20th century AD

The opening of John Cheever's "The Swimmer" contains the following passage describing the atmospheric conditions on the Sunday that Ned Merrill undertakes his quasi-epic swim through the succession of swimming pools he names the "Lucinda River": "It was a fine day. In the west there was a massive stand of cumulus cloud so like a city seen from a distance--from the bow of an approaching ship--that it might have had a name. Lisbon. Hackensack" (603). Considering that there are well over two dozen critical analyses explicating nearly every detail of this richly allusive story, it is surprising that only one critic has commented on the possible significance of Cheever's citation of Lisbon and Hackensack, a rather odd coupling of seemingly unrelated cities.

William Rodney Allen, in his reading of "The Swimmer" as "a critique of compromised American ideals" (291), connects Ned Merrill with the Puritan settlers of America whose projected Biblical "city on the hill" was never realized, their vision of a New Jerusalem having been eroded by the gradual corruption of American values. Thus, according to Allen, "the city in the clouds as viewed from the sea becomes over time only an ugly city with an ugly name--Hackensack" (291).

Allen, however, does not attempt to explain Cheever's reference to Lisbon in this same passage, and neither Allen nor any other commentator on "The Swimmer" has considered that Cheever's juxtaposition of these two cities is based on the origins of their names. The conflation of allusions evoked by these two cities' names allows the reader to anticipate the mythic and metaphorical framework of "The Swimmer." Cheever's citation of Lisbon, a city whose name is associated with Ulysses, foreshadows that Ned Merrill, like his Homeric counterpart, will embark on an epic water voyage, while the name "Hackensack" alludes to "The Swimmer's" metamorphosis of the Odyssey's mythopoeic Mediterranean Sea into a metaphorical "river" of suburban swimming pools.

In analyzing the correspondences between "The Swimmer" and Homer's epic, George W. Hunt describes Cheever's story as "his Odyssey, a surrealistic epic, deftly shortened, of a man condemned to wandering and eager to return home" (280). Appropriately, the reference to Lisbon in the story's opening complements Cheever's intention of giving Ned's journey an epic resonance, because, according to legend, Lisbon was founded by Ulysses, from whom the city's ancient name Olisipo, a variant of Ulyssipo, was derived (Hubbard 686).(1)

Although Ned Merrill's eight-mile swim home is loosely modeled on Ulysses's wanderings, the aquatic medium of his itinerary deviates strikingly from that of Homer's hero, and this variation, accordingly, is suggested by Cheever's subsequent citation of Hackensack, a city whose name, derived from the Lenape Indian language, means "confluence of rivers"--in this case, the Hackensack River and Overpeck Creek.(2)

In a story in which Cheever transforms the Mediterranean of the Odyssey's mythic world into a contemporary stream of swimming pools, it is fitting that "The Swimmer" begins with the juxtaposition of Lisbon, purportedly founded by Ulysses, and Hackensack, a city whose name alludes to the peculiar "river" route Cheever's modern-day Ulysses traverses.

(1) In 1956 Cheever visited Lisbon on his first of several trips to Italy (Donaldson 151). The legend of Ulysses as the founder of Lisbon, information included in most tourist guidebooks for Portugal, would certainly have caught the attention of Cheever, who claims to have read Joyce's Ulysses at age 15 (Conversations 22) and who has acknowledged that his fiction resonates with allusions to Greek mythology (108).

(2) Cheever's interest in Indian place-names may have been stimulated by his moving in 1961 to Ossining, whose name comes from the Indian word for "stones" (Donaldson 183). The derivation of Hackensack's name can be found in most encyclopedias.

WORKS CITED

Allen, William Rodney. "Allusions to The Great Gatsby in John Cheever's 'The Swimmer.'" Studies in Short Fiction 26 (1989): 289-93.

Cheever, John. Conversations with John Cheever. Ed. Scott Donaldson. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1987.

--. "The Swimmer." The Stories of John Cheever. New York: Knopf, 1978. 603-12.

Donaldson, Scott. John Cheever: A Biography. New York: Random, 1988.

Hubbard, Monica M., and Beverly Baer, eds. Cities of the World. 4th ed. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1993.

Hunt, George W. John Cheever: The Hobgoblin Company of Love. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1983.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Studies in Short Fiction
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning