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mcbibliotecaria's review against another edition
1.0
Reflections of Philip Roth which I also think sucks.
kelseysmelsey's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
zubatus's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
dsimone's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
iancarpenter's review against another edition
4.0
There's something about the sort of well-behaved veneer of this book that makes me suspect it's not for everyone but I don't know why I haven't heard of him before. Clearly an influence on everyone from the Beats to Didion to even later Hemingway. No idea how I came upon this but it was a surprising gem. The writing is superb and it continued to thwart my expectations. It felt so small town Leave it to Beaver but then revealed a well-behaved but dark underbelly to nearly all the relationships in the book. The sexual relationships, frank selfishness and competitiveness some how shocked me. The pain and angst of the lead crept up and I felt for him, for his partner and for so many of the others who crossed his path during a Christmas day that lead to a breaking point both sad and lasting. And the final page left me with the ache that all this pain and desire will snuff out and the world will continue on within minutes. Heartbreaking. Definitely need to read more of him.
vegantrav's review against another edition
4.0
There should be a term for the dramatic equivalent to a comedy of errors, where the mistakes and miscues pile one upon the other turning a situation that was initially merely an unpleasant difficulty into a tragedy. Tragedy, though, is not really an accurate term for Appointment in Samarra as, traditionally, tragedies presuppose gallant, heroic characters who fall from grace. Julian English is not such a character, but his fall is, nevertheless, sad.
Julian is a character that, by all rights, we should not like. He comes from a well to do family (his father is a doctor), has a beautiful, intelligent wife, and has what, by all accounts, should be a great job as a Cadillac dealer, but he has gotten himself into trouble because of his own pettiness, stupidity, and selfishness, yet John O'Hara does such a great job of drawing this character that I could not help but hope that somehow Julian would be able to overcome his mistakes and that everything would turn out all right for him.
I think this is a case where we are so much in the mind of Julian that we cannot help but identify with him. Although several other characters play prominent roles--Luther (Lute) Fliegler, who works for Julian; Irma Fliegler, Lute's wife; Al Grecco, a mob enforcer; Caroline English, Julian's wife; Ed Charney, a local mob boss and Al's employer--Julian is clearly the central character with the supporting characters, despite being very well drawn in their own right, functioning primarily as role-players in Julian's story. When we are with Julian, we feel slighted and offended when he is slighted and offended. We feel the pressures of his job and his marriage. And we also overlook the fact that he is, in many ways, a complete asshole: he treats his wife terribly; he is rude to his servants; he behaves like a prick: the incident in which he throws a drink in Harry Reilly's face, his blatant flirting with Helene in front of Caroline and their friends, the fight that he gets into with one-armed Froggy Ogden. Practically everything we see of Julian in this novel paints him in a bad light, yet O'Hara still humanizes him enough that we sympathize with him.
The ending of this novel is not at all surprising granted Julian's short-tempered, self-pitying, self-centered nature and his desire for an easy solution to his very difficult marital (Caroline seems likely to leave him), financial (he is deeply in debt and his business prospects are dim), and social (his recent behavior has alienated him from many of his friends and the community at large) problems:. I like the concise nature of O'Hara's story-telling. He could have easily expanded this novel from its 240 pages (in my version) to 400 or even 500 pages by focusing more on the broad cast of characters and their interesting backgrounds, yet he telescopes the plot very well to the elements most essential to Julian's story and brings the narrative to a quick but unhurried and powerful conclusion.
This novel leads me to ponder whether Julian's fate can count as tragic given his nature. Can only the truly great be said to take tragic falls? Or can even those who have serious character flaws suffer tragedy? That is, is it a tragedy when one's terrible fate is not due to the whims of chance or circumstance but rather due to the very poor decisions that one makes, due even to one's very poor character? For me, I would have to say that the answer is, "no." Appointment in Samarra is not a tragedy because Julian is not a good person. His fate is the logical outcome of his character and behavior. Unlike many great tragic characters of literature, Julian gets what he deserves. What makes this short novel a great novel, though, is that, despite Julian being such a creep, we still care about him, almost even sympathize with him.
Julian is a character that, by all rights, we should not like. He comes from a well to do family (his father is a doctor), has a beautiful, intelligent wife, and has what, by all accounts, should be a great job as a Cadillac dealer, but he has gotten himself into trouble because of his own pettiness, stupidity, and selfishness, yet John O'Hara does such a great job of drawing this character that I could not help but hope that somehow Julian would be able to overcome his mistakes and that everything would turn out all right for him.
I think this is a case where we are so much in the mind of Julian that we cannot help but identify with him. Although several other characters play prominent roles--Luther (Lute) Fliegler, who works for Julian; Irma Fliegler, Lute's wife; Al Grecco, a mob enforcer; Caroline English, Julian's wife; Ed Charney, a local mob boss and Al's employer--Julian is clearly the central character with the supporting characters, despite being very well drawn in their own right, functioning primarily as role-players in Julian's story. When we are with Julian, we feel slighted and offended when he is slighted and offended. We feel the pressures of his job and his marriage. And we also overlook the fact that he is, in many ways, a complete asshole: he treats his wife terribly; he is rude to his servants; he behaves like a prick: the incident in which he throws a drink in Harry Reilly's face, his blatant flirting with Helene in front of Caroline and their friends, the fight that he gets into with one-armed Froggy Ogden. Practically everything we see of Julian in this novel paints him in a bad light, yet O'Hara still humanizes him enough that we sympathize with him.
The ending of this novel is not at all surprising granted Julian's short-tempered, self-pitying, self-centered nature and his desire for an easy solution to his very difficult marital (Caroline seems likely to leave him), financial (he is deeply in debt and his business prospects are dim), and social (his recent behavior has alienated him from many of his friends and the community at large) problems:
Spoiler
he kills himself by carbon monoxide poisoning, which is an easy, painless method of suicide that totally fits with Julian's characterThis novel leads me to ponder whether Julian's fate can count as tragic given his nature. Can only the truly great be said to take tragic falls? Or can even those who have serious character flaws suffer tragedy? That is, is it a tragedy when one's terrible fate is not due to the whims of chance or circumstance but rather due to the very poor decisions that one makes, due even to one's very poor character? For me, I would have to say that the answer is, "no." Appointment in Samarra is not a tragedy because Julian is not a good person. His fate is the logical outcome of his character and behavior. Unlike many great tragic characters of literature, Julian gets what he deserves. What makes this short novel a great novel, though, is that, despite Julian being such a creep, we still care about him, almost even sympathize with him.
wolfdan9's review against another edition
3.0
Appointment in Samarra is a story about a man becoming unhinged. Wealthy Julian English, in an impulsive moment fueled by jealousy and resentment, splashes a drink in the face of Harry Reilly, an even wealthier man who Julian falsely believes slept with his wife. This event leads to Julian’s downfall — a string of bad decisions that seems to reflect a feeling of indifference and invincibility at first, but becomes a revelation that he’s ruining his life. The subsequent choices Julian makes are whimsical, spiteful, and idiotic: cheating on his wife with the girlfriend of a notorious gangster, fighting a one-armed man, etc. He fails to take responsibility for his actions despite the second chances and support he receives. O’Hara appears to be commenting on the entitlement of the wealthy class in early 1930s America. English represents the seemingly invincible “owner” class, whose bad decisions led to his self-destruction. This could mirror the similar implosion of upper/middle-class in the Great Depression whose investments were made on credit and wasted with the 1929 Stock Market Crash, although that’s really only based on vague allusions to the Depression and nothing solid in the text. I could also see English as being a depiction of the defiant working class who is punished for lashing out against powerful economic (Harry Reilly) and political (Ed Charney) forces.
By the second time Julian attempts to cheat, after a major fight with his wife, he is completely unsympathizable to the reader. O’Hara seems to scoff at the futility of Prohibition, with alcohol being tied clearly with bad decisions throughout the novel. O’Hara is a skilled writer no doubt, in fact maybe even a superb story teller — he certainly knows how to write dialogue, introduce characters in a meaningful way by elaborating on their various back stories so when they intersect in the plot there is some weight to their encounters, etc. — but he does come off a bit as an imitation Fitzgerald. They’re thematically quite similar and their talents are in roughly the same pocket, except Fitzgerald’s prose is more unique and ornate (and better). I actually don’t think O’Hara is much of a far cry from someone like Yates in their rather plain interest in contemporary American society (Yates is also better).
The story ends kind of lamely with Julian committing suicide. It’s a little melodramatic and a sort of cop out. No consequences to Julian’s actions, no meaningful closure. I feel like some of the well written side characters like Al Grecco were wasted and the book was 100-200 pages too short (I almost never feel that way about novels). It seems to make sense thematically, with Julian being some symbol of hopelessness or angry futility, but it’s just not interesting. Maybe I missed something.
By the second time Julian attempts to cheat, after a major fight with his wife, he is completely unsympathizable to the reader. O’Hara seems to scoff at the futility of Prohibition, with alcohol being tied clearly with bad decisions throughout the novel. O’Hara is a skilled writer no doubt, in fact maybe even a superb story teller — he certainly knows how to write dialogue, introduce characters in a meaningful way by elaborating on their various back stories so when they intersect in the plot there is some weight to their encounters, etc. — but he does come off a bit as an imitation Fitzgerald. They’re thematically quite similar and their talents are in roughly the same pocket, except Fitzgerald’s prose is more unique and ornate (and better). I actually don’t think O’Hara is much of a far cry from someone like Yates in their rather plain interest in contemporary American society (Yates is also better).
The story ends kind of lamely with Julian committing suicide. It’s a little melodramatic and a sort of cop out. No consequences to Julian’s actions, no meaningful closure. I feel like some of the well written side characters like Al Grecco were wasted and the book was 100-200 pages too short (I almost never feel that way about novels). It seems to make sense thematically, with Julian being some symbol of hopelessness or angry futility, but it’s just not interesting. Maybe I missed something.
booksarebetter's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 stars. A book that really didn't work for me. Didn't like the writing style, main character, or the story. I managed half before dnf'ing.
savaging's review against another edition
2.0
There is one brilliant passage on grief near the end of this novel (the thumping "had to go through, had to go through, had to go through" paragraph).
Apart from that, I found the book almost unbearable. I never really wanted to live in the self-destructive brains of the suburban country-club fellas.
Apart from that, I found the book almost unbearable. I never really wanted to live in the self-destructive brains of the suburban country-club fellas.