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Title: Appointment in Samarra : A Novel by John O'Hara ISBN: 0-375-71920-2 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 08 July, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.54 (26 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Great American Novel.
Comment: 'Appointment in Samarra' is a great novel. I was led to read it by an article in the Atlantic Monthly that lamented the pretentiousness of much of contemporary writing. Not only is the writing pretentious, but it doesn't say anything intelligible. 'Appointment in Sammara', by contrast, tells a story in a direct manner while still revealing to us hidden truths about the human spirit. It's not giving anything away to say that the story concerns the self-destruction of one Julian English. Julian is suave, Protestant, lives in the finest neighborhood, and hangs out with the in crowd. But Julian makes the mistake of throwing his drink into the face of a powerful, nouveau riche Irish Catholic. Suddenly, Julian's support structures don't seem so firm. Julian's descent is heart breaking because, although he is not an especially likeable person, John O'Hara still manages to make us care for him. O'Hara's book was prophetic in that it portrays the end of WASP domination in America. The book takes place in 1930 and was published in 1934 ' just six years after the Catholic Al Smith was denied the presidency by a virulent anti-Catholic backlash led, in part, by the Klan. We're told that some of the locals in Pottsville are members of the the Klan. Twenty-six years later, in 1960, an Irish Catholic would be elected president. Appointment in Samarra is a must read for those who are serious about the American novel.
Rating: 4
Summary: The High English in Coal Country
Comment: Classism and alcoholism before any 'disease model' or political correctness. Reading this book is like some sort of regression into a time when your name was your destiny and if you blemished it with too much hootch, it was a tumble from God's grace and your country club status. English, the hero's patronym, and certainly the central point of the American aristocratic mimicry- O'Hara was Irish, after all, though entranced perhaps even more over the WASP's he wrote of so often tragically. Julian's father was a 'first rate' social standard, although the son followed too far in the darker torments of his grandfather the thief and scandalous patriarch held in front of the child throughout his life. Here we see an author in touch with the psychoanalytic religion of his day. This book is an anachronism and an overly romantic and too obvious tale of the fallen soul. That's what makes it akin to a secretive enjoyable read!
Rating: 4
Summary: A Strange Read
Comment: It would be easy to dismiss "Appointment in Samarra" as insignificant when compared to other, more well known literature. It's certainly a quick, entertaining read, very funny at times, with a loose, somewhat disjointed quality that gives the whole novel a strange tone. Separate events and characters are introduced that don't seem to have any obvious relation to one another, and at the book's end, they still don't. However, as a time capsule of a specific place and time in American cultural history, it's very well done and fascinating to read.
At its basic level, "Samarra" inserts a stick of dynamite into the safe, complacent world of affluent, East coast snobbery by introducing into it an influx of immigrants and "new" money. The WASP environment of cocktail parties, Ivy League schools and country clubs couldn't be sheltered forever from European emigres, specifically Jews, with money of their own. I don't want to give anything of the plot away, but I will say that there is a tragedy in this book, and the ripples it sends through the rich community that serves as the focus of this novel's story are meant to signify the larger ripples affecting American culture on a much greater scale as the heady days of the Roaring 20's give way to the more sombre and politically aware days of the 30's and 40's.
I'm not completely sure what to make of a side story involving some petty mobsters, but I assume their intrusion into the fabric of this East coast society is meant as yet one more example of the loss of security from which these people felt by rights they would be sheltered.
There is no reason not to read "Appointment in Samarra." It won't take up much of your time, and I promise you won't ever be bored by it. Whether you'll find it profound or especially memorable is another story. I didn't particularly find it either, but I would recommend it nonetheless.
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Title: BUtterfield 8 by John O'Hara, Fran Lebowitz ISBN: 0812966988 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Selected Short Stories of John O'Hara by John O'Hara, Louis Begley ISBN: 081296697X Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 11 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: From the Terrace: A Novel by John O'Hara, Budd Schulberg ISBN: 0786706821 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Art of Burning Bridges : A Life of John O'Hara by GEOFFREY WOLFF ISBN: 0679427716 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: The Way of All Flesh by SAMUEL BUTLER ISBN: 0375752498 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 14 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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