{"id":12128,"date":"2014-04-14T09:52:42","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T13:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=12128"},"modified":"2014-05-13T22:47:24","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T02:47:24","slug":"john-cheever-the-enormous-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2014\/04\/14\/john-cheever-the-enormous-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"John Cheever: “The Enormous Radio”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"“The Enormous Radio” was first published in the May 17, 1947 issue of\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em> and is collected in John Cheever’s The Stories of John Cheever<\/em>. Click here<\/a> for reviews of other John Cheever stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Enormous Radio\u201d is the third piece in Cheever\u2019s collected stories, but the first one chronologically I\u2019m covering here. \u201cGoodbye, My Brother,\u201d one of Cheever\u2019s most famous stories, leads off the collection, but appeared in The New Yorker<\/i> several years later, so I\u2019ll cover it later, too.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin with the sentences.<\/p>\n

One of the literary traits that distinguishes John Cheever is how he is able, usually within the first paragraph, to offer a complete diagnosis of a character in one or two lines. The opening of \u201cThe Enormous Radio\u201d is a master class in characterization:<\/p>\n

Jim and Irene Westcott were the kind of people who seem to strike that satisfactory average of income, endeavor, and respectability that is reached by the statistical reports in college alumni bulletins. They were the parents of two young children, they had been married nine years, they lived on the twelfth floor of an apartment house near Sutton Place, they went to the theatre an average of 10.3 times a year, and they hoped someday to live in Westchester.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The whole of the story is contained in those two sentences. There is also a deadpan element to this description, a cutting detachment, that not for the last time calls into question the figure narrating it.<\/p>\n

The story features a classic voyeur plot: after their living room radio breaks for good, Jim surprises Irene with a new one, an extravagance they can barely afford. When it gets delivered and uncrated, Irene first notices how ugly it is, the \u201clarge gumwood cabinet\u201d standing \u201camong her intimate possessions like an aggressive intruder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, while listening to a Mozart concerto, Irene begins hearing strange noises coming out of the loudspeaker. She soon realizes the radio is transmitting the ambient sounds of her apartment building: elevator doors, doorbells, electric razors.<\/p>\n

When Jim gets home from work, he has the same experience as his wife, and vows \u201cto call the people who sold it to him and give them hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

The radio is fixed the following day. Over dinner, when Jim is \u201ctoo tired to even make a pretense of sociability,\u201d Irene listens to a Chopin prelude before, once again, the music is interrupted, this time by a man chastising his wife for always playing the piano when he comes home. When the man leaves the room, the piano music picks back up.<\/p>\n

It soon dawns on the Westcotts that they can hear the conversations of their fellow tenants through the radio. A woman asks her husband to button her up. Another man wishes his wife wouldn\u2019t leave apple cores in the ashtray. A nurse sings to her wards.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting about this revelation is how un-revelatory Cheever presents it. \u201cThe Enormous Radio\u201d might be Cheever\u2019s most overtly fantastical story, but it doesn\u2019t feel<\/i> fantastical. After their initial surprise, Jim and Irene take it as a matter of course that their radio could broadcast private conversations. It makes the story feel more like an allegory of some kind.<\/p>\n

The story then follows an expected trajectory: at first Irene is reluctant to turn her radio on, then eager, then incapable of stopping. Every free moment she has is spent reveling in the juicy details of her apartment building:<\/p>\n

Irene shifted the control and invaded the privacy of several breakfast tables. She overheard demonstrations of indigestion, carnal love, abysmal vanity, faith, and despair.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, Irene realizes what most users of social media should realize: if it\u2019s this easy for her to know the intimate details of her neighbors\u2019 lives, it must be just as easy for them to know hers. The radio thus becomes a tool of validation; if her neighbors can hear the evidence of a happy marriage, then it must be <\/i>a happy marriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re happy, aren\u2019t we, darling?\u201d she pleads to Jim. \u201cWe are happy, aren\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the Westcotts do not have a happy marriage. Right from the start, Cheever has told us they are well-versed in playing the part of a successful couple and in hiding the serious fault lines on the verge of erupting.<\/p>\n

And erupt it does. The story ends dramatically when Jim, fed up with Irene\u2019s self-deception, violently expels himself of years of accrued grievances:<\/p>\n

Why are you so Christly all of a sudden? What\u2019s turned you overnight into a convent girl? You stole your mother\u2019s jewelry before they probated her will. You never gave your sister a cent of that money that was intended for her — not even when she needed it. You made Grace Howland\u2019s life miserable, and where was all your piety and your virtue when you went to that abortionist? I\u2019ll never forget how cool you were. You packed your bag and went off to have that child murdered as if you were going to Nassau…<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s a savage ending, blindsiding Irene and us both in its intensity, but all Irene can do is turn the station on the radio, hoping once again to hear the reassuring sounds of the upstairs nurse as Jim continues yelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Enormous Radio\u201d has lingered in my mind because it sets the terms for the rest of Cheever\u2019s characters: uncommunicative, envious, status-obsessed people. They might not have access to an all-knowing radio, but they\u2019re all listening carefully for any telltale transmissions that might give meaning to their own lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Pucci begins his series on John Cheever’s stories by covering “The Enormous Radio” (1947). Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":12770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[177],"tags":[590,560],"coauthors":[528],"class_list":["post-12128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-john-cheever","tag-john-cheever-stories","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/The-Stories-of-John-Cheever.jpg?fit=343%2C530&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-39C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12128"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12781,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12128\/revisions\/12781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12128"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}