One of the charms of JohnnCheever’s early work Hes in the humanenbreadth of its sympathies. In a novel likenThe Wapshot Chronicle, or a story liken”A Vision of the World,” Cheever communicatesna good-humored affection fornthe human comedy that lifts his writingnabove the narrow passions and animositiesnof so much fiction in the twentiethncentury. Cheever’s is a minor talent, butnragut, scion of an old Yankee family thatnhas run down to poverty and craziness,nloves and hates his father: Farragutnknows that his father sought to have himndone away with by an abortionist. Becausenof this and other Oedipal wounds,nas well as exposure to civilization andncertain of its discontents (he has had anbad time in “a war,” found the bonds ofnmarriage a bit too tight, learned that hisnto escape. He conceals himself in thensack meant for the corpse of a friend,nand is carried out. From this womb/tomb,nhe emerges, symbolically cutting himselfnfree, a new man. The book ends on annote of hope.nJCVS one makes one’s way into Falconer,none’s first impression is that even thesenlurid happenings and worn-out FreudiannThose GenialnMurderersnby Dain A. Traftonnat his best he reflects something of thengreat English comic tradition stretchingnfrom Chaucer to Shakespeare to Fieldingnto Thackeray and Trollope. Cheever’snlatest novel. Falconer, however, revealsnthat his good humor and humane sympathynhave metamorphosed of late intonsomething much less attractive. Affectionnwas tempered by intelligent judgmentnin Cheever’s early work, as in thenwork of Fielding or Trollope. Falconernevades judgment; it asks us to respondnto its characters not with true sympathynbut with an embrace of mindless acceptance.nThe novel expresses the revulsionnagainst applying firm moral and intellectualnstandards that is one of the mostndangerous characteristics of our time.nTo use a term of which Cheever seemsnfond, Falconer can be described as unmistakablyn”post-Freudian.” Zeke Far-nDr. Trafton, currently immersed in thenItalian Renaissance, views contemporaryncant with benevolence.n8nChroiiicle§ of CulturenJohn Cheever: Falconer:nAlfred A. Knopf; New York, 1977.nwife is a Lesbian, and seen through thenpretenses of the professors at the universitynwhere he teaches), Farragut becomesna heroin addict. Revenge on hisnfather and the world comes when henattacks his brother Eben, who representsnthe traditions of family and society: duringna family quarrel Farragut strikes Ebennwith a fire iron; Eben falls against thenfireplace and dies. Whether Eben’s deathnresults directly from Farragut’s blow ornfrom hitting the fireplace remains unclear.nNevertheless Farragut’s complicity,nat least in some degree, cannot be denied.nConvicted of murder, he ends up innFalconer Prison, where he speedily freesnhimself from the past: he gets rid of hisndrug habit, turns to homosexuality, andnbroadens himself by living among thendowntrodden in a brutal prison rathernthan among blue bloods and intellectualsnon Cape Cod and in Venice. Finally, afternhaving rather perfunctorily reviewed innmemory his act of violence against hisnbrother, Farragut deems himself worthynnnpatterns have been endowed with a kindnof charm by Cheever’s power of sympathynand good humor. What might have beennan overheated, tendentious tract—annindictment of war, a celebration of drugs,nan expos6 of prison brutality, a gay liberationnmanifesto—is remarkably devoid ofnanimosity. A detached, essentially comic,ntone prevails throughout. The charm ofnthis tone, however, hides somethingnrotten; it provides a seductive wrappingnfor a fruit that has gone bad. Falconerndeals with some instances of real evil,nwith stupidity, cruelty, and violence thatnhas serious, even tragic, consequences,nbut the novel’s detached tone effectivelynsoftens our judgment, encourages us tonview with tolerance what we shouldncondemn. Thus, the heartless egoismnand perversity of Farragut’s wife is presentednunemotionally as just anothernaspect of human behavior; she is not tonbe blamed. Similarly, prison guards cannbe sadistic, sometimes terrifyingly so, butnwe are not to think of them as bad fellows.n