Story-Telling, Reading, Pen-To-Paper Type of Girl

There are few things I dig more than a good book.  An imaginative book.  A book that paints a picture like a dream invades your mind at night and takes you to another world.

That being said, the reading I have found to be so far most enrapturing are The Swimmer.





 

Cheever's The Swimmer transported me to the hot, lost, unhappy, summer twist on The Odyssey. A man embarks on a "journey" (even if it is a journey of drunken pool-hopping) to his gated home where his family should be awaiting him.  The drunk swimmer parallels the story of Odysseus in many ways, eluding to the travel by water, the meetings with different characters at each stop and the obstacles (such as the highway, the community pool, the brush and sharp ground).  It is an obvious recounting of the classic journey, modernized with a melancholy tone.

However, where Odysseus comes home to find his family and home (as well as other obstacles), the swimmer reaches the grounds to find his home sold and his family gone.  For me, this simple detail makes it much more tragic than a battle with cocky suitors as in the case of Odysseus.  It leaves a sad taste in my mouth, and ends with nothing more with which to wash it away.

The two biggest themes I found in the story were that of the water and of alcohol.  Where the water seems to be his beautiful release from the realities outside of the pool's edge, the author creates heavy, negative connotations to the swimmer's consummation of alcohol.  A world of rich yet unfulfilled alcoholics is illustrated, a world where the swimmer includes a drink with each pool stop.

I wonder if this is a reflection on Cheever's personal life.