Falconer by John Cheever

Even though this is obviously a masterful novel, elegantly written and often darkly humorous, it is not one that I really enjoyed reading. I believe that's because the central character and his angst are so foreign to my experience that I cannot empathize or sympathize with him or even understand the problems which shaped his life.

Falconer is the prison where the central character, the drug-addicted Farragut, ends up after killing his brother (perhaps accidentally, perhaps not). The story follows him through the dehumanizing prison experience, with flashbacks to his former life as a university professor. Actually, very little of actual prison life is described and what is told is very mild in comparison to what one understands to be prison life today. As I perceive it, the prison is meant to be symbolic of America, with its hypocritical expectations of behavior and its soul-destroying atmosphere. The novel was written in 1975, and perhaps this is the way many white, upper-class, educated males felt back then, but it is not a mind set that I can really understand. For the record, I have never really understood Saul Bellow either. Maybe I am not perceptive enough or intelligent enough to feel angst.

I expect many would appreciate this novel more than I did. It is certainly well written, though curiously devoid of emotional content.