NEW YORKERS AND OTHERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 800, 19 November 1954, Page 13

NEW YORKERS AND OTHERS

THE ENORMOUS RADIO, by John Cheever; | N Victor Gollancz, English price 12/6. BUT 1 SAW THE MOVIE, by Peter De | Vries; Victor Gollancz, English price 12/6. NORTH COUNTRY STORIES, edited. by A. G. Brooks: Faber and Faber, English price 12/6, TALES TO BE TOLD IN THE DARK, edited by Basil Davenport; Faber and Faber. English price 15/-. ‘THE American short story at its best is one of the more encouraging features of American life. "You. might complain that even at its best it isn’t offen positive, but not that it lacks ‘awareness; and nowhere is it more consistently aware than in the New Yorker, where all the* stories in Mr. Cheever’s fine collection first appeared. His subject is most often the pretty ordinary American of the cities, generally worshipping the Bitch Goddess and almost certainly quietly desperate. Mr, Cheever looks deep into their lives and sets down what he sees straight-forwardly. without tricks of style. I found his continued on next page) ‘ | : ‘

BOOKS

(continued from previous page) stories among the best I have seen in a long time. They stand up well, too, when read more than once; I hope other Teaders will not be put off, as I nearly was, by the slow opening of the" first story. As it turns out it is a good one, but I think the author might have put something more eye-catching (even typical) in the window. Mr. De. Vries, another New Yorker writer, has collected a mixed bag, slighter than Mr. Cheever’s (sometimes deceptively slight), but still worth while whether in parody, story or sketch. Not every piece is a winner, but the author writes well, and is easy to read, can be very penetrating, and at his most amusing (ina sketch like "Household Words") is as funny as Perelman. North Country Tales is one of those English collections, solid and good and in this case often distinctly regional. Most of the stories belong to this century, but there are a few from the past. Even in this company one of the best is by a writer-Winifred Williams-who has lived in America and written for the New Yorker. In Tales to be Told in the Dark, a guccessor to the same editor’s Ghostly Tales to be Told, "told" and "dark" are the operative words; for Mr. Davidson believes that telling, rather than reading, stories is one of the most agreeable

of arts. Here he gives some advice on how to do it, selecting stories that one might like to hear, but would hate to be

able to read, in the dark.

F.A.

J.