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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Although this is a very tragic tale, I do enjoy reading this at Christmas and being transported back to the 1930s. It is a product of its time and the men and attitudes are dated by today's standard but it is a fascinating vignette into life, and how from a single incident (and alcoholism) things can tragically snowball downwards.
I enjoyed the book even more this time around and it is haunting, engrossing and sobering read. I somehow have never got around to reading more by John O'Hara but always read this, I should endeavour to change that in 2023.
I enjoyed the book even more this time around and it is haunting, engrossing and sobering read. I somehow have never got around to reading more by John O'Hara but always read this, I should endeavour to change that in 2023.
I really, really enjoyed this book. It was like the perfect build up and fall, and I truly loved the way the story flowed. Also Julian English is a great name. My rating is a 4.5, but unfortunately there’s no option for half a star.
Maybe I read this too soon after Babbitt, but this was pretty exhausting to get through. A lot of it was the dreadful middle/upper class snobbery that I detested in Babbitt, but the ending was beautiful, and really cathartic in a tragic way. I think somehow this is the best novel I've read about the Depression, though it only runs through the background of it.
I can only imagine how shocking this book was in the 1930s. The people in the social set depicted here are drunk, sexy and conspicuous in their pursuit of nightlife.
The prose sometimes baffled me. I suspect that's just because I didn't get all the references from a bygone era.
The protagonist is not a deep thinker or a good planner. He goes with the crowd or, alternately, where his drunken impulses lead. What ruins him is the realization that people might not like him much after all.
The prose sometimes baffled me. I suspect that's just because I didn't get all the references from a bygone era.
The protagonist is not a deep thinker or a good planner. He goes with the crowd or, alternately, where his drunken impulses lead. What ruins him is the realization that people might not like him much after all.
This book feels like a precursor to the kind of high-stress story telling experience perfected by the Safdie Brothers in "Uncut Gems." There's a twisted pleasure in watching from a remove as someone spirals, making bad decision after bad decision. You know it will all end badly for Julian from the beginning, and yet you can't look away.
O'Hara is a talented writer with a wry humor, though I'm not sure the title he's chosen was the best fit for the tale he set out to tell: Julian's demise doesn't feel inevitable so much as inscrutable - some of his decisions simply didn't gel with who he seemed to be as a character.
O'Hara is a talented writer with a wry humor, though I'm not sure the title he's chosen was the best fit for the tale he set out to tell: Julian's demise doesn't feel inevitable so much as inscrutable - some of his decisions simply didn't gel with who he seemed to be as a character.
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Read this years before and I remembered nothing about the plot. I only knew, that I liked it.
Reread it now, liked the reading expierence a lot. The Characters aren't very likable, they make questionable life decissions.
But I liked the depiction of society in the 1930s, especially concerning (romantic) relationships.
Liked the writing style and was very pleased by the german translation, which is pretty good in my opinion.
Reread it now, liked the reading expierence a lot. The Characters aren't very likable, they make questionable life decissions.
But I liked the depiction of society in the 1930s, especially concerning (romantic) relationships.
Liked the writing style and was very pleased by the german translation, which is pretty good in my opinion.
I just read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Other Side of Paradise, set in nearly the same time period and I have to say that I much prefer O'Hara's writing style. Fitzgerald's novel featured Amory Blaine whining and drinking his way through college and briefly after, meeting unsatisfactory girls. I never felt a kinship with the character. While I didn't especially like Julian and Caroline English in Appointment in Samarra, I quite enjoyed O'Hara's characterization of all the people in the town of Gibbsville and how they interacted with the Englishes. I was especially intrigued by the epigraph in the beginning about the servant who ran away from Baghdad to Samarra thinking he was avoiding death, while Death had been surprised to see him in Baghdad when he had an appointment with him in Samarra. Julian English's story is much like the servant's: everything he does still leads to his predestined conclusion.