Publicação
John Cheever and Ann Beattie: echoes of generational memory in their shorter (and longer) fiction
| Resumo: | This PhD thesis intends to analyse the writing of John Cheever (1912-1982) and Ann Beattie (1947- ) drawing comparisons and establishing differences between these two authors both in terms of their longer and shorter fiction. The analysis of their shorter fiction draws the reader’s attention to two specific anthologies: Cheever’s The Stories of John Cheever (1978) and Beattie’s The New Yorker Stories (2010). Beattie’s Park City: New and Selected Stories (1998), her first anthology with a retrospective undertone, is also taken into account. Links in terms of social themes, literary tone and cultural cross-references, among others, guide my discussion. Their common beginnings as short story writers in The New Yorker is also subject to consideration. As well, the reading of Cheever will also include his non-fictional work – his journals and letters, plus the latest biography by Blake Bailey – which will clarify and reveal his fictional work. Likewise, Beattie’s infatuation with photography and her non-fictional work in that field will also be taken into account. The ultimate aim, as the title indicates, is to discuss the extent to which there is a generational memory binding their body of work. The concepts of place and memory, identity and generation are key in the line of argument presented. These concepts, and their application to selected instances of Cheever’s and Beattie’s shorter and longer fiction, help in delineating a coherent reasoning leading to inferences on the continuity and discontinuity between their writing of American reality from the forties until nowadays. Moreover, Beattie’s characters are (could be) more often than not Cheever’s characters’ grown-up children, as I advocate. The section on “Cheever’s Beattie”, in particular the part dedicated to the novel Falling in Place (1980), aims at documenting the extent to which Cheever’s generational memory is felt in Beattie’s world, and then pursued into the lives of her own characters’ generation. It is curious to notice that in Beattie’s latest collection of short stories, Follies: New Stories (2005), the characters are the aging baby boomers of her earlier stories, thus her work can be seen as chronicling the aging of its own privileged generational group. Using everyday characters and occurrences around them for literary purposes, both Cheever and Beattie, at different moments in their literary career, depict the joys and sorrows of a particular instant in life emphasizing, nevertheless, the boredom and bleakness, the dullness and angst which their middle-class suburban characters face as they look back on unfulfilled promise and even baffled understanding. Neither alcohol nor marijuana relieves their disaffected state but, rather, aggravates it. Thus, an attentive reader easily detects a common cultural memory whereby Cheever and Beattie convey an image of the American past, its major styles and fads, which readers share and recognise. To read their stories is to receive perfectly timed, and timeless, dispatches from the 40s through the 90s and 2000s documenting their America. For example, Cheever’s commuters, white-collar husbands who take the train to work in the city leaving their wives and kids behind, and Beattie’s pop culture references clarify specific American social and historical contexts. |
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| Autores principais: | Osório, Maria Salomé Faria Braga |
| Ano: | 2012 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | tese de doutoramento |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso restrito |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade do Minho |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho |
| Resumo: | This PhD thesis intends to analyse the writing of John Cheever (1912-1982) and Ann Beattie (1947- ) drawing comparisons and establishing differences between these two authors both in terms of their longer and shorter fiction. The analysis of their shorter fiction draws the reader’s attention to two specific anthologies: Cheever’s The Stories of John Cheever (1978) and Beattie’s The New Yorker Stories (2010). Beattie’s Park City: New and Selected Stories (1998), her first anthology with a retrospective undertone, is also taken into account. Links in terms of social themes, literary tone and cultural cross-references, among others, guide my discussion. Their common beginnings as short story writers in The New Yorker is also subject to consideration. As well, the reading of Cheever will also include his non-fictional work – his journals and letters, plus the latest biography by Blake Bailey – which will clarify and reveal his fictional work. Likewise, Beattie’s infatuation with photography and her non-fictional work in that field will also be taken into account. The ultimate aim, as the title indicates, is to discuss the extent to which there is a generational memory binding their body of work. The concepts of place and memory, identity and generation are key in the line of argument presented. These concepts, and their application to selected instances of Cheever’s and Beattie’s shorter and longer fiction, help in delineating a coherent reasoning leading to inferences on the continuity and discontinuity between their writing of American reality from the forties until nowadays. Moreover, Beattie’s characters are (could be) more often than not Cheever’s characters’ grown-up children, as I advocate. The section on “Cheever’s Beattie”, in particular the part dedicated to the novel Falling in Place (1980), aims at documenting the extent to which Cheever’s generational memory is felt in Beattie’s world, and then pursued into the lives of her own characters’ generation. It is curious to notice that in Beattie’s latest collection of short stories, Follies: New Stories (2005), the characters are the aging baby boomers of her earlier stories, thus her work can be seen as chronicling the aging of its own privileged generational group. Using everyday characters and occurrences around them for literary purposes, both Cheever and Beattie, at different moments in their literary career, depict the joys and sorrows of a particular instant in life emphasizing, nevertheless, the boredom and bleakness, the dullness and angst which their middle-class suburban characters face as they look back on unfulfilled promise and even baffled understanding. Neither alcohol nor marijuana relieves their disaffected state but, rather, aggravates it. Thus, an attentive reader easily detects a common cultural memory whereby Cheever and Beattie convey an image of the American past, its major styles and fads, which readers share and recognise. To read their stories is to receive perfectly timed, and timeless, dispatches from the 40s through the 90s and 2000s documenting their America. For example, Cheever’s commuters, white-collar husbands who take the train to work in the city leaving their wives and kids behind, and Beattie’s pop culture references clarify specific American social and historical contexts. |
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