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Appointment in Samarra
A twentieth-century classic, Appointment in Samarra is the first and most widely read book by the writer Fran Leibowitz called “the real F. Scott Fitzgerald.”
In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville social circuit is electrified with parties and dances, where the music plays late into the night and the liquor flows freely. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English—the envy of friends and strangers alike. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction. Appointment in Samarra brilliantly captures the personal politics and easy bitterness of small-town life. It is John O’Hara’s crowning achievement, and a lasting testament to the keen social intelligence of a major American novelist.
In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville social circuit is electrified with parties and dances, where the music plays late into the night and the liquor flows freely. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English—the envy of friends and strangers alike. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction. Appointment in Samarra brilliantly captures the personal politics and easy bitterness of small-town life. It is John O’Hara’s crowning achievement, and a lasting testament to the keen social intelligence of a major American novelist.
240 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 28, 1934
About the author
John O'Hara
212 books270 followersAmerican writer John Henry O'Hara contributed short stories to the New Yorker and wrote novels, such as
BUtterfield 8
(1935) and
Ten North Frederick
(1955).
Best-selling works of John Henry O'Hara include Appointment in Samarra . People particularly knew him for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue. O'Hara, a keen observer of social status and class differences, wrote frequently about the socially ambitious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O&#...
Best-selling works of John Henry O'Hara include Appointment in Samarra . People particularly knew him for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue. O'Hara, a keen observer of social status and class differences, wrote frequently about the socially ambitious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O&#...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 996 reviews
May 6, 2021
Appointment in Samarra is all about life of a small town: the zeitgeist and social strata, habits and manners of the inhabitants…
Everything starts on the Christmas Eve in the atmosphere of general festivity…
But as a title of the novel hints the story isn’t a fountain of joy… The Great Depression holds sway… And it’s the era of prohibition… And it’s the jazz age…
All the hero’s bad luck begins with a whimsical peccadillo but the train of his misfortune goes faster and faster and there’s no way to slow down…
Similar to a coin everybody has two sides – a bright side and a dark side – and if the dark side starts domineering, the personal destruction is imminent.
Everything starts on the Christmas Eve in the atmosphere of general festivity…
So far nothing terrible had occurred. Young Johnny Dibble had been caught stealing liquor from someone’s locker and was kicked in the behind. Elinor Holloway’s shoulder strap had slipped or been pulled down, momentarily revealing her left breast, which most of the young men present had seen and touched at one time or another. Frank Gorman, Georgetown, and Dwight Ross, Yale, had fought, cried, and kissed after an argument about what the team Gorman had not made would have done to the team Ross was substitute halfback on. During one of those inexplicable silences, Ted Newton was heard to say to his wife: “I’ll drink as much as I God damn please.” Elizabeth Gorman, the fat niece of Harry Reilly, whose social-climbing was a sight to behold, had embarrassed her uncle by belching loud and unashamed.
But as a title of the novel hints the story isn’t a fountain of joy… The Great Depression holds sway… And it’s the era of prohibition… And it’s the jazz age…
It was a woman’s place. All dance places, night clubs, road houses, stores, churches, and even whorehouses – all were women’s places. And probably the worst kind of woman’s place was a place like this, where men put on monkey suits and cut their necks with stiff collars and got drunk without the simple fun of getting drunk but with the presence of women to louse things up. Wherever there was an orchestra there were women, you could always be sure of that. Women singing the first words of songs: I got rhythm, Three little words, You’re driving me crazy, Thinking of you dear, My heart is sad and lonely for you I pine for you dear only I’d gladly surrender.
All the hero’s bad luck begins with a whimsical peccadillo but the train of his misfortune goes faster and faster and there’s no way to slow down…
Similar to a coin everybody has two sides – a bright side and a dark side – and if the dark side starts domineering, the personal destruction is imminent.
September 8, 2023
UN PUGNO DI POLVERE
Viva il proibizionismo.
Mi vado sempre più convincendo che “la più grande democrazia del mondo”, gli Stati Uniti, siano costruiti sull’alcol. Non quello che serve per disinfettare, ma quello che si beve. Buona parte della letteratura del Novecento lo testimonia. E questo bel romanzo di O’Hara non fa eccezione. Tutt’altro, in quella direzione scava un solco:
La bibita preferita era costituita da whisky di segale con soda allo zenzero, ma si bevevano anche miscele di sidro e White Rock e di gin e soda allo zenzero. Solo pochissimi fra i membri del gruppo degli eletti si dedicavano al whisky scozzese.
La bibita è un drink, ma la traduzione ha ormai quasi sessant’anni. Il whiskey di segale è il rye bourbon, la risposta a-stelle-e-strisce allo scotch, col quale si indica il generico whiskey scozzese. Risposta che funziona finché si resta nel campo dei blended: quando si va verso i single – malto o cereali che sia - non c’è bourbon che tenga.
Sono le prime ore del mattino di natale, e al club del paesotto della Pennsylvania - con poco più di ventiquattromila abitanti secondo l’ultimo censimento – le bevande alcoliche sono scorse a fiumi e hanno più o meno reso tutti brilli, ubriachi, allegri, stesi, su di giri eccetera. Dato il calendario altre libagioni e “bibite” seguiranno presto a go go. Il periodo è quello all’inizio del proibizionismo, il 1930 – il romanzo uscì nel 1934 – e il divieto alza la sete alcolica.
Copertina di una delle varie edizioni USA.
È proprio l’alcol a mettere in moto il destino con quel meccanismo inevitabile e stritolante che il titolo indica richiamando in epigrafe il brano di William Somerset Maugham che racconta la celebre storiella (in Sheppey): il protagonista trentenne Julian English, di buona famiglia, figlio di un medico chirurgo, locale rappresentante della Cadillac, marito innamorato di sua moglie Caroline, beve oltre i limiti per due sere di seguito, e conclude entrambe commettendo un errore, uno sgarbo, qualcosa che non può non avere conseguenze. Anche la terza non rinuncia a bere, anzi è quella dove ci dà dentro perfino di più. E la conseguenza sarà ancora più irrimediabile.
Un’altra copertina di edizione in lingua inglese.
John O’Hara mi pare appartenere al circolo dei narratori puri cresciuti a pane e storie. Sa quando allargare la visuale, quando restringerla, quando accelerare e quando invece rallentare, quando descrivere e spiegare e quando spingere il lettore a uno sforzo, sa condire senza esagerare con le spezie, e non lascia mai a casa l’ironia. Credo che una buona palestra per lui sia stata la robusta attività di sceneggiatore a Hollywood, ma è una carriera iniziata solo dopo questo esordio, che viene considerato tra le sue prove letterarie più riuscite. E probabilmente le porte della mecca del cinema gli si sono aperte davanti proprio perché questo debutto ha costruzione solida, personaggi ben delineati, e mostra uno spiccato talento per il dialogo (finalmente azzeccati anche quelli degli ubriachi!) che scivola piacevole e credibile come pochi.
Credo che essendo un fan di Richard Yates non potevo non apprezzare anche O’Hara, c’è un filo, più o meno robusto, che li collega.
Copertina della mia edizione.
PS
Un paio di appunti a mia futura memoria.
La traduzione mostra la corda anche nell’insistenza su una presunta Pennsylvania olandese, quando invece trattasi di folta colonia tedesca approdata nel corso del 1700: immagino che l’originale riporti il termine “deitsch”, che però non deriva da “dutch” bensì da “deutsch”, che significa appunto tedesco.
Sono rimasto colpito come la società di questo paesotto detestasse neppure tanto cordialmente gli ebrei: c’è da credere che a Gibbsville Pennsylvania, un nero fosse meno sgradito di un ebreo.
Beviamoci su!.
Viva il proibizionismo.
Mi vado sempre più convincendo che “la più grande democrazia del mondo”, gli Stati Uniti, siano costruiti sull’alcol. Non quello che serve per disinfettare, ma quello che si beve. Buona parte della letteratura del Novecento lo testimonia. E questo bel romanzo di O’Hara non fa eccezione. Tutt’altro, in quella direzione scava un solco:
La bibita preferita era costituita da whisky di segale con soda allo zenzero, ma si bevevano anche miscele di sidro e White Rock e di gin e soda allo zenzero. Solo pochissimi fra i membri del gruppo degli eletti si dedicavano al whisky scozzese.
La bibita è un drink, ma la traduzione ha ormai quasi sessant’anni. Il whiskey di segale è il rye bourbon, la risposta a-stelle-e-strisce allo scotch, col quale si indica il generico whiskey scozzese. Risposta che funziona finché si resta nel campo dei blended: quando si va verso i single – malto o cereali che sia - non c’è bourbon che tenga.
Sono le prime ore del mattino di natale, e al club del paesotto della Pennsylvania - con poco più di ventiquattromila abitanti secondo l’ultimo censimento – le bevande alcoliche sono scorse a fiumi e hanno più o meno reso tutti brilli, ubriachi, allegri, stesi, su di giri eccetera. Dato il calendario altre libagioni e “bibite” seguiranno presto a go go. Il periodo è quello all’inizio del proibizionismo, il 1930 – il romanzo uscì nel 1934 – e il divieto alza la sete alcolica.
Copertina di una delle varie edizioni USA.
È proprio l’alcol a mettere in moto il destino con quel meccanismo inevitabile e stritolante che il titolo indica richiamando in epigrafe il brano di William Somerset Maugham che racconta la celebre storiella (in Sheppey): il protagonista trentenne Julian English, di buona famiglia, figlio di un medico chirurgo, locale rappresentante della Cadillac, marito innamorato di sua moglie Caroline, beve oltre i limiti per due sere di seguito, e conclude entrambe commettendo un errore, uno sgarbo, qualcosa che non può non avere conseguenze. Anche la terza non rinuncia a bere, anzi è quella dove ci dà dentro perfino di più. E la conseguenza sarà ancora più irrimediabile.
Un’altra copertina di edizione in lingua inglese.
John O’Hara mi pare appartenere al circolo dei narratori puri cresciuti a pane e storie. Sa quando allargare la visuale, quando restringerla, quando accelerare e quando invece rallentare, quando descrivere e spiegare e quando spingere il lettore a uno sforzo, sa condire senza esagerare con le spezie, e non lascia mai a casa l’ironia. Credo che una buona palestra per lui sia stata la robusta attività di sceneggiatore a Hollywood, ma è una carriera iniziata solo dopo questo esordio, che viene considerato tra le sue prove letterarie più riuscite. E probabilmente le porte della mecca del cinema gli si sono aperte davanti proprio perché questo debutto ha costruzione solida, personaggi ben delineati, e mostra uno spiccato talento per il dialogo (finalmente azzeccati anche quelli degli ubriachi!) che scivola piacevole e credibile come pochi.
Credo che essendo un fan di Richard Yates non potevo non apprezzare anche O’Hara, c’è un filo, più o meno robusto, che li collega.
Copertina della mia edizione.
PS
Un paio di appunti a mia futura memoria.
La traduzione mostra la corda anche nell’insistenza su una presunta Pennsylvania olandese, quando invece trattasi di folta colonia tedesca approdata nel corso del 1700: immagino che l’originale riporti il termine “deitsch”, che però non deriva da “dutch” bensì da “deutsch”, che significa appunto tedesco.
Sono rimasto colpito come la società di questo paesotto detestasse neppure tanto cordialmente gli ebrei: c’è da credere che a Gibbsville Pennsylvania, un nero fosse meno sgradito di un ebreo.
Beviamoci su!.
December 30, 2019
I’ll start with two paragraphs that I think illustrate John O’Hara’s powerful writing:
“It was a lively, jesting grief, sprightly and pricking and laughing, to make you shudder and shiver up to the point of giving way completely. Then it would become a long black tunnel; a tunnel you had to go through, had to go through, had to go through, had to go through, had to go through. No whistle. But had to go through, had to go through, had to go through. Whistle? Had to go through, had to go through, had to go through, had to go through No Whistle? Had to go through, had to go through, had to go through.”
“You pull the pin out of a hand grenade, and in a few seconds it explodes and men in a small area get killed and wounded. That makes bodies to be buried, hurt men to be treated. It makes widows and fatherless children and bereaved parents. It means pension machinery, and it makes for pacifism in some and for lasting hatred in others. Again, a man out of the danger area sees the carnage the grenade creates, and he shoots himself in the foot. Another man had been standing there just two minutes before the thing went off, and thereafter he believes in God or in a rabbit’s foot. Another man sees human brains for the first time and locks up the picture until one night years later, when he finally comes out with a description of what he saw, and the horror of his description turns his wife away from him…”
The story is mainly about Julian and Caroline, well-off members of the country club set in a small Pennsylvania coal town. All the action takes place over three days during the Christmas holidays in 1930. Julian experiences three drunken self-destructive meltdowns. Perhaps Julian is resentful of his father, a strict MD, who helped set him up in business running a Cadillac dealership. And it may be related to his poor business skills: his dealership is secretly running into debt and he’s borrowing money on the side from wealthy friends.
Julian drinks heavily with all the other club members but he suddenly starts to lose control of his actions in public. He and his beautiful wife of just a few years are still genuinely in love with each other but he ruins this relationship for good during these three days. If you want to know just how far his implosion takes him
Much of O’Hara’s writing is about social class although I did not see that as a major theme in this book. Yes, Julian and his wife live on Lantenengo Street with the rest of the upper class and there a many politically incorrect lines about Jews, blacks, gays, Catholics and the supposed importance in those days of differences among those of Irish, Polish or Italian ancestry. But that’s about it. The story is focused on those of upper class standing, the country club set, and we learn very little about anyone of lower class standing.
Social life at the country club runs on a set of informal rules that parallel those of the elite New York social set we see in Edith Wharton’s novels. The story is set during Prohibition so people buy booze from the local mob boss and bring it to the club. Julian has just had delivered to his home a case of rye and a case of scotch that helps his through his final descent. The crowd also goes occasionally to roadhouses or speakeasies where drinks are sold illegally. O’Hara is the master of drunk talk. Four couples, all drinking heavily, sit around a table, all talking, barely hearing each other, responding with non-sequiturs and each remark revealing a lot more about the person speaking than about what information they are trying to impart.
It’s a time when young men still talk about the importance of a wife being a virgin. And young women look for a man who “doesn’t have to be rich but has to have money.” For its time the book had a lot of explicit sex - tame by today’s standards. (See discussion below about this.) And you always learn things when you read. I looked up Benda masks. Who knew that there was an era in New York theater when actors wore masks like Noh masks in Japan? They were made by a Polish-American designer Władysław Benda, thus the name.
O’Hara (1905-1970) is best known for his novels, many of which were made into movies, including Appointment in Samara, Butterfield 8, Pal Joey, A Rage to Live, From the Terrace and Ten North Frederick. But a few critics consider him to be the best American short story writer ever. I reviewed the collection of 41 stories in his book Gibbsville PA.
Over his lifetime of work O’Hara created the fictional landscape of Gibbsville, based on Pottsville, in hard coal country (anthracite mines) in Schuylkill County in southeastern Pennsylvania. (Pottsville is now famous for the Yuengling brewery.) So we’ll add Gibbsville to Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County and Hardy’s Wessex and Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. It’s fascinating to me, a geographer, that O’Hara’s fictional world in Pennsylvania is only one county away (36 miles to be precise – I looked it up) from John Updike’s world. Updike’s world, as in the Rabbit series, is the city of Reading in Berks County.
Both O’Hara and Updike broke barriers in terms of the explicit sexuality of their writing. But O’Hara was before his time. Although his writing of sexuality was way less explicit than Updike’s, O’Hara paved the way for Updike (1932-2009) to be considered “avant garde” while O’Hara was tagged by many as a dirty old man. However, it was actually probably Henry Miller (1891-1980) who broke the dam and made possible the literary freedom that we take for granted today, although his works, such as Tropic of Cancer (1934), had to be published initially in France as they were banned in the USA.
I enjoy O’Hara’s writing style. It certainly moves along with a lot of action and I think one of the blurbs describes this well as “written at high speed.” The book’s title comes from an ancient Arabic fable as quoted by W. Somerset Maugham. If you don’t know the fable, you can see it here: https://www.k-state.edu/english/baker...
Photo of a house on Mahantongo Street in Pottsville -- O'Hara's Lantenengo Street in Gibbsville
Photo of the author from newyorker.com
“It was a lively, jesting grief, sprightly and pricking and laughing, to make you shudder and shiver up to the point of giving way completely. Then it would become a long black tunnel; a tunnel you had to go through, had to go through, had to go through, had to go through, had to go through. No whistle. But had to go through, had to go through, had to go through. Whistle? Had to go through, had to go through, had to go through, had to go through No Whistle? Had to go through, had to go through, had to go through.”
“You pull the pin out of a hand grenade, and in a few seconds it explodes and men in a small area get killed and wounded. That makes bodies to be buried, hurt men to be treated. It makes widows and fatherless children and bereaved parents. It means pension machinery, and it makes for pacifism in some and for lasting hatred in others. Again, a man out of the danger area sees the carnage the grenade creates, and he shoots himself in the foot. Another man had been standing there just two minutes before the thing went off, and thereafter he believes in God or in a rabbit’s foot. Another man sees human brains for the first time and locks up the picture until one night years later, when he finally comes out with a description of what he saw, and the horror of his description turns his wife away from him…”
The story is mainly about Julian and Caroline, well-off members of the country club set in a small Pennsylvania coal town. All the action takes place over three days during the Christmas holidays in 1930. Julian experiences three drunken self-destructive meltdowns. Perhaps Julian is resentful of his father, a strict MD, who helped set him up in business running a Cadillac dealership. And it may be related to his poor business skills: his dealership is secretly running into debt and he’s borrowing money on the side from wealthy friends.
Julian drinks heavily with all the other club members but he suddenly starts to lose control of his actions in public. He and his beautiful wife of just a few years are still genuinely in love with each other but he ruins this relationship for good during these three days. If you want to know just how far his implosion takes him
Much of O’Hara’s writing is about social class although I did not see that as a major theme in this book. Yes, Julian and his wife live on Lantenengo Street with the rest of the upper class and there a many politically incorrect lines about Jews, blacks, gays, Catholics and the supposed importance in those days of differences among those of Irish, Polish or Italian ancestry. But that’s about it. The story is focused on those of upper class standing, the country club set, and we learn very little about anyone of lower class standing.
Social life at the country club runs on a set of informal rules that parallel those of the elite New York social set we see in Edith Wharton’s novels. The story is set during Prohibition so people buy booze from the local mob boss and bring it to the club. Julian has just had delivered to his home a case of rye and a case of scotch that helps his through his final descent. The crowd also goes occasionally to roadhouses or speakeasies where drinks are sold illegally. O’Hara is the master of drunk talk. Four couples, all drinking heavily, sit around a table, all talking, barely hearing each other, responding with non-sequiturs and each remark revealing a lot more about the person speaking than about what information they are trying to impart.
It’s a time when young men still talk about the importance of a wife being a virgin. And young women look for a man who “doesn’t have to be rich but has to have money.” For its time the book had a lot of explicit sex - tame by today’s standards. (See discussion below about this.) And you always learn things when you read. I looked up Benda masks. Who knew that there was an era in New York theater when actors wore masks like Noh masks in Japan? They were made by a Polish-American designer Władysław Benda, thus the name.
O’Hara (1905-1970) is best known for his novels, many of which were made into movies, including Appointment in Samara, Butterfield 8, Pal Joey, A Rage to Live, From the Terrace and Ten North Frederick. But a few critics consider him to be the best American short story writer ever. I reviewed the collection of 41 stories in his book Gibbsville PA.
Over his lifetime of work O’Hara created the fictional landscape of Gibbsville, based on Pottsville, in hard coal country (anthracite mines) in Schuylkill County in southeastern Pennsylvania. (Pottsville is now famous for the Yuengling brewery.) So we’ll add Gibbsville to Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County and Hardy’s Wessex and Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. It’s fascinating to me, a geographer, that O’Hara’s fictional world in Pennsylvania is only one county away (36 miles to be precise – I looked it up) from John Updike’s world. Updike’s world, as in the Rabbit series, is the city of Reading in Berks County.
Both O’Hara and Updike broke barriers in terms of the explicit sexuality of their writing. But O’Hara was before his time. Although his writing of sexuality was way less explicit than Updike’s, O’Hara paved the way for Updike (1932-2009) to be considered “avant garde” while O’Hara was tagged by many as a dirty old man. However, it was actually probably Henry Miller (1891-1980) who broke the dam and made possible the literary freedom that we take for granted today, although his works, such as Tropic of Cancer (1934), had to be published initially in France as they were banned in the USA.
I enjoy O’Hara’s writing style. It certainly moves along with a lot of action and I think one of the blurbs describes this well as “written at high speed.” The book’s title comes from an ancient Arabic fable as quoted by W. Somerset Maugham. If you don’t know the fable, you can see it here: https://www.k-state.edu/english/baker...
Photo of a house on Mahantongo Street in Pottsville -- O'Hara's Lantenengo Street in Gibbsville
Photo of the author from newyorker.com
February 17, 2023
Appointment in Samarra is set in 1930, just on the edge of the Great Depression, in a Pennsylvania town north of Philadelphia. It’s Christmas, and the upper middle-class characters are going to all the required parties and following all of the social niceties until the night when our lead character, Julian English, throws a drink in his boss’s face. The title of the book comes from an ancient Mesopotamian tale (summarized on the book’s first page), and it immediately warns the reader that the fallout from Julian’s reckless action is going to be a calamitous, previously unlikely downfall.
The writing here is quite good, very readable and not at all stilted. I don’t know if it’s accurate, but it’s certainly convincing in its depiction of upper middle class social pressures, and the never ending, almost high school levels of gossip that shape their lives, though there’s a streak of antisemitism throughout the book that was jarring and unwelcome. There’s lots of banter, and strong dialogue between characters. There are many humorous moments and scenes. And this book’s depiction of stream of consciousness thinking, drinking, being drunk, and its effects on thought and speech is as good as any I can recall.
Appointment in Samarra appears on many lists of the greatest novels ever written. I read it as part of my effort to work my way through the Pop Chart 100 Essential Novels. I suspect it’s inclusion on those lists revolves around its treatment of sex and sexuality. Published in 1934, the book’s then-controversial nature is immediately apparent as the story opens with a married couple having sex on Christmas morning. Sex is had, implied, joked about, discussed, hinted at, and thought about by many characters throughout the book, but always in a PG way:
A solid, enjoyable read. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. Recommended.
The writing here is quite good, very readable and not at all stilted. I don’t know if it’s accurate, but it’s certainly convincing in its depiction of upper middle class social pressures, and the never ending, almost high school levels of gossip that shape their lives, though there’s a streak of antisemitism throughout the book that was jarring and unwelcome. There’s lots of banter, and strong dialogue between characters. There are many humorous moments and scenes. And this book’s depiction of stream of consciousness thinking, drinking, being drunk, and its effects on thought and speech is as good as any I can recall.
Appointment in Samarra appears on many lists of the greatest novels ever written. I read it as part of my effort to work my way through the Pop Chart 100 Essential Novels. I suspect it’s inclusion on those lists revolves around its treatment of sex and sexuality. Published in 1934, the book’s then-controversial nature is immediately apparent as the story opens with a married couple having sex on Christmas morning. Sex is had, implied, joked about, discussed, hinted at, and thought about by many characters throughout the book, but always in a PG way:
There was the time Elinor Holloway—heroine of many an interesting event in club history—shinnied half way up the flagpole while five young gentlemen, standing at the foot of the pole, verified the suspicion that Elinor, who had not always lived in Gibbsville, was not naturally, or at least not entirely, a blonde.Moreover, multiple female characters are shown seeking, enjoying, discussing, and reminiscing about sex, including pre-marital sex, and even sexual harassment. I’m sure this book influenced and helped pave the way for the R-rated sexual frankness found in the works of Roth, Updike, Cheever, etc., though I found Appointment in Samarra’s often sly tone, relative chasteness and lack of misogyny to be a refreshing change from those authors.
A solid, enjoyable read. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. Recommended.
May 4, 2022
Seguro que conocen la leyenda:
“Había en Bagdad un mercader que envió a su criado al mercado a comprar provisiones, y al rato el criado regresó pálido y tembloroso y dijo: Señor, cuando estaba en la plaza del mercado una mujer me hizo muecas entre la multitud y cuando me volví pude ver que era la Muerte. Me miró y me hizo un gesto de amenaza; por eso quiero que me prestes tu caballo para irme de la ciudad y escapar a mi sino. Me iré para Samarra y allí la Muerte no me encontrará. El mercader le prestó su caballo y el sirviente montó en él y le clavó las espuelas en los flancos huyendo a todo galope. Después el mercader se fue para la plaza y vio entre la muchedumbre a la Muerte, a quien le preguntó: ¿Por qué amenazaste a mi criado cuando lo viste esta mañana? No fue un gesto de amenaza, le contestó, sino un impulso de sorpresa. Me asombró verlo aquí en Bagdad, porque tengo una cita con él esta noche en Samarra”.En un puzle que en ocasiones resulta algo desordenado (O’hara escribió esta, su primera novela, en cuatro meses) y con unos soberbios diálogos que retratan maravillosamente a los personajes, O’hara nos pinta un cuadro de la alta sociedad de una ciudad norteamericana de pequeño tamaño de los años 30, pero que bien podría ser cualquier sociedad cerrada y pequeña, alta o baja, donde todos se conocen y se está al tanto de la riqueza pasada y presente de cada cual y del coche al que cada uno puede aspirar, que nunca debe estar ni por encima ni por debajo del que le corresponde (el coche será un símbolo importante durante todo el relato y protagonista del final), donde las miserias y los vicios son de dominio público, donde todos y todas han tenido sus más y sus menos con todas y todos, donde son innumerables los hilos que unen al grupo que se sostiene en un frágil equilibrio que cualquier sacudida puede dar al traste con toda la madeja.
No hay un solo actor en esta feria de vanidades que llegue a caernos bien, tampoco su protagonista Julian English, pese a su rebeldía ante una sociedad asfixiante de la que, no hay que olvidar, se ha beneficiado y cuyas reglas solo ha incumplido, como casi todos, en la medida en que la propia sociedad lo ha permitido. Aun así, fui capaz de compadecerme de su sensación de culpa de la que parece querer desprenderse mediante un castigo que no intenta evitar y que incluso persigue, algo muy católico, aunque él, como buen americano, sea de origen protestante (O’hara procede de una familia católica y en el texto nos encontramos muchas referencias en este sentido). En definitiva, ¿quién no ha se ha dicho a sí mismo en alguna ocasión, como si fuera una invocación, “no lo haré- no lo haré - no lo haré - no lo haré…” justo hasta el momento en el que lo hacemos?
Aunque desafine un pelín, todo en el relato suena mucho al Fitzgerald del Gran Gatsby, aunque su perspectiva es justo la contraria: mientras que allí un advenedizo es incapaz de entrar y sentirse parte de la sociedad a la que no pertenece por nacimiento, en esta un miembro destacado de esa sociedad, y al que su pertenencia a la misma no le sienta tan bien como los smokings que a menudo viste, acaba siendo trágicamente escupido por ella.
No sé dónde leí que Sinclair Lewis criticó la obra por pasarse de obscena. Curioso, pues a mí no deja de parecerme una obra con un cierto ramalazo puritano, donde, junto a la hipocresía y al despiadado juicio grupal imprescindible para el mantenimiento de esa rígida pirámide social, se señalan muy especialmente al alcohol (permitido socialmente y hasta favorecido a pesar de la prohibición) y al sexo como disolventes de los cimientos del edificio.
June 21, 2011
O'Hara's distinctive literary voice is both unique and disarming. For the first hundred pages I was unsure that O'Hara was even a competent writer, nevermind author of one of the century's great novels. His narrative technique and dialogue both are steeped in the jargon of his heyday, Prohibition Era, small town America. But O'Hara deals with big themes and the idiom of his day becomes secondary. He seems to want to take on big questions: why is the moth so driven to the flame? Why do we so willingly capitulate to baser instincts? Why can't we be satisfied, even happy with what we have? Why are we so often driven for more? More of what? At what price? Why are human beings insatiable? Julian English is an affluent man in his early thirties with a going business, a beautiful wife, Caroline, and social status in Gibbsville, a small town north and west of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. His alcoholic habits drive him to dismantle every important social relationship in his life until he becomes essentially a social misfit, incapable of decent behavior among his family, friends, peers and colleagues. He seems determined to keep an appointment with death and has a death wish entombed in his heart. O'Hara's brief experimental flights with stream of consciousness propel us into the inner depths of his characters where we can feel their agony. His treatment of big themes with such a natural voice sets O'Hara apart. Be sure to experience this one of a kind American literary voice.
March 18, 2017
I had never read anything by O'Hara before, and he probably would have stayed off my radar forever if I hadn't read Running with the Bulls: My Years with the Hemingways, in which Valerie Hemingway states that O'Hara was an author recommended to her by Papa himself(but not this title). I figured that if a writer is good enough for Papa Hemingway, who am I to pass him by?
So I figured I would start at the beginning and I was certainly not disappointed. I found a book with a noirish (if that's a word) theme: the story of a guy who seems to have the world by the tail on a downhill drag: nice house, swell car, trophy wife...but endangers it all through drunkenness, discord, and dissolution. O'Hara is brilliant in putting you inside the head of the anti-hero and all the people he comes in contact with on his debauched slide to the bottom.
For something that was published back when my pappy was a baby, this title is ahead of its time in that it almost explores the topic of sex in frank terms. Profanity is limited to words that start with "b": its not that daring.
Highly recommended...Papa was right after all.
So I figured I would start at the beginning and I was certainly not disappointed. I found a book with a noirish (if that's a word) theme: the story of a guy who seems to have the world by the tail on a downhill drag: nice house, swell car, trophy wife...but endangers it all through drunkenness, discord, and dissolution. O'Hara is brilliant in putting you inside the head of the anti-hero and all the people he comes in contact with on his debauched slide to the bottom.
For something that was published back when my pappy was a baby, this title is ahead of its time in that it almost explores the topic of sex in frank terms. Profanity is limited to words that start with "b": its not that daring.
Highly recommended...Papa was right after all.
October 13, 2010
On the back of this novel, Hemingway offered the following blurb: "if you want to read a book by a man who knows exactly what he is writing about and has written it marvelously well, read Appointment in Samarra." Unfortunately, the subject John O'Hara knows so much about, and about which he does occasionally pen very beautiful pages, is the social life of the country club set in a little backwater city in central Pennsylvania. The novel takes place in 1930, but apart from a few passing references, you wouldn't know the Depression was going on. The characters are too busy drinking, dancing, shit-talking each other, and insulting Jews to take much notice of the wider social scene. That's not to say every character in this book is morally repulsive- just most of them- if Pottsville, Pennsylvania was even 10% as stuck-up, materialistic, and socially insular as the Gibbsville he wrote about in this book, I could understand why O'Hara got out as fast as he could and headed to New York.
As for the style, well, I agree with Hemingway- O'Hara can write, with a lyricism and raw honesty that approaches F. Scott Fitzgerald's, and with a level of human insight that approaches Sommerset Maughan's. I mention both writers because O'Hara does, in the course of the novel- he name-checks them gratuitously, along with Hemingway himself (which might explain the blurb.) In trying too hard, and in his inconsistency, O'Hara seems to have more than a little in common with Julian English, his main character- both show real promise, but squander it in boozy self-indulgence- and by the end, you're not unhappy to see both of them go.
As for the style, well, I agree with Hemingway- O'Hara can write, with a lyricism and raw honesty that approaches F. Scott Fitzgerald's, and with a level of human insight that approaches Sommerset Maughan's. I mention both writers because O'Hara does, in the course of the novel- he name-checks them gratuitously, along with Hemingway himself (which might explain the blurb.) In trying too hard, and in his inconsistency, O'Hara seems to have more than a little in common with Julian English, his main character- both show real promise, but squander it in boozy self-indulgence- and by the end, you're not unhappy to see both of them go.
April 24, 2007
This is on The Modern Libraries Top 100 Novels? I can see no reason why. It's a good book - but top 100? Come on! This should be like # 552 on a list of the 1000 best novels.
April 27, 2021
This is a fantastic first novel and an American classic about the rapid decline of Joe English. I loved O'Hara's writing, his characters, his transposing of the spoken American idiom on the written page. The plot is engaging and relentless. I have not yet read the Pulitzer winner for that year, Now in November, but other books published in 1934 included the fantastic Tropic of Cancer and Fitzgerald's beautiful Tender Is the Night so there was loads of competition.
Gibbsville is O'Hara's mythical village in Pennsylvania hard coal country. It is an interesting cross-section of society a bit more blue-collar than, say, that of John Updike's Rabbit tetrology vision of that same state 50 years later.
It is sad to note once again the various racial slurs and the presence of a banalized anti-Semitism in the story.
Gibbsville is O'Hara's mythical village in Pennsylvania hard coal country. It is an interesting cross-section of society a bit more blue-collar than, say, that of John Updike's Rabbit tetrology vision of that same state 50 years later.
It is sad to note once again the various racial slurs and the presence of a banalized anti-Semitism in the story.
January 26, 2015
The stifling atmosphere of small town life is so vividly displayed here that alone made the book difficult for me. I'm not old enough to know what middle class mores were in fact like in the 1930's but many so-called canon Great Books depict the same types of people, occupations and distresses.
The Wasp set of values in vogue in the past, under which the characters in the book must live, struck me as the American version of Victorian values in the earlier era. Julian English's name is a clue to the origin of the social set of rules he is forced to live to earn a living and be respected. He is a car dealer who sells cars from a lot.
Cars are mobile and take you places but everyone in town is in lockdown following scripts of behavior no one dares go rogue from. Julian is a name that echoes Thomas Hardy's Julian who is a character attempting to break the bonds of class holding him down into a preset box of social rules of English society in an earlier century. Cars, a symbol of freedom and escape, is obviously the author's vivid choice of irony for his Julian and this symbol of getting away is literally in English's face every day sitting in his car lot.
He loves his wife but he hates his life. Without the life they have in Gibbsville he loses the wife, economic security, and social position. English's father is the town's doctor who cures everyone's sickness and he wanted Julian to become a doctor. Julian does not want or cannot, more accurately, be that guy. His tragedy is wanting to fit in and be "normal" but being unable because of something inside his mind struggling against Gibbsville. He is no rebel but unfortunately some unconscious part wants desperately to get away.
By the end of the novel Julian has without consciously meaning to begun burning bridges to the life he believes he wants in Gibbsville. Despite his own values and hard work he is unable to force that unconscious part to submit. The tragedy moves to an end to which an unexamined life can lead.
The book is somewhat autobiographical except unlike the author's protagonist John O'Hara very much examines the workings of the human heart. At this book's center is the war between what we want and who we are.
The Wasp set of values in vogue in the past, under which the characters in the book must live, struck me as the American version of Victorian values in the earlier era. Julian English's name is a clue to the origin of the social set of rules he is forced to live to earn a living and be respected. He is a car dealer who sells cars from a lot.
Cars are mobile and take you places but everyone in town is in lockdown following scripts of behavior no one dares go rogue from. Julian is a name that echoes Thomas Hardy's Julian who is a character attempting to break the bonds of class holding him down into a preset box of social rules of English society in an earlier century. Cars, a symbol of freedom and escape, is obviously the author's vivid choice of irony for his Julian and this symbol of getting away is literally in English's face every day sitting in his car lot.
He loves his wife but he hates his life. Without the life they have in Gibbsville he loses the wife, economic security, and social position. English's father is the town's doctor who cures everyone's sickness and he wanted Julian to become a doctor. Julian does not want or cannot, more accurately, be that guy. His tragedy is wanting to fit in and be "normal" but being unable because of something inside his mind struggling against Gibbsville. He is no rebel but unfortunately some unconscious part wants desperately to get away.
By the end of the novel Julian has without consciously meaning to begun burning bridges to the life he believes he wants in Gibbsville. Despite his own values and hard work he is unable to force that unconscious part to submit. The tragedy moves to an end to which an unexamined life can lead.
The book is somewhat autobiographical except unlike the author's protagonist John O'Hara very much examines the workings of the human heart. At this book's center is the war between what we want and who we are.
March 8, 2018
The book is about three days in the life of Julian English, the 24th, the 25th and the 26th of December 1930. So it is Christmas and during the Prohibition and the Depression. Julian is thirty, lives on the right side of the tracks in the fictional town of Gibbsville, a surrogate for Pottsville in the anthracite coal region of eastern Pennsylvania. He has a wife that loves him, his father is a doctor and he is himself a wealthy car dealer of Cadillacs. He is a member of the town's most posh country club, and yet he drinks, spends more money than he has and is a rake. He is promiscuous. He is immoral, profligate and rash.
So that is what the story is about, but what made me like it so much? The writing, the characters and that it is so very American.
What we are presented with is real people and real dialogs. OK, the setting is 1930, so the issues are different than those of today. Our IT gadgets and gizmos do not yet exist, but I recognize in what is said the words and language that shaped my parents, my childhood and myself. The expressions and language and habits are genuine not to my life but to the generation that shaped my parents. The cocktail before dinner, the partying and that intimate but not-so-honest talk between mother and wedded daughter. The advice given by mother to daughter, what is avoided and what is not said made me smile--different form our times but true to earlier times. I liked all of this .I think it is something you will appreciate if you are or have American background.
I came to care for Julian English. I came to understand him and his wife and to feel empathy for him!
The audiobook is very well narrated by Christian Camargo, although a bit fast in the beginning when many names and characters are thrown at you. I had difficulty keeping track of who was who, but that straightens out by the end. I have given the narration four stars.
I will speak now of the title, Appointment in Samarra and the epigraph with which O’Hara’s story begins. (My source is Wiki.) The title and the epigraph are in reference to W. Somerset Maugham’s retelling of an ancient Mesopotamian tale in his play Sheppey. The epigraph that begins the novel is this:
“A merchant in Baghdad sends his servant to the marketplace for provisions. Soon afterwards, the servant comes home white and trembling and tells him that in the marketplace he was jostled by a woman, whom he recognized as Death and she made a threatening gesture. Borrowing the merchant's horse, he flees at great speed to Samarra, a distance of about 75 miles (125 km), where he believes Death will not find him. The merchant then goes to the marketplace and finds Death and asks why she made the threatening gesture. She replies, ‘That was not a threatening gesture, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.’"
Thus the epigraph suggests that fate is central to the story’s theme. In the foreword to the book’s 1953 reprint, O’Hara stated that the title and the epigraph speak of the “inevitability of Julian English’s .” All of this I find interesting and so have included this information here. One can ask if it is fate that has determined Julian English’s outcome or if it is his personality and temperament.
*******************
I preferred O'Hara's BUtterfield 8 a bit more because it so wonderfully captures NYC. Both are definitely worth reading.
So that is what the story is about, but what made me like it so much? The writing, the characters and that it is so very American.
What we are presented with is real people and real dialogs. OK, the setting is 1930, so the issues are different than those of today. Our IT gadgets and gizmos do not yet exist, but I recognize in what is said the words and language that shaped my parents, my childhood and myself. The expressions and language and habits are genuine not to my life but to the generation that shaped my parents. The cocktail before dinner, the partying and that intimate but not-so-honest talk between mother and wedded daughter. The advice given by mother to daughter, what is avoided and what is not said made me smile--different form our times but true to earlier times. I liked all of this .I think it is something you will appreciate if you are or have American background.
I came to care for Julian English. I came to understand him and his wife and to feel empathy for him!
The audiobook is very well narrated by Christian Camargo, although a bit fast in the beginning when many names and characters are thrown at you. I had difficulty keeping track of who was who, but that straightens out by the end. I have given the narration four stars.
I will speak now of the title, Appointment in Samarra and the epigraph with which O’Hara’s story begins. (My source is Wiki.) The title and the epigraph are in reference to W. Somerset Maugham’s retelling of an ancient Mesopotamian tale in his play Sheppey. The epigraph that begins the novel is this:
“A merchant in Baghdad sends his servant to the marketplace for provisions. Soon afterwards, the servant comes home white and trembling and tells him that in the marketplace he was jostled by a woman, whom he recognized as Death and she made a threatening gesture. Borrowing the merchant's horse, he flees at great speed to Samarra, a distance of about 75 miles (125 km), where he believes Death will not find him. The merchant then goes to the marketplace and finds Death and asks why she made the threatening gesture. She replies, ‘That was not a threatening gesture, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.’"
Thus the epigraph suggests that fate is central to the story’s theme. In the foreword to the book’s 1953 reprint, O’Hara stated that the title and the epigraph speak of the “inevitability of Julian English’s .” All of this I find interesting and so have included this information here. One can ask if it is fate that has determined Julian English’s outcome or if it is his personality and temperament.
*******************
I preferred O'Hara's BUtterfield 8 a bit more because it so wonderfully captures NYC. Both are definitely worth reading.
February 8, 2017
It seems like Appointment in Samarra (SOM-a-rah) is going to be another one of those light comedies about silly rich people, the kind we've seen quite enough of already thank you - and then it gets close and slips the knife in.
Julian English is a useless person: an idle rich loser who drinks too much. One night he throws a drink into some other idle loser's face. Predictable social difficulties ensue.
But mistake is compounded on mistake. He is a useless person. He is of no use. It's one of your better fictional slaps in the face when he - and you - suddenly realize that this isn't funny.
I wasn't ready for how tricky this book turned out to be, and it might be one that benefits from a re-read. I'd like to see how carefully O'Hara really set it up. Maybe the lengthy backstory interludes (including Caroline's entire sexual history) would make more sense. O'Hara has been called "the real Fitzgerald," which is funny; both of them deal with uselessness, but O'Hara seems meaner. The result is somewhere between very good and great.
Julian English is a useless person: an idle rich loser who drinks too much. One night he throws a drink into some other idle loser's face. Predictable social difficulties ensue.
But mistake is compounded on mistake. He is a useless person. He is of no use. It's one of your better fictional slaps in the face when he - and you - suddenly realize that this isn't funny.
I wasn't ready for how tricky this book turned out to be, and it might be one that benefits from a re-read. I'd like to see how carefully O'Hara really set it up. Maybe the lengthy backstory interludes (including Caroline's entire sexual history) would make more sense. O'Hara has been called "the real Fitzgerald," which is funny; both of them deal with uselessness, but O'Hara seems meaner. The result is somewhere between very good and great.
March 6, 2016
Like The Great Gatsby but much much better.
March 7, 2020
This book is actually pretty funny.
May 26, 2014
An odd one - it's a strange mixture of Updike (the Rabbit books so obviously spring from this source) and Cheever. I loved parts of it - the multiple perspectives are satisfying. Caroline's chapter, in particular, is a real achievement in the way it elides time. You can't help but fall in love with her. The frank treatment of sexuality is excellent, and the whole thing feels very much of its time in the right way - reading it gave me a sense of life during prohibition at the end of the depression. The structure is good and tight (little things like the scotch delivery feeding nicely into the ending) and the supporting characters are strong. I particularly liked the framing devices. The coal-mining stuff was good too.
But oh the problems. The first novel smell is all over this one - that drive to put everything you know into a book, for better and worse, and it makes things feel overstuffed. The Al Grecco segments have not aged well (I can't tell if they're pastiche or if they pre-date the gangster novels that will make them feel outdated) and the fundamental base plot, the descent of English, is frustrating. There's something uninteresting about it that the introduction of this edition tries like hell to cover up (what happens to the man who has everything, basically). But basically my least favorite ur-plot is a male protagonist acting more and more nastily for no particular reason, and that's what this is. It doesn't stop me from liking the book, which is a tribute to its many fine ancillary characteristics, but it held it back
But oh the problems. The first novel smell is all over this one - that drive to put everything you know into a book, for better and worse, and it makes things feel overstuffed. The Al Grecco segments have not aged well (I can't tell if they're pastiche or if they pre-date the gangster novels that will make them feel outdated) and the fundamental base plot, the descent of English, is frustrating. There's something uninteresting about it that the introduction of this edition tries like hell to cover up (what happens to the man who has everything, basically). But basically my least favorite ur-plot is a male protagonist acting more and more nastily for no particular reason, and that's what this is. It doesn't stop me from liking the book, which is a tribute to its many fine ancillary characteristics, but it held it back
December 14, 2021
Non ricordo perche' abbia scelto in libreria questo titolo di un autore che non conoscevo, sta di fatto che si e' rivelata una mossa azzeccata. USA anni '30, la media borghesia wasp di un sobborgo cittadino della costa orientale vive alle prese con gli sviluppi della grande crisi economica appena scoppiata (e che avverte solo in parte), tra ricevimenti, pettegolezzi, circoli sociali, conformismo e accenni di strisciante razzismo verso i non introdotti e i piu' recenti immigrati: ebrei, italiani, polacchi, cattolici etc. Se la struttura sociale e' stretta da questi lacci perbenisti e ipocriti, le tensioni non possono che svilupparsi a un livello piu' basso, in privato. Le relazioni di coppia, le amicizie, i vincoli famigliari, diventano spesso null'altro che paramenti per nascondere conflitti e tensioni impresentabili. In questo contesto, anche la parabola di autodistruzione di un giovane uomo di successo non e' altro che un nuovo argomento di conversazione della comunita'. Bella scrittura, efficace e asciutta che analizza con sincerita'. Qualche pagina verbosa piu' del dovuto, ma nel complesso si ha la piacevole sensazione di un ritmo brioso.
March 20, 2015
F Scott Fitzgerald once said "the rich are different from you and me." Well, if "Appointment in Samarra" is an accurate depiction, they're apparently a lot duller and dumber. I have no idea why this proto-"Peyton Place" enjoys such a sterling literary reputation. Maybe when it was published in 1934, people wanted a little schadenfreude at the expense of the country-club set (and in the depths of a Depression triggered by the recklessness of the rich, it was well-deserved). The book also has some sociological value in that it documents a fading era of social anxiety and petty prejudices -- you learn the class status and religious affiliation of every single character in "Appointment at Samarra." Such stratification seems to have fascinated O'Hara, whom the sympathetic introduction to the edition I read depicted him as a self-important, social-climbing lush. (And if that's how his kinder biographers describe him, imagine what he must really have been like.) Still, the thing is so soapy that your hands are cleaner after you've read it. The central character is one Julian English (does it get WASPier?), a son of privilege in a mid-sized Pennsylvania town who self-destructs over one Christmas. Julian is a bore and a boor. Perhaps we're supposed to take some pleasure in Julian's tornado-strength downward spiral, but he's not even interesting enough to hate. The book is also fairly frank about sex and perhaps it scandalized the era's fainthearted, but if you want some real 30's literary filth, Henry Miller was just hitting his sleazy stride at the same time. Skip this "Appointment."
December 28, 2012
I have heard a lot of good things about John O’Hara’s first and most popular novel, Appointment in Samarra. So I finally decided to read it. It was quite a revelation-a Fitzgerald-esque depiction of the 30s jazz age lifestyle complete with snappy dialogue, big parties, heavy drinking and other sorts of dissipation. There are bootleggers and gangsters among the upwardly mobile who see this way of life as an entitlement. It is essentially the chronicle of a marriage in decline between the self-destructive Julian English and his somewhat selfish and cold-hearted wife Caroline English. This couple was the center of party on the verge of imploding due to the oncoming depression lingering just around the corner. It seems to me that the Coen brothers must have used this novel as one of their sources for their complex and entertaining film set in the 30s, Miller’s Crossing. I see that expressions like “giving me the high hat” found their way into the dialogue of the Coen brothers' film. Furthermore, there are Irish gangsters, references to Julian losing his hat (a major theme in the film), a gangster boss with an obsession with a less than true mistress, a potentially gay gang lieutenant, and a club manager, Foxie Lebrix, who has an approximation in the film). I really enjoyed the short and powerful novel, and even though it seems that O’Hara never matched this novel, I would read more of his work just to see where he goes from this audacious start.
November 5, 2014
A remarkably succinct novel about social standing, gender relations, economic disadvantage, sex and death.
John O'Hara is often thought a middling writer, but for at least the 200-odd pages of this work he is an absolute master. Covering an astounding panorama of themes and insights into the bourgeoisie population of a small town at the beginning of the depression, his frankness on married life, resentment, criminality, and a dozen other topics that are alternately ignored or aggrandized by other authors is so startling it's almost poetic. Several times I thought to myself "Yes, that's exactly the way it is, but nobody would write it that way"
Someone asked me if the story was depressing. I would say no, it's neither depressing nor fatalistic. Rather (like the vignette that gives the book its title) it's inexorable yet entirely of the character's own making. A celebration of bad decisions. I would recommend this to anyone who likes "Breaking Bad" as the two works share the same central theme: that actions have consequences.
John O'Hara is often thought a middling writer, but for at least the 200-odd pages of this work he is an absolute master. Covering an astounding panorama of themes and insights into the bourgeoisie population of a small town at the beginning of the depression, his frankness on married life, resentment, criminality, and a dozen other topics that are alternately ignored or aggrandized by other authors is so startling it's almost poetic. Several times I thought to myself "Yes, that's exactly the way it is, but nobody would write it that way"
Someone asked me if the story was depressing. I would say no, it's neither depressing nor fatalistic. Rather (like the vignette that gives the book its title) it's inexorable yet entirely of the character's own making. A celebration of bad decisions. I would recommend this to anyone who likes "Breaking Bad" as the two works share the same central theme: that actions have consequences.
January 21, 2016
Segundo a sinopse, Encontro em Samarra é um clássico da literatura norte-americana, com momentos de humor negro (pelos quais me "pelo", mas que aqui me escaparam).
Comprei-o porque consta da lista Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Novels.
Li-o porque um utilizador do Goodreads, cujo gosto literário é muito semelhante ao meu, o classificou com 5 estrelas.
Mas não gostei.
- Porque o desenvolvimento do enredo não me despertou qualquer interesse - as consequências para a vida de um homem que, por impulso, atirou um copo com whisky à cara de outro, cuja conversa o irritava -;
- porque tem muitas festas (e festas...nem na leitura as aguento);
- porque as personagens são tantas que, a certa altura, me perdi e a leitura tornou-se fastidiosa.
Às duas estrelas que definem o “não gostei”, acrescento uma de bónus, porque fiquei a pensar que deveria corrigir este meu defeito de estar sempre a "atirar com copos de vinagre à cara” de quem me irrita, se não qualquer dia ainda vou ter um triste fim...
Comprei-o porque consta da lista Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Novels.
Li-o porque um utilizador do Goodreads, cujo gosto literário é muito semelhante ao meu, o classificou com 5 estrelas.
Mas não gostei.
- Porque o desenvolvimento do enredo não me despertou qualquer interesse - as consequências para a vida de um homem que, por impulso, atirou um copo com whisky à cara de outro, cuja conversa o irritava -;
- porque tem muitas festas (e festas...nem na leitura as aguento);
- porque as personagens são tantas que, a certa altura, me perdi e a leitura tornou-se fastidiosa.
Às duas estrelas que definem o “não gostei”, acrescento uma de bónus, porque fiquei a pensar que deveria corrigir este meu defeito de estar sempre a "atirar com copos de vinagre à cara” de quem me irrita, se não qualquer dia ainda vou ter um triste fim...
July 21, 2023
Appointment in Samarra begins with a lengthy quote from no less than death himself: “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra. —W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM” Indeed, that becomes the story of Julian English, who flirts with death until it is all over some 72 hours later in a garage with the motor running. But, before Julian meets death in reality, he dies a social death no less devastating.
Julian and his wife Caroline English live in Gibbsville, a small town In Pennsylvania where there aren’t enough rich kids to form a baseball team, but enough grownups to form a country club. It’s 1930, not quite the Depression yet, and the exclusivity of the club is not just by financial standing as no Blacks or Jews are welcome and we get hints that there is an uneasiness about Jews moving into the better neighborhoods (it would take another forty years for such attitudes to begin to change in the real world and often those attitudes have only changed in public, not behind closed doors): “Pretty soon there would be a whole colony of Jews in the neighborhood, and the Fliegler children and all the other nice children in the neighborhood would grow up with Jewish accents.”
The town though, for those socially accepted, is the picture postcard world of domestic bliss, including shockingly marital bliss in the bedroom. “And for a little while Gibbsville knew no happier people than Luther Fliegler and his wife, Irma. Then Luther went to sleep, and Irma got up and then came back to the bedroom, stopping to look out the window before she got into bed again.”
And the Englishes were socially accepted: “Dr. English (Julian’s father) came from one of the oldest families in Gibbsville. He was of Revolutionary stock. He wore a ring with an indistinguishable crest (he took it off when he operated).”
Julian English, though, one night hobnobbing at his upper crust country club, decides he has had enough of kissing ass and commits social and career suicide. Up until then, “So far nothing terrible had occurred. Young Johnny Dibble had been caught stealing liquor from someone’s locker and was kicked in the behind. Elinor Holloway’s shoulder strap had slipped or been pulled down, momentarily revealing her left breast, which most of the young men present had seen and touched at one time or another.”
And then Julian English decided he has had enough of Harry Reilly and throws his highball in Harry’s face. Harry is a big investor in town and, for that slight, that unforgivable slight, Julian loses the business of all the Catholics in town, his wife Caroline is socially mortified, and he begins his descent from social standing by going on a bender and heading to the parking lot with the mob boss’s mistress and challenging a one-armed veteran to a fight. As Julian’s wife tells him, “What of it? You stand there and ask me what of it? Don’t you realize what that means, or are you still drunk? It just means that the whole town knows what you did, and when Harry realizes that, he’ll do anything short of murder to get even with you. And I don’t have to tell you that he won’t have to commit murder to get even with you.”
O’Hara is a great observer of society and, here, he shows us what it means, just like in Gatsby, what it means to be accepted by society and what it means to speak your mind, to have a difference of opinion, to act differently, and how quick your fall from the in-crowd can be. Moreover, all those you counted as your friends can disappear in an instant. In the real world, once you are no longer welcome in the club, you can be cast aside in a moment. Bob Dylan years later would sing: “I know the reason, that you talked behind my back I used to be among the crowd you’re in with.”
Julian and his wife Caroline English live in Gibbsville, a small town In Pennsylvania where there aren’t enough rich kids to form a baseball team, but enough grownups to form a country club. It’s 1930, not quite the Depression yet, and the exclusivity of the club is not just by financial standing as no Blacks or Jews are welcome and we get hints that there is an uneasiness about Jews moving into the better neighborhoods (it would take another forty years for such attitudes to begin to change in the real world and often those attitudes have only changed in public, not behind closed doors): “Pretty soon there would be a whole colony of Jews in the neighborhood, and the Fliegler children and all the other nice children in the neighborhood would grow up with Jewish accents.”
The town though, for those socially accepted, is the picture postcard world of domestic bliss, including shockingly marital bliss in the bedroom. “And for a little while Gibbsville knew no happier people than Luther Fliegler and his wife, Irma. Then Luther went to sleep, and Irma got up and then came back to the bedroom, stopping to look out the window before she got into bed again.”
And the Englishes were socially accepted: “Dr. English (Julian’s father) came from one of the oldest families in Gibbsville. He was of Revolutionary stock. He wore a ring with an indistinguishable crest (he took it off when he operated).”
Julian English, though, one night hobnobbing at his upper crust country club, decides he has had enough of kissing ass and commits social and career suicide. Up until then, “So far nothing terrible had occurred. Young Johnny Dibble had been caught stealing liquor from someone’s locker and was kicked in the behind. Elinor Holloway’s shoulder strap had slipped or been pulled down, momentarily revealing her left breast, which most of the young men present had seen and touched at one time or another.”
And then Julian English decided he has had enough of Harry Reilly and throws his highball in Harry’s face. Harry is a big investor in town and, for that slight, that unforgivable slight, Julian loses the business of all the Catholics in town, his wife Caroline is socially mortified, and he begins his descent from social standing by going on a bender and heading to the parking lot with the mob boss’s mistress and challenging a one-armed veteran to a fight. As Julian’s wife tells him, “What of it? You stand there and ask me what of it? Don’t you realize what that means, or are you still drunk? It just means that the whole town knows what you did, and when Harry realizes that, he’ll do anything short of murder to get even with you. And I don’t have to tell you that he won’t have to commit murder to get even with you.”
O’Hara is a great observer of society and, here, he shows us what it means, just like in Gatsby, what it means to be accepted by society and what it means to speak your mind, to have a difference of opinion, to act differently, and how quick your fall from the in-crowd can be. Moreover, all those you counted as your friends can disappear in an instant. In the real world, once you are no longer welcome in the club, you can be cast aside in a moment. Bob Dylan years later would sing: “I know the reason, that you talked behind my back I used to be among the crowd you’re in with.”
September 18, 2016
Starting with the novel's opening scene, the frank sexually-oriented passages in Appointment in Samarra were obviously shocking for the times. And the times, the ‘30s (and within the context of lives of well-to-do American country clubbers), are vividly created by John O’Hara, who sources tell us had an agenda in presenting that world in his cynical, yet humorous point of view.
Fran Lebowitz described O’Hara as “the real F. Scott Fitzgerald." I’m not exactly sure what that means (whether dear Fran had her own ax to grind with FSF, or whatever), but AIS is built around the self-destruction of Julian English, Cadillac salesman, who ultimately just gives up on life, drinking himself to oblivion, his journey punctuated by violence and the alienation of all in his sphere.
Like the failure found in The Great Gatsby, the story O’Hara (who felt shut out of the elite world of his day) tells makes JE a victim of that world, and perhaps a martyr to the American ideal of success; also the cause of tragedy (if self-destruction in the form of burning in the crucible of unrequited love of a “rich girl” is a form of self-destruction -- and I think it is) in Gatsby.
Prohibition, the depression, and the fuel that the better-off used to keep their social engine running -- black market booze -- are all featured in O’Hara’s gimlet-eyed portrait. Also, O'Hara's portrait of the American way of courtship and love peel the gilt veneer off the elite, proving that under all the fancy dress and attitude they are somewhat like you and me. But they are rich, so in the final analysis, they must be different.
Fran Lebowitz described O’Hara as “the real F. Scott Fitzgerald." I’m not exactly sure what that means (whether dear Fran had her own ax to grind with FSF, or whatever), but AIS is built around the self-destruction of Julian English, Cadillac salesman, who ultimately just gives up on life, drinking himself to oblivion, his journey punctuated by violence and the alienation of all in his sphere.
Like the failure found in The Great Gatsby, the story O’Hara (who felt shut out of the elite world of his day) tells makes JE a victim of that world, and perhaps a martyr to the American ideal of success; also the cause of tragedy (if self-destruction in the form of burning in the crucible of unrequited love of a “rich girl” is a form of self-destruction -- and I think it is) in Gatsby.
Prohibition, the depression, and the fuel that the better-off used to keep their social engine running -- black market booze -- are all featured in O’Hara’s gimlet-eyed portrait. Also, O'Hara's portrait of the American way of courtship and love peel the gilt veneer off the elite, proving that under all the fancy dress and attitude they are somewhat like you and me. But they are rich, so in the final analysis, they must be different.
April 4, 2011
O'Hara is neglected today -- maybe he was so ferociously accurate about his own time that he wrote himself out of the public mind. Who wants to keep getting their fingers burned, picking up each new book? Besides, as he aged, he got cranky and "prolix," as someone once put it, probably Updike. Appointment in Samarra is a tiny bit childish at the very beginning, when it feels like high school; but very soon the characters march righteously off the page and into your mundane, what'sforlunch consciousness. Very alarming! You have to finish reading the book or they will take over everything! O'Hara was a genius with his people; he gets them all, male, female, rich, poor, in-between. Is this, his first novel, the greatest plot? No. Is it more character-driven? Good golly, miss Molly, yes. I was especially taken with protagonist Julian English's wife. Caroline English is a tremendous creation, I think. Oh, yes, the book is all about sex, starting on the first page. Very grown-up with that, too, which I'm not sure he always was.
I was reading it in tandem with another book written simultaneously -- Steinbeck's To a God Unknown, which was published in 1933, Samarra in 1934. That was the pit of the Depression, and both books are imbued with that time while scarcely mentioning it directly. That aspect is fascinating. Steinbeck's second book, whose dialogue is as lame and clunky as O'Hara's is accurate and zingy, is also all about sex in a different way. I'm wondering if there is a connection between those facts. Instead of sex as a racy accessory to prosperity's joys, it takes center stage in a fundamental, and more interesting and honest way, when other distractions grow remote.
O'Hara's estimation of the human race is not especially high. (One big reason it was Steinbeck, and not O'Hara, who was eventually awarded a Nobel Prize.) So there were times when the trashy aspects of this book threatened to scuttle the artistry. But his skills, at least in this one, were just too extraordinary to allow that to happen.
I was reading it in tandem with another book written simultaneously -- Steinbeck's To a God Unknown, which was published in 1933, Samarra in 1934. That was the pit of the Depression, and both books are imbued with that time while scarcely mentioning it directly. That aspect is fascinating. Steinbeck's second book, whose dialogue is as lame and clunky as O'Hara's is accurate and zingy, is also all about sex in a different way. I'm wondering if there is a connection between those facts. Instead of sex as a racy accessory to prosperity's joys, it takes center stage in a fundamental, and more interesting and honest way, when other distractions grow remote.
O'Hara's estimation of the human race is not especially high. (One big reason it was Steinbeck, and not O'Hara, who was eventually awarded a Nobel Prize.) So there were times when the trashy aspects of this book threatened to scuttle the artistry. But his skills, at least in this one, were just too extraordinary to allow that to happen.
February 20, 2019
As I continue in my half-hearted attempts to fulfill my New Year's resolution, I am beginning to get a feel for the patterns of modern American literature, especially for the white men who disproportionately represent the more famous authors in its canon. There's a heady sense of entitlement to everything the American Dream promises: comfortable living earned through pluck and occasional effort, a pervasive expectation of safety (except for the occasional drunken scrape or tipsy car crash), a boorish and careless demeanor toward women and children, and an irresistible urge to smash up the pleasant life that centuries of capitalism and prosperity and patriarchy have conspired to render them. This last characteristic is particularly notable in books of this type, and is alluded to by the title of this book: an ancient Middle Eastern yarn about the ineluctable nature of death.
Books like this prefigured Richard Yates and John Updike, John Cheever and "Mad Men." The ennui of the suburbs, the maddeningly destructive temporary reprieves of dark liquor and extramarital sex: it's all there, superficially familiar and genteel but rotting faithfully beneath the surface. Hemingway was already plumbing the last of the grand, noble battles of the century while these protagonists instead fought purposelessness and a sense of existential dread. It's depressing stuff, but I just can't get enough.
While lustily reading the first few pages of this book I described its appeal to someone as "exposing the American Dream as a fraud." He called the idea passé, saying that only Republicans (or less malignant naifs) would believe in the sham. I can't dispute the assessment, really--this book was published more than fifty years before I was born, and I can't imagine it was breaking new ground even at the time. But there are things that these books do so well, and in O'Hara's case they’re credible dialogue and showing depicting the defeat and sense of submission of those who put their faith in the American Dream.
Books like this prefigured Richard Yates and John Updike, John Cheever and "Mad Men." The ennui of the suburbs, the maddeningly destructive temporary reprieves of dark liquor and extramarital sex: it's all there, superficially familiar and genteel but rotting faithfully beneath the surface. Hemingway was already plumbing the last of the grand, noble battles of the century while these protagonists instead fought purposelessness and a sense of existential dread. It's depressing stuff, but I just can't get enough.
While lustily reading the first few pages of this book I described its appeal to someone as "exposing the American Dream as a fraud." He called the idea passé, saying that only Republicans (or less malignant naifs) would believe in the sham. I can't dispute the assessment, really--this book was published more than fifty years before I was born, and I can't imagine it was breaking new ground even at the time. But there are things that these books do so well, and in O'Hara's case they’re credible dialogue and showing depicting the defeat and sense of submission of those who put their faith in the American Dream.
December 22, 2008
pretty darn good minor classic about fitzgerald's famous "lost generation"...I really enjoyed this when I read it a million years ago. I just completely plugged into it and read it till the early hours of the morning. Great platter of minor characters and a well-paced plot leading inevitably to the satiric denouement where the flapping and philosophizing ends in tragedy because the participants lack the necessary self-reflection to understand how existentially unmoored they are in the consumerist society driving them to make the WASP scene with all its concomitant superficiality and repressed mimicry of English gentry: gentility, propriety, conspicuous consumption, etc. Can't fight the fate you lay down, O'Hara seems to be saying, with the transactions and petty (self-) hatreds you build up over a lifetime of glittering, gilded, self obsession....sound relevant, at all, in the slightest bit?
PS: doesn't the guy on the cover of this edition look like maybe late 70's era David Bowie?
PS: doesn't the guy on the cover of this edition look like maybe late 70's era David Bowie?
December 18, 2018
Julian English has everything a man could want in 1934 America---affluent background, beautiful wife, lovely home, rich friends, successful business---and yet, somehow, almost inexplicably, comes to destroy everything he has in the short space of 72 hours. It's the American dream turned nightmare, and it's horrific to watch, even from the pages of a book. A life overturned---and why? And for what? It's not clear and no one---not his friends, not his wife, not his parents, not even Julian himself---seem to understand what is going on. But it is very clear that this is no isolated incident, that this story is very real, that this story could happen to anyone.
December 21, 2008
My my. There's something about the pleasantville genre that never quite sat square with me- the difference between the public persona and the ineffable "self" that makes a mess of so much decorum. Well, no shit. Writing after 1968 affords us that judgement.
But here's John O'Hara, writing over the winter, publishing in '34. His apparently bibulous inclinations makes him one of the best writers about character and drink, at least on a technical level. But this portrait of a small town built on a dying industry, filled with faceless bourgeois that won't admit to the great depression, is enough to make you want to stay in a big city forever.
But who wouldn't unravel when the best anyone can do to distinguish you from anyone else holding highballs in the smoking room at the club, the 50 people in your universe, even your spouse, is that which "everyone else was not?" When all you are to them is a last name in conversation, with all its local history, passed in an unending string of other last names with local histories?
And somehow, the hollow comport maintains itself, even with the aberrant scandals that seem so much part and parcel to the lifestyle: infidelity, fraud, or even throwing a drink in someone's face.
If a car is the status symbol of consumer society, the salesman -who's just some salesman, after all- determines who's who and says what's what; the cars themselves will be all we have left to hold onto.
It's sad. It's not for newlyweds. It assures you that 1934 really was as fucked up (racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic) as you thought. Maybe its just O'Hara. Either way, after reading this, Gatsby isn't the only book of its type.
July 12, 2018
John O'Hara may not have had the most felicitous style of his generation, but he had plenty to say. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA rounds out my list of five English-language novels (in my case, all 20th-Century American novels). This is the underappreciated one; I can't honestly say that of BABBITT, THE GREAT GATSBY, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD or even LOLITA.
The last day in the life of Julian English, just as the Great Depression is beginning to be felt. Realistic, gutsy, surprising, heartbreaking.
The last day in the life of Julian English, just as the Great Depression is beginning to be felt. Realistic, gutsy, surprising, heartbreaking.
Want to read
May 19, 2017The narrator, I'm told, is Death. That reminds me of The Book Thief in that way.
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