whointheheckisWilliamMaxwell

Over by the River, and Other Stories | William Maxwell

The Thistles in Sweden: This was how I pictured those curtains. After spending 7 or 8 pages to describe a two-room apartment, Maxwell drops the sentence that undoes the cozy scene he set: “This is a secret she manages to keep from me so I can go on being happy.” How he can be so aware, and yet manage to write a sympathetic character who is so obviously clueless, is Maxwell‘s gift. I‘m not sure, though, how I feel about the happy ending. 👇🏻

Lcsmcat 👆🏻Was a child what Margaret wanted in order to be happy? Or would she have wanted to stay in the city had she been allowed to take the job she was offered? Maxwell seems clear on this point; she was happy. But I have a little doubt. I can‘t forget that our nameless MC has been “allowed to be happy” before. #whointheheckisWilliamMaxwell @Graywacke (edited) 5y

Graywacke Never came up in my notifications. 😕 5y

Graywacke My thoughts on finishing: This story bothered me a lot. Unreliable narrator, selfish, self-centered, strangles his partner‘s career and forces his wants on her. Refuses to acknowledge her feelings except in French!! (Today they would sit in the same room and text.) Didn‘t like that at all. (Had me thinking of Nabokov!) I did like the peak into 1950‘s Manhattan and these brownstones. 5y

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Graywacke Per your comments, I think she definitely wanted a child. (I‘m not sure he did or what he‘ll do when she has to focus on raising him without help or support. And, if I have that right, I‘m not sure what she will do once she realizes she‘s got this baby on her own. ??) Having said all that, I‘m not sure what would make her happy. She has already compromised a lot. So what are her wants now? 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat so, i like your analysis. 5y

Lcsmcat Odd that you didn‘t get the notification, but that‘s happened to me occasionally too. 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat so, what did you think overall? I think we both got a lot out of it, and our chatting led to a lot of un-peeling and some awareness of the many layers in these stories. That was really fun and interesting. But, beyond that, i‘ve been reticent to express my overall feeling about the book. 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat yes, I know, sometimes notifications seems not to work Strange. 5y

Lcsmcat They totally would have texted, in the same room! Great visual, that. 😀 I am putting my own biases on this, but the 1950s was such a “have a baby to fix your marriage/life/sanity” decade that I‘m not sure Margaret wanted one, or settled for what she was “allowed” to want. I found it interesting that everyone was named - from the cat Floribunda to every neighbor- except the narrator. 5y

Lcsmcat I know she‘ll raise it on her own, but that was what having a child in the 50s meant. But she‘s already raising him. ( The comment about his mother always being home when he got home and him expecting that to continue in his marriage comes to mind.) 🙄 (edited) 5y

Lcsmcat I‘m glad to have read these slowly, one a week. I think Maxwell is best appreciated that way. And getting to talk about them too. Overall, though, he might have been a better editor than writer? Although I liked the one novel of his I‘ve read. 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat his excuse to keep her home!! 🤦🏻‍♂️...🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat I did kind of realize we didn‘t get his name, but I didn‘t think about how everyone else was named. I was worried his name might be William Maxwell. 😳🙂 Anyway, interesting. Thanks. 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat a short story collection like this, not planned, collected after the fact - it‘s not going to have a full orchestral feel. So, it makes sense it feels lacking something overall. But - individually I thought he was naturally a gentle writer and prone to be too gentle (all subtlety). I find that tough. I‘m not surprised his novels come across better. 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat I feel that if we had read this on our own, it would have slipped through without leaving much a mark. As it is, the second to last story stood out the most for me as what i liked. And the France stories stay most memorable in mind - although I can‘t exactly place why. 5y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke I love his gentle style, I just have a more difficult time forgiving the sins of the era from a 20th century writer than a 19th century one. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Again, my bias not his fault. When I think that he was the same age as my maternal grandparents I cut him a little more slack. 😀 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat side note - my hardback copy summarizes every story on the jacket flap! What was interesting though is that I struggled to place them. An example: “an adolescent boy trying to cope simultaneously with his awakening sexuality and with the childlike belief that the eye of God is upon him at all times.” 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat ah, interesting. He‘s too old fashioned? Personally I found that of interest 😆 He spans 40 years of writing here, and the temperament was set before all that started. He must have had an interesting relationship to his times in the 1970‘s. 5y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke How interesting. I wished that my copy had individual publication dates. I‘d have liked to contemplate what order he wrote them in. It gives a list of dates from 1941 to 1984, with no clue which is which. 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat the dates - i hate that! 😆 seriously though, it‘s such an impart of the writing and the author‘s development and how one story leads to how he handles another. And these stories span so much time! Why not share. 🙁😔 5y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke It was interesting, just made me eye roll more than say, Trollope would. I read other articles besides the one I shared and a theme seemed to be his floating above the times. I think he was so mired in Lincoln as a writer that if he‘d tried to write about the civil rights movement, for example, it wouldn‘t have come across as authentic. He seemed to need to work through his childhood over and over. 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat interesting. And I think we all do. At least, it makes sense to me. But, you know, writing about 1950‘s Lincoln during the Civil Rights era says something interesting about the Civil Right era. 5y

Graywacke Between Willa Cather, Nabokov and Osip Mandelstam, i‘ve read more books written during the 1930‘s than ever before. Not one word on the economy (or Hitler). I find that fascinating. 5y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke I think a lot of people, especially older people, wanted to go back to an earlier time that seemed easier. Although it probably seemed easier because they were kids then. 5y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke It is interesting that Cather tackled WWI but not Hitler. One could argue that the depression made less of an impact than the dust bowl on her part of the prairie, but also, hindsight is 2020, so what you‘re living through at the moment maybe is that much harder to write about. 5y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat Cather redirected herself really far away from contemporary times. From the trenches to childhood perspectives (MME) to the 1800‘s, to the 1600‘s !! Says something 5y

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