Cheever_ A Life - Blake Bailey [191]
One could also make the case that Cheever was deemed a “failed” novelist by certain critics for the very reason that he was regarded as a story writer first and foremost; as with its predecessor, the structure of The Wapshot Scandal may be reduced to the formula of three or four long stories rather loosely (in terms of linear plot) plaited together. Moreover, as Maxwell asserted (and Hyman made a similar point), “the psychological consistency of characters” is sacrificed somewhat by the author in order to be “freer” and more “fanciful.” When we last see Melissa Wapshot, for example, she's wandering around an Italian supermarket like “Ophelia,” madly chanting commercial jingles (“Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean“); reading Cheever's notes, we learn that he considered using Coverly's wife Betsey for this scene, before randomly deciding to “throw it to Melissa”—in other words, it was the set piece that mattered rather than the characters, most of whom are mutable ciphers responding to their respective predicaments. But then, if one insists on well-rounded characters, there's always Honora, who remains perfectly herself from start to finish, and that's arguably as it should be: Honora embodies the more coherent traditions of an old, dying world, whereas Melissa and Betsey reflect the alienating chaos of modern times.
The Wapshot Scandal begins and ends during Christmas in St. Botolphs, where a “shine of decorum” still prevails “at the time of which I'm writing”—the latter phrase perhaps the most recurrent in Cheever's work, fixing time beyond history, again, though we are told that it's “late in the day.” Thus the “shine of decorum” in St. Botolphs is little more than “a mode of hope,” and everywhere a disparity is noted between appearance and reality. Even the apparently “benign” rector, Mr. Applegate, is in fact a cynical drunkard who seems to hear his parishioners’ silent prayers in all their maddening banality: “It was the feeling that all exalted human experience was an imposture, and that the chain of being was a chain of humble worries.” And yet there is still a redemptive sense of connection in St. Botolphs: carolers serenade their fellow townsfolk, the telephone operator knows everyone by name, and people do not judge their neighbors’ social prestige (“as they presently would”) based on the relative lushness of their Christmas trees. But meanwhile, at the Missile Research and Development site at Talifer, where Coverly now works and lives, the impending Apocalypse has imposed a mood of paranoiac isolation. Across the street from her tract house, Betsey Wapshot observes a man falling to his death while installing storm windows, and returns to her television rather than violate “security” concerns by getting involved. This, then, is what passes for a “shine of decorum” at Talifer, which is decidedly more hypocritical than hopeful. Near an abandoned farm with its deceptive “bucolic imagery” is the “dark, oil-colored glass” of the administration center—”buried six stories beneath the cow pasture”—and viciousness, in one form or another, is forever bursting to the surface. Coverly brawls with a loutish neighbor over a stolen garbage can, while in the background a missile rises brightly against the horizon. As for the Teller-like director of Talifer, Dr. Cameron, he boasts of skiing expertly down a steep slope at dusk (whereas in fact he furtively rode the lift both ways), and one page later reveals to Coverly that a bird is calling him by name (“Cameron, Cameron, Cameron”). In such hands rests the fate of the earth.
The degree to which readers are polarized over the question of structure in The Wapshot Scandal (or any of Cheever's novels) seems ultimately a matter of taste. George Garrett singled out the book's craft as one of its most “outstanding” features, while Corke (et al.) thought it an architectural fiasco and certain reviewers seemed almost