read his short stories.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of a middle-aged, middle-class, well-educated man sentenced for the murder of his brother. In prison, he is slowly incorporated into a community of broken, angry, desperate, men. As the protagonist struggles to hold on to his humanity, Cheever invites the reader to recognize the humanity in each of these men who have been rejected by society. Cheever has an ear for dialogue and great facility with character development. This deserves 4 stars for the writing. Unfortunately, despite the quality of the writing, I never connected with the characters or the story.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the course of two years I’ve read 2 great literary prison novels. I started last year with Hard rain falling, a novel, I feel I like a little more than John Cheever’s shorter work.
Both novels deal with the same subject matter.
Suppressed homosexuality, exploration and the exploitation of life behind bars. Hard rain falling hits hard, forces you to struggle through the pain, and to be frank, it’s bleak. Cheever takes the harshness and cruel greyness of the prison system and juggles humor and tragedy to develop a single block in a prison into a fleshed out ensemble of philandering cat lovers, perpetual masturbators, a smart mouthed cuckold who runs a prison racket in humorous irony. It’s the heaviness of hard rain falling with a Sundance wit, and at points is lyrical and has charming dialogue.
It’s a must read and I’d encourage that hard rain falling be a companion piece to this novel. I felt having read both I was able to fully appreciate the different approaches to very same subject matter.

[Emre · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Birlikte bir şeyler yapmayı bıraktığımız için oldu biraz da," dedi Farragut. "Eskiden birlikte öyle çok şey yapardık ki. Birlikte uyurduk, birlikte seyahat ederdik, kayak yapar, paten kayar, yelken yapar, konserlere giderdik, her şeyi birlikte yapardık, birlikte beyzbol şampiyonluk serisini seyreder ve bira içerdik, oysa ikimiz de bira sevmeyiz, en azından bu ülkedekini sevmeyiz. Adı Lomberg miydi neydi, işte onun karşı tarafa sayı vermeden maçı bitirmeyi yarım atışla kaçırdığı yıldı. Sen ağladın. Ben de. Birlikte ağladık."

"Senin kafan güzeldi," dedi Marcia. "Bunu birlikte yapamıyorduk." Sf:29

Acı değildi bu, o kadar basit ve net bir şey değildi. Tanımlayabildiği tek şey gözyaşı kanallarında bir rahatsızlıktı, kör, düşüncesiz bir ağlama isteğiydi. Gözyaşı kolaydı; on dakikalık bir otuzbire bakardı. Ağlamak ve haykırmak istiyordu. Sf:34