John Cheever at the Wikipedia
The Enormous Radio at the Wikipedia
Missoury Waltz, by Johnny Cash
The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo
Biography, by Begoña Devis
John
Cheever was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1912. His father was the owner of
a shoe factory, which went bankrupt with the crash of 29, and the family fell
into relative poverty. After this fact, the father left the family, and the
young Cheever lived for a time in Boston with his brother. During that period
he survived by publishing articles and stories in various media.
He was
expelled from the academy for smoking, which ended his education and this was
the core of his first short story, Expelled, which Malcom Cowley bought for the
New Republican newspaper. From that moment, Cheever devoted himself entirely to
writing short stories that progressively found space in several magazines and
newspapers, and finally in the famous magazine The New Yorker, with which he
maintained, until the end of these days, an intense relationship.
He was
called the Chekhov of the suburbs, because many of his stories occurred in the
middle class neighbourhoods that were born around New York during the recovery
of the economy after the Second World War.
In 1957
he won The National Book Award for his first novel, and in 1971 he won the
Pulitzer Prize for his compilation of stories. He wrote primarily about the
decline of the American dream, alcoholism and homosexuality, and sometimes his
characters had dubious moral.
A movie
was made from his short story The Swimmer in 1957, played by Burt Lancaster. At
the time it was unsuccessful, but now it is considered a cult film by
cinephiles.
John
Cheever died in New York in 1982 at the age of 70.
The story
Many of Cheever's stories, like this one, revolve around the people who live in large cities in the second half of the twentieth century, and the particular strains this imposes upon them. In The Enormous Radio, Jim Wescott decides to buy a new radio as a present for his wife, without knowing the dramatic effect it would have on her life or what it would reveal about the lives of the people living in the same block as them.
QUESTIONS
In the first paragraph there are a lot of mentions to numbers,
averages and statistics. What effect do you think the author wants to give?
What is your opinion about statistics?
The first paragraph defines the class which Jim and Irene,
and their neighbours, belong to. But on page 3 there are more details: Can you
tell us which are these other details?
Describe the main characters:
Jim Westcott
Irene Westcott
Describe the new radio (appearance and “personality”).
How does the new radio change Irene’s way of looking
at people? Give some examples.
Why do you think Irene Westcott went on listening to
the radio?
When Irene saw a group of Salvation Army people in the
street, she said they were much nicer than a lot of people they knew. What do
you think she meant by this? Why are they nicer?
What do we learn from the story about the way of life
of middle-class Americans in the 4os?
What differences in personality do you notice between
Jim and Irene Westcott?
What worries them most: to hear the other people or to
be heard by the other people?
How do you think you would react if you bought a radio
like the one in the story?
Think about what can happen when you give a present
and the person who gets it doesn’t like it, or the present turns out badly
(e.g., a gremlin).
Irene tells her husband to stop a man beating his wife.
Would you interfere? What would you do?
Give some information about the different families/houses.
What differences and similarities can you see between
this radio and the screens in the novel 1984?
Can you give some information about...
Schubert
Chopin
Missouri Waltz
Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo
Whiffenpoof Song
Oranges and Lemons
Salvation Army
Mayo Clinic
Ode to Joy
Il TrovatoreNassau
VOCABULARY
fitch, Andover, handyman, uncrated, fuse, vacuum
cleaner, whir, give them hell, nursery, station, overshot, overdraft, draft, forthright,
overdrawn, halting, briefing, slipcover, Christly