'Enormous Radio' is parable for our socially saturated age

 

"The Enormous Radio" by John Cheever grows in relevance as society's experiences with social media become more entrenched. 

Originally published in The New Yorker in 1947, the story centers on Jim and Irene Westcott, married for nine years with two small children and living in a twelfth-floor apartment. Life is good for the Westcotts, who are mildly out of step with their neighbors, preferring a quiet existence buoyed by their love of classical music playing over the radio. 

When their old radio malfunctions, Jim buys a new one. Irene is at once struck by the "ugliness of the large gumwood cabinet," observing that the new set "stood among her intimate possessions like an aggressive intruder." Nonetheless, its tone is lovely — at first. Soon, Irene notes that the radio has a significant defect. Instead of picking up traditional broadcast stations, it somehow transmits conversations from other apartments in the Westcott's building. 

At first, this hiccup is endearing:

The Westcotts overheard that evening a monologue on salmon fishing in Canada, a bridge game, running comments on home movies of what had apparently been a fortnight at Sea Island, and a bitter family quarrel about an overdraft at the bank. They turned off their radio at midnight and went to bed, weak with laughter.

But soon, Irene finds herself obsessed by these clandestine peeks into her neighbors' lives and can no longer maintain a polite facade of ignorance in public. The listening becomes a daily ritual: 

Irene shifted the control and invaded the privacy of several breakfast tables. She overheard demonstrations of indigestion, carnal love, abysmal vanity, faith, and despair. Irene's life was nearly as simple and sheltered as it appeared to be, and the forthright and sometimes brutal language that came from the loudspeaker that morning astonished and troubled her. She continued to listen until her maid came in. Then she turned off the radio quickly, since this insight, she realized, was a furtive one. 

One day, Jim comes home to his wife's insistence that he go to a neighboring apartment and stop an abusive husband. Instead, he turns off the radio, scolds her for eavesdropping, and has a repairman fix the device the next morning. (No word on how the repairman reacts to a device that can spy on one's neighbors.)

But the damage has been done. As a colleague recently observed about a sensitive situation in the workplace, "Once you know, you know, and you can't ever not know again." Irene has peered behind society's curtain and found a humbug. Her faith in humanity cannot be restored. Nor can she return to that blissful state of unknowing. 

But Cheever saves one last revelation. Irene, the reader learns, is not as innocent as she appears to be, and in her own past, there are circumstances, decisions, and declarations just as petty, sordid, and shocking as anything blaring through the enormous radio. 

One of the themes of Cheever's story is the disquieting nature of moving from innocence to knowledge, wherever and however this happens. Parallel to this runs a moral for our oversharing, social media era, where all of us listen to the enormous radios of Facebook, X, Instagram, and more. The revelations there threaten to change forever how we view neighbors, family, and friends. 

What's worse is that so many of us—myself included—willingly speak into our enormous radios, sharing and oversharing, commenting incessantly with words we would be too timid to use face to face. 

Yet despite these revelations, or because of them, social media goes on and on, confidently infiltrating our lives, monetizing our shared secrets and shattered expectations, providing a mechanism by which we trust others less and build walls at the very time when we should be doing the opposite.  

At the end of "The Enormous Radio," Irene "held her hand on the switch before she extinguished the music and the voices, hoping that the instrument might speak to her kindly." 

Instead, the announcer brings the news of twenty-nine dead in Tokyo, followed by the weather. She—and we—can do nothing to effect change in either. 

The YouTube link at the top of the page is a wonderful CBS Radio Workshop adaptation of "The Enormous Radio." It's worth a listen.  You can find Cheever's original story here.