{"id":13465,"date":"2014-07-09T00:01:33","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T04:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=13465"},"modified":"2014-07-10T00:16:23","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T04:16:23","slug":"john-cheever-the-summer-farmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2014\/07\/09\/john-cheever-the-summer-farmer\/","title":{"rendered":"John Cheever: “The Summer Farmer”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The-Stories-of-John-Cheever\"\u201cThe Summer Farmer\u201d was first published in the August 7, 1948 issue of\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em> and is collected in John Cheever\u2019s The Stories of John Cheever<\/em>. Click here<\/a> for reviews of other John Cheever stories.<\/p>\n

One thing you quickly notice about John Cheever\u2019s stories is his steadfast refusal to condemn or satirize his protagonists. Perhaps because Cheever was such a flawed man himself, he never holds them up for judgment, even as they commit loathsome, selfish acts. A Cheever character never loses his essential wonder at the world.<\/p>\n

Take Paul Hollis from \u201cThe Summer Farmer.\u201d In different hands, this story would be an opportunity to lob some easy shots at the city man acting the part of an authentic farmer, getting his hands dirty and \u201cwax[ing] angry about the price of scratch feed,\u201d embarrassing himself in front of the real farmer before retreating back to his natural habitat, New York City.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not the story we get here. Paul is certainly an amateurish farmer, but by the end has earned my sympathy.<\/p>\n

When we open, Paul is embarking on his customary train ride on the Nor\u2019easter from Grand Central Station to the farm he visits every weekend during the summer.<\/p>\n

The farm has been in the Hollis family for at least two generations — his father christened the pasture \u201cElysian\u201d — and as he drives with his wife Virginia onto the farmland, purchasing along the way two rabbits to occupy his children\u2019s interest, Paul feels a sense of homecoming \u201cso violent that the difference between the pace of his imagination and the speed of his car annoyed him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next morning, Paul works side-by-side with Kasiak, the Russian-born \u201chired man\u201d who has owned the farm below for 20 years. He is also an avowed Communist, and seems to hold in contempt everything about the Hollis family: the work ethic (\u201cYou want to get up that early?\u201d he scoffs when Paul suggests they begin work at 6 a.m.), the slothful behavior of Paul\u2019s drunk sister, the \u201cbourgeois sentimentality\u201d of naming their animals.<\/p>\n

At first, Paul seems more bemused by Kasiak\u2019s convictions than anything else:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen are you going to have your revolution, Kasiak?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the capitalists make another war.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen to me, Kasiak? What\u2019s going to happen to people like me?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt depends. If you work in a farm or a factory, I guess it will be all right. They\u2019ll only get rid of useless people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll right, Kasiak,\u201d Paul said heartily, \u201cI\u2019ll work for you,\u201d and he slapped the farmer on the back.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paul eventually gives in, however, to some imagined competition between the two, a \u201cpuerile race of virtue and industry.\u201d Later Kasiak shows him a newspaper clipping with the headline LUXURY LIVING WEAKENS U.S.; Paul feels an \u201cuprush of chauvinism\u201d and chastises Kasiak, \u201cmaster to hired man.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story comes to a head when Paul, enjoying a drink with Virginia before catching the evening train back to New York, hears his children scream. The rabbits died, having ingested poison used to kill rats. Paul immediately blames Kasiak, striking the first blow in his revolution \u201cto seize power from the hands of those who drink Martinis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul lashes out at Kasiak, threatening him if he touches the children. Of course — and it\u2019s no great surprise to discover — Virginia is the real culprit, having put the poison out the previous year and then forgetting about it.<\/p>\n

Cheever ends the story on a typically poetic note. Though we\u2019re not told exactly what happens to Paul or if his farming days are over, he is most definitely affected by his rush to judgment and the prejudices it revealed:<\/p>\n

It is true of even the best of us that if an observer can catch us boarding a train at a way station; if he will mark our faces, stripped by anxiety of their self-possession; if he will appraise our luggage, our clothing, and look out of the window to see who has driven us to the station; if he will listen to the harsh or tender things we say if we are with our families [. . .] if he can judge sensibly the self-importance, diffidence, or sadness with which we settle ourselves, he will be given a broader view of our lives than most of us would intend.<\/span><\/p>\n

[. . . .]
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

[Paul] swung his suitcase onto the rack — a man of forty with signs of mortality in a tremor of his right hand, signs of obsoleteness in his confused frown, a summer farmer with blistered hands, a sunburn, and lame shoulders, so visibly shaken by some recent loss of principle that it would have been noticed by a stranger across the aisle.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe Summer Farmer\u201d is not generally regarded as one of Cheever\u2019s better stories. Little has been written about it, and it doesn\u2019t linger in memory as well as the previous stories I\u2019ve covered here, \u201cO City of Broken Dreams\u201d (here<\/a>) and \u201cThe Enormous Radio\u201d (here<\/a>). The twist at the end with the rabbits feels too obvious and convenient a point.<\/p>\n

But I include it here because I think it marks the first turning point in Cheever\u2019s writing from the more fable-like (or, as Betsy remarked in an earlier write-up, \u201cdream-like\u201d) aspects of \u201cRadio\u201d and \u201cO City\u201d where the characters were intended to learn hard lessons.<\/p>\n

In these first three stories, I still see Cheever finding his way and his true subject. We have the milieu, we have the archetypal Cheever protagonists; all that\u2019s left is the Cheever voice, that authoritative, ever-curious chronicler of the middle class. The final paragraphs of \u201cThe Summer Farmer\u201d give us a taste of that voice. It will be on full display from here on out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Pucci continues his series on John Cheever\u2019s stories by covering \u201cThe Summer Farmer\u201d (1948). 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":"John Cheever: \"The Summer Farmer\" http:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-3vb","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-13465","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-3vb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13465","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=13465"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13478,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13465\/revisions\/13478"}],"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=13465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13465"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}