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Title: Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara, John Updike ISBN: 0394711920 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 1982 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.56
Rating: 5
Summary: A Must Read American Author
Comment: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, C.S.Lewis, John Cheever. If any one of these authors was ever important to you, please pick up O'Hara. He's critical to understanding twentieth century American authors. At the very least, you can engage in the unending debate on whether he's worthy of joining this pantheon of writers. Worthy of an airport paperback rack? Smalltime trashy romance writer? Or do you think he paints a richly textured canvas of an America and its high society about to be turn the corner on the first half of the 20th century? An important Irish-Catholic writer?
My tip: read this book. If nothing else you'll learn about bituminous and anthracitic coal, the United Mine Workers, how to mix a martini, (and throw one), why fraternities were ever important, and what a flivver was. It's certainly a period piece, and O'Hara does not hold back with the language of the jazz age...which may confuse modern readers (it was a gay party, his chains dropped a link, etc.) In fact, O'Hara was an early adopter of using slang and vernacular in writing the spoken word, and you can be the judge of whether or not he gets an Irish mobster's (or a "high hat's") tone correctly.
He's really at his best with character development, because Julian English (our protaganist) is our bigoted confidante, our tiresome spouse, our wretched boss, our surly neighbor, our spoiled college-boy brat, our pretentious friend and our preening big man about town all in one. O'Hara waltzes us through Julian's demise and we root for him, for one more chance, all the way down.
Rating: 5
Summary: Ranks with Fitzgerald
Comment: At the end of every year, Brian Lamb talks to three authors on a special Booknotes on C-SPAN. Last year one of the guests was Shelby Foote & he said that he was reading some great American authors who folks had sort of forgotten. One of them was John O'Hara. Now I've seen dozens of his books at book sales, so I knew two things: one, he sold a ton of books; two, folks aren't reading them anymore. So I picked up From the Terrace, Appointment in Samarra & a couple collections of the short stories & loved them all. It was very heartening to see that he made this list (Modern Library Top 100).
Appointment tells the story of Julian English, a WASP nervously perched atop the social heap in Gibbsville, PA. At a Christmas party in 1930, he throws a drink in the face of the town's leading Catholic businessman and thus begins his downward spiral.
O'Hara etches very sharp portraits of characters from the varying strata of society & presents a vivid tale of an America & it's establishment shaken by the oncoming Depression and the rise of new Ethnic groups.
GRADE: A
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.
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Title: Henderson the Rain King (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Saul Bellow ISBN: 0140189424 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler, V. S. Pritchett ISBN: 0375752498 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 1998 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson ISBN: 055321439X Publisher: Bantam Classic and Loveswept Pub. Date: 1995 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: From the Terrace: A Novel by John O'Hara, Budd Schulberg ISBN: 0786706821 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Under the Volcano : A Novel by Malcolm Lowry ISBN: 0060955228 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 25 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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