Re-reads

The Groves of Academe – Mary McCarthy

Perplexing. First, why is this a re-read? In one sense that’s easy to answer – because it was on my list of Most Memorable Books. But why was it there? In all my other re-reads I had some memory of the book, but this time around nothing was the least bit familiar. No character, no situation, not even the atmosphere or prose style. Also, I’ve always read for entertainment (well, sometimes to impress myself), and this is deadly boring stuff. There’s not even a discernable plot. Mary McCarthy is a very intelligent woman, and can toss off words like pseudepigraphal and anagogical, but she doesn’t show the basic ability to write a novel that moves. This one drags along, the characters and action imbedded in dense, convoluted verbiage. Maybe she saw her audience to be of her ilk – people with big brains who had spent their life in academe and would enjoy a comic skewering of it (if a comic skewering was indeed her aim). Anyway, in closing, Groves, must have arrived on the MMB list by some mistake. But I have another perplexing fact to reveal: this time around I read the whole damn thing, every single word. Delete

Appointment in Samarra – John O’Hara

This first novel, written in 1934 when the author was in his late twenties, is radically different from the one I reviewed above. For starters, it’s highly readable, the pages just fly by. And instead of intellectual matters we get a lot about parties, clubs, drinking, sex. (The sex was considered very daring for its time.) And there’s loads of dialogue; O’Hara was lauded for his depiction of the way people talk. As for a plot, in a period of forty-eight hours Julian English moves steadily toward self-destruction. He’s often drunk (or getting there) and when drunk he does irrational things that alienate people (including his wife). He winds up killing himself. Like I said, it’s a readable book. But though I value clarity in prose and the story line, there’s one vital caveat: that prose and story must deal with authentic human beings. Julian and his wife Caroline had no real substance, and so I couldn’t care about their dilemma. When Julian dies, my reaction was ho hum. That may seem callous, but the guy was nothing but a cardboard cutout. And not even a likable one. As for the dialogue, O’Hara seemed enamored with this knack; people blab on and on (or we follow their thoughts for pages). I was in my teens when I read this, and I suppose I saw the novel as a depiction of adult life. Now I’m old, and I can say that no real adults populate these pages. This is an immature, shallow book. So I was very surprised to discover that the Modern Library ranked it as twenty-second in its list of the best English language novels of the twentieth century. Who’s right – the teenage me and Modern Library’s “distinguished Board made up of celebrated authors, historians, critics, and publishing luminaries” – or the person writing this review? The answer is clear. Delete

The Light of Day – Eric Ambler

Ambler is classified as a writer of international thrillers, but in this novel he eschews the violence common in that genre and instead offers up a logical story – an engrossing one that grabs onto and holds your attention. The first thing he gets right is the first-person narrator. Arthur Abdel Simpson (his mother was Egyptian, his father a British soldier) is quite a piece of work. He cites himself as a journalist, but when the narrative opens he’s working as a guide and taxi driver in Athens (he’s banned from Egypt and the UK due to petty criminal activities). Yes, he’s a crook, but not a gun-carrying one; he’s middle-aged, overweight and avoids rough play at any cost. In the role of guide he will serve as a procurer for sex, and he will steal your money if the opportunity presents itself. I found this scoundrel to be entirely likeable. The situation he gets into in Day is complicated, though Ambler makes it all clear. Arthur is employed as a driver by a Mr. Harper; he will take a car from Greece into Turkey, for undisclosed purposes. But Arthur is stopped by customs at the Turkish border, and the police remove the door panels of the car and find guns, grenades, etc. Harper is obviously up to no good (possibly political in nature). To find out what his plan is, the Turkish police force reluctant Arthur into the role of agent; he will continue to work for Harper and report his findings. But Harper keeps him in the dark for almost the entire novel as to what the “no good” involves; that audacious plan doesn’t begin to emerge until the last forty pages. A film entitled Topkapi was made from the novel, and though it altered the plot and characters, it’s a good flick in its own way. Of course, it couldn’t use Arthur’s voice, which I will share with you from the opening paragraph: “It came down to this: if I had not been arrested by the Turkish police, I would have been arrested by the Greek police. I had no choice but to do what this man Harper told me. He was entirely responsible for what happened to me.” 4

A Charmed Life – Mary McCarthy

I thought I’d give Mary another chance (after Groves). Was she capable of writing a good novel? Well, yes: this outing was a success, though with limitations. She created a handful of vivid characters; I had definite feelings about Martha, Warren, Polly and Miles (who I detested). She put them in situations (or, rather, messes) that make for fun reading. Her creation of scenes, such as the one involving a courtroom paternity case. is strong. That said, her plotting is weak. This is most evident is the ending, which is no more than a cop out. It’s as if McCarthy threw up her hands in the face of all the complications and said Enough! The setting for the novel is a town called New Leeds, where intellectuals and artists gather, mainly to take advantage of the low cost of living (they’re not successes financially). The natives of the town are depicted as existing on a low scale. Yet the “advanced” types, for all their intelligence and lofty ideas and ideals, carry on stupidly, and McCarthy serves up a wicked look at this type of person. Her braininess sometimes intrudes on the narrative flow, such as in the overly long chapter involving the reading of a Racine play. Also, why are some characters who should play a role left on the sidelines? When we go into Martha’s husband’s mind at the end, one has to wonder why he’s been ignored for nearly 250 pages. I guess it all comes down to this: Mary McCarthy was a very smart woman with a penchant for applying cruel barbs, but she was no novelist. Still, she could be entertaining company. 3