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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
The story of a Fitzgerald novel....with the feel of a Graham Greene novel....inspired by the style of a Hemingway novel....compiled just after binge reading Virginia Woolf novels.....as written by some significantly less talented than all four of those noted authors.
This book is good. It’s easy to read, easy to feel, easy to understand, but it’s just too....easy. Too transparent. Too clear and accessible. The characters are deep, complex, and beautiful. But they’re also locked into this world where, from the opening epigraph, their fates are sealed. There’s no confusion or contention about where each new encounter or setting would take their stories. Each page is just the tick of the clock toward the clear and obvious end each character will meet. While the journey of those characters grows in value and connection with each chapter, the depth of their looming conclusions doesn’t become any more real, meaningful, or questionable as the book goes on.
A note in the writing, this book entertained detour after detour from its narrative without too much relevant substance being provided therein. These digression seemed to be enough of a stream of consciousness to annoy the reader, but not enough to enlighten. In addition, it seems to me that there’s a laziness to the writing where the author makes the themes so clear that he then must feel no need to provide or evoke any meaningful exploration of those ideas; that his readers must understand it all. And, as it is written, I feel confident that I do understand the themes the author wanted me to understand. I just don’t feel confident that the author fully understands what he’s trying to share.
With that said, this was a worthwhile read. There’s an aura of adequacy about all parts of this novel. Everything here seems to be notably above average, despite its flaws. There is clear style and classic-ness spread throughout these pages. But, in the end, I feel that the novel was too upfront about its themes at the cost of its narrative, and that, in more capable hands, this truly could be a re-readable “classic”. But, alas, despite it mostly succeeding on any given individual merit, it falls just short when those individual points are looked at collectively as a whole.
This book is good. It’s easy to read, easy to feel, easy to understand, but it’s just too....easy. Too transparent. Too clear and accessible. The characters are deep, complex, and beautiful. But they’re also locked into this world where, from the opening epigraph, their fates are sealed. There’s no confusion or contention about where each new encounter or setting would take their stories. Each page is just the tick of the clock toward the clear and obvious end each character will meet. While the journey of those characters grows in value and connection with each chapter, the depth of their looming conclusions doesn’t become any more real, meaningful, or questionable as the book goes on.
A note in the writing, this book entertained detour after detour from its narrative without too much relevant substance being provided therein. These digression seemed to be enough of a stream of consciousness to annoy the reader, but not enough to enlighten. In addition, it seems to me that there’s a laziness to the writing where the author makes the themes so clear that he then must feel no need to provide or evoke any meaningful exploration of those ideas; that his readers must understand it all. And, as it is written, I feel confident that I do understand the themes the author wanted me to understand. I just don’t feel confident that the author fully understands what he’s trying to share.
With that said, this was a worthwhile read. There’s an aura of adequacy about all parts of this novel. Everything here seems to be notably above average, despite its flaws. There is clear style and classic-ness spread throughout these pages. But, in the end, I feel that the novel was too upfront about its themes at the cost of its narrative, and that, in more capable hands, this truly could be a re-readable “classic”. But, alas, despite it mostly succeeding on any given individual merit, it falls just short when those individual points are looked at collectively as a whole.
If you're a fan of the Roaring Twenties and the Lost Generation, this is a must. Through thirty-six hours, Julian English goes from a high society poster boy, to one of the most vivid examples of self destruction. Soaked in booze, sex, partying, and a little bit of the mob, O'Hara gives another voice to what Fitzgerald started in The Beautiful and Damned and The Great Gatsby. Eventually Julian's binge spirals out of control, and what started as throwing a highball in a club rival's face, turns to adultery, fighting, rage, incoherence, and ends in the depths of alcoholism that completely take him over.
dark
sad
fast-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
Reflections of Philip Roth which I also think sucks.
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
There's something about the sort of well-behaved veneer of this book that makes me suspect it's not for everyone but I don't know why I haven't heard of him before. Clearly an influence on everyone from the Beats to Didion to even later Hemingway. No idea how I came upon this but it was a surprising gem. The writing is superb and it continued to thwart my expectations. It felt so small town Leave it to Beaver but then revealed a well-behaved but dark underbelly to nearly all the relationships in the book. The sexual relationships, frank selfishness and competitiveness some how shocked me. The pain and angst of the lead crept up and I felt for him, for his partner and for so many of the others who crossed his path during a Christmas day that lead to a breaking point both sad and lasting. And the final page left me with the ache that all this pain and desire will snuff out and the world will continue on within minutes. Heartbreaking. Definitely need to read more of him.
There should be a term for the dramatic equivalent to a comedy of errors, where the mistakes and miscues pile one upon the other turning a situation that was initially merely an unpleasant difficulty into a tragedy. Tragedy, though, is not really an accurate term for Appointment in Samarra as, traditionally, tragedies presuppose gallant, heroic characters who fall from grace. Julian English is not such a character, but his fall is, nevertheless, sad.
Julian is a character that, by all rights, we should not like. He comes from a well to do family (his father is a doctor), has a beautiful, intelligent wife, and has what, by all accounts, should be a great job as a Cadillac dealer, but he has gotten himself into trouble because of his own pettiness, stupidity, and selfishness, yet John O'Hara does such a great job of drawing this character that I could not help but hope that somehow Julian would be able to overcome his mistakes and that everything would turn out all right for him.
I think this is a case where we are so much in the mind of Julian that we cannot help but identify with him. Although several other characters play prominent roles--Luther (Lute) Fliegler, who works for Julian; Irma Fliegler, Lute's wife; Al Grecco, a mob enforcer; Caroline English, Julian's wife; Ed Charney, a local mob boss and Al's employer--Julian is clearly the central character with the supporting characters, despite being very well drawn in their own right, functioning primarily as role-players in Julian's story. When we are with Julian, we feel slighted and offended when he is slighted and offended. We feel the pressures of his job and his marriage. And we also overlook the fact that he is, in many ways, a complete asshole: he treats his wife terribly; he is rude to his servants; he behaves like a prick: the incident in which he throws a drink in Harry Reilly's face, his blatant flirting with Helene in front of Caroline and their friends, the fight that he gets into with one-armed Froggy Ogden. Practically everything we see of Julian in this novel paints him in a bad light, yet O'Hara still humanizes him enough that we sympathize with him.
The ending of this novel is not at all surprising granted Julian's short-tempered, self-pitying, self-centered nature and his desire for an easy solution to his very difficult marital (Caroline seems likely to leave him), financial (he is deeply in debt and his business prospects are dim), and social (his recent behavior has alienated him from many of his friends and the community at large) problems:. I like the concise nature of O'Hara's story-telling. He could have easily expanded this novel from its 240 pages (in my version) to 400 or even 500 pages by focusing more on the broad cast of characters and their interesting backgrounds, yet he telescopes the plot very well to the elements most essential to Julian's story and brings the narrative to a quick but unhurried and powerful conclusion.
This novel leads me to ponder whether Julian's fate can count as tragic given his nature. Can only the truly great be said to take tragic falls? Or can even those who have serious character flaws suffer tragedy? That is, is it a tragedy when one's terrible fate is not due to the whims of chance or circumstance but rather due to the very poor decisions that one makes, due even to one's very poor character? For me, I would have to say that the answer is, "no." Appointment in Samarra is not a tragedy because Julian is not a good person. His fate is the logical outcome of his character and behavior. Unlike many great tragic characters of literature, Julian gets what he deserves. What makes this short novel a great novel, though, is that, despite Julian being such a creep, we still care about him, almost even sympathize with him.
Julian is a character that, by all rights, we should not like. He comes from a well to do family (his father is a doctor), has a beautiful, intelligent wife, and has what, by all accounts, should be a great job as a Cadillac dealer, but he has gotten himself into trouble because of his own pettiness, stupidity, and selfishness, yet John O'Hara does such a great job of drawing this character that I could not help but hope that somehow Julian would be able to overcome his mistakes and that everything would turn out all right for him.
I think this is a case where we are so much in the mind of Julian that we cannot help but identify with him. Although several other characters play prominent roles--Luther (Lute) Fliegler, who works for Julian; Irma Fliegler, Lute's wife; Al Grecco, a mob enforcer; Caroline English, Julian's wife; Ed Charney, a local mob boss and Al's employer--Julian is clearly the central character with the supporting characters, despite being very well drawn in their own right, functioning primarily as role-players in Julian's story. When we are with Julian, we feel slighted and offended when he is slighted and offended. We feel the pressures of his job and his marriage. And we also overlook the fact that he is, in many ways, a complete asshole: he treats his wife terribly; he is rude to his servants; he behaves like a prick: the incident in which he throws a drink in Harry Reilly's face, his blatant flirting with Helene in front of Caroline and their friends, the fight that he gets into with one-armed Froggy Ogden. Practically everything we see of Julian in this novel paints him in a bad light, yet O'Hara still humanizes him enough that we sympathize with him.
The ending of this novel is not at all surprising granted Julian's short-tempered, self-pitying, self-centered nature and his desire for an easy solution to his very difficult marital (Caroline seems likely to leave him), financial (he is deeply in debt and his business prospects are dim), and social (his recent behavior has alienated him from many of his friends and the community at large) problems:
Spoiler
he kills himself by carbon monoxide poisoning, which is an easy, painless method of suicide that totally fits with Julian's characterThis novel leads me to ponder whether Julian's fate can count as tragic given his nature. Can only the truly great be said to take tragic falls? Or can even those who have serious character flaws suffer tragedy? That is, is it a tragedy when one's terrible fate is not due to the whims of chance or circumstance but rather due to the very poor decisions that one makes, due even to one's very poor character? For me, I would have to say that the answer is, "no." Appointment in Samarra is not a tragedy because Julian is not a good person. His fate is the logical outcome of his character and behavior. Unlike many great tragic characters of literature, Julian gets what he deserves. What makes this short novel a great novel, though, is that, despite Julian being such a creep, we still care about him, almost even sympathize with him.