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, Dolly 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

The Fountain Overflows – Rebecca West

Rose tells the story – it begins when she’s young, maybe nine, and ends about ten years later – and it’s very much a family chronicle. She has a twin sister, Mary, and an older sister, Cordelia; her little brother is Richard Quin. The mother is a reliable presence, but the father is a remote figure (mostly in his study, writing political tracts). All members of the Aubrey family exist on a high cultural level and are unique, extraordinary, exceptional, gifted – except one: Cordelia (also known as “poor Cordelia”). The gift the father has is intellectual in nature, whereas the mother and Rose and Mary are highly talented pianists. Though Richard Quin is capable of mastering anything he casually attempts, his main gift is his goodness: he aspires to be liked, and everyone loves him. There’s no conventional plot carrying the reader over the years; the book is a series of events (including a murder trial) strung together. A mix of interesting and colorful characters are introduced, but all events are confined to interaction between the members of the family (there are no scenes with Rose at school, for example). West handles her material in a way that’s not at all heavy; she’s often quite funny and her prose is inventive in a quietly beautiful way. This novel about extraordinary people can rightfully be called extraordinary, and if you love Rose you may love it. I didn’t love nor dislike her, but I was often bothered by the way she thought and acted. And some minor players in the family didn’t hold up to scrutiny. The beloved father, who is forgiven for all his misdeeds, was, to me, unforgivably selfish and irresponsible; Richard Quin was simply too good to be true. The mother was laudable – the family could not have survived without her. But, though she could be compassionate, she was also judgmental in a mean way (she would dismiss someone for their bad taste in the choice of a hat). Maybe Rose and Mary got this attitude from her. Which brings us to “poor Cordelia.” She plays the violin with perfect technique but a complete absence of feeling; in other words, atrociously. She’s unaware of her lack, and haplessly plunges ahead on her musical “career.” No one in the family tells her the blunt truth, but Rose and Mary treat her with disdain. The mother addresses this issue with the girls in the closing pages of the book: their uniqueness (their talent) gave them the eccentricity, the oddness, to accept the hardships of their childhood. They could endure being different. Ordinary Cordelia could not. Thus life, in the family, was miserable for her. Why wasn’t this lesson impressed on the girls 400 pages earlier, so that the vulnerable one was treated more kindly? Why, when Cordelia was starting out on the violin, wasn’t she gently diverted away from it by the mother? Actually, these questions show my level of involvement, which was high. The novel is classified as semi-autobiographical (with an emphasis on the “semi”) and was the first of a projected trilogy; West completed the next two in the series, but she wasn’t happy with them and they were never published in her lifetime. I’ll abide by her judgment and not go any further with the Aubreys. Oddly enough, she dedicated Fountain to her older sister, Letitia Fairfield, who, it’s said, objected to her portrayal as Cordelia. I don’t blame her. It’s interesting to note that, in real life, poor, hapless, deluded Cordelia went on to become a distinguished doctor and lawyer.

Selected Letters of John O’Hara

Let me explain. I read approximately half the words of the letter collections that keep popping up in these reviews. I leaf idly through their pages after finishing my serious reading (in which I don’t skip a word). Since letters do bring you close to someone, it may be a way for me to commune with another person. In the case of John O’Hara, his forceful character is partially submerged in a lot of verbiage regarding money matters (contracts, promotion of his books, etc.), so more than the usual amount of skimming took place. At any rate, I’m going to limit my comments to an issue I mention in my essay, “Reading Other People’s Mail.” I write about how successful authors are often discontent. O’Hara was world famous, made a lot of money and achieved critical acclaim and awards. Yet, as his fame grew, he was constantly carping about negative reviews and about not receiving other awards he believed he deserved (most of all, he coveted no less than the Nobel Prize). He could get quite aggressive about being underappreciated. So the success he did achieve was not enough; it actually seemed to spur on a desire – which would inevitably go unfulfilled – for more. But in his final five years this desire seemed to subside into peaceful acceptance. And he had two things to fall back on: to all indications his long marriage was a happy one, and it’s quite certain that the compulsion – and the enthusiasm – to keep writing never left him. The editor of this collection, Matthew Bruccoli, chose to end the book with a nondescript letter and no closing annotation about the author’s death (I turned to the next page and was staring at an index). This struck me as both negligent and rudely abrupt. So I’ll provide an account of the last hours of John O’Hara: he was at his desk, working on a novel, when he complained of chest pains; he went to bed early and was found dead the next morning.

The Blunderer – Patricia Highsmith

The strong sense of corruption emanating from this crime novel could be considered an asset, but I was often repelled by it. Of the three main characters, the perverted Kimmel was hard to stomach, as was a sadistic police detective by the name of Corby. It was Walter who I could relate to, and his predicament kept me turning pages. He reads a newspaper article about an unsolved murder and suspects that a man named Kimmel had used a certain tactic to murder his wife. Walter is trapped in a marriage to an unstable woman, and he gets the idea (just an idea, not a fully thought-out plan) of killing Clara in the same way. He proceeds up to a certain point, but circumstances ensue so that he commits no murder. We can’t know whether he would have carried out the deed (he doesn’t know), but it leads us to a question: should Walter be punished for his thoughts and intentions? He is punished – step by step his life unravels. The plot is strong in its conception, and Walter’s dilemma is convincing. That said, we keep treading the same ground; the novel is way too long. It’s also quite grisly (it begins and ends with luridly described murders). As for anyone contemplating marriage, Highsmith’s highly cynical depiction of human relationships might well scare them off.

Selected Letters of William Styron

I started – but never finished – Styron’s two major works, The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie’s Choice. This was long before I was doing reviews, so I can’t give specific reasons as to why I abandoned them (though I vaguely recall strong negative feelings). I did read all of Darkness Visible, his short memoir about his bout with depression, and his fine novella, The Long March. But I have no interest in tackling his first and second novels (both, as is true with Nat and Sophie, are enormous). Though I don’t qualify as a fan of his writing, Styron had a prominent place in the literary scene in the second half of the twentieth century. I didn’t suspect how far-reaching that place was. Apparently he had personal charm (or something going for him), because he was able, over the years, to establish close relationships with just about everybody who mattered. This extended to people in the uppermost tier of politics and pop culture (he palled around with the likes of JFK and Jackie, Sinatra and Mia). I could see one aspect of his success with other writers: his glowing comments about their work. Here’s a sample, taken at random: “It is an overwhelmingly splendid achievement that has left me gasping for superlatives.” He does a lot of gasping in these pages. In Advertisements for Myself Norman Mailer wrote that Styron “oiled every literary lever and power” to advance himself (as if he, Mailer, didn’t also work to make the right contacts). This attack – which was returned in kind – gives a look at the feuding that often crops up among writers. If Styron doled out praise, he needed it too, and he got combative toward those who viewed his work negatively; for him criticism cut deep. Though he succeeded as few writers do, and enjoyed many of the perks of that success, in his last two decade he published almost no fiction, and in his final six years his depression would return and overwhelm him. I found the book to be an interesting read (though there was much skimming over its 640 pages). I had questions in regard to what the compiler – Styron’s wife Rose – chose to include and exclude. There’s not one letter to her, nor to three of his four children (his eldest daughter gets ten, all cheerful and loving). I think some major tinkering was going on regarding personal matters. As I read these letters I initially felt dislike for the man, but gradually my attitude grew more forgiving. That tends to happen when the span of a life unfolds, from youth to old age.

Reading My Father - Alexandra Styron

I skimmed this book to find out about Styron’s relationship with his family, a subject that I thought had been avoided in the letters his wife chose to publish. According to his daughter, the father she grew up with was someone she tried to avoid (as did her mother, who stayed away from the house as much as possible). He had a volatile temper and went into verbally abusive rants at the slightest provocation. He comes across as a supremely selfish and self-centered man who was frequently unfaithful to his wife and largely indifferent to Alexandra. Being the youngest of his four children, she got the worst of him, for in her teenage years his ability to write began to desert him. Darkness Visible, his account of the depression that he experienced in his fifties, ends on an upbeat note; but the assault on his mind and body that reoccurred fifteen years later was brutal and unrelenting. Alexandra chronicles his decline, and it’s a frightening story. It provoked in me some radical thoughts. Why are doctors and mental care facilities so determined to keep patients from committing suicide? If someone reaches the point of no return and nothing in the medical arsenal helps – as was the case with Styron – it would be humane to let them have  access to a pill to put them out of their misery. I also questioned whether Styron was deserving of the care he received from his wife and children for the last six years of his life. Though Alexandra tries to evoke feelings of love and sympathy for her father, she was clearly conflicted. While at the Duke University library, going through letters he had received from readers, she wonders, “how could a guy whose thoughts elicit this much pathos have been, for so many years, such a monumental asshole?” She feels like “picking up the letters by the fistful and shouting into the silence of the library, PEOPLE! Do you have ANY idea of who you are dealing with here?” (Italics the author’s.)

Ten North Frederick – John O’Hara

His more literary contemporaries expressed disdain for O’Hara’s writing, but I think their real gripe was that his books sold quite well. Though he did churn out a lot of mediocre work, he should be judged by the four long, ambitious novels he produced at the midpoint of his career. Ten North Frederick, the second of the four, tells the life story of Joe Chapin. We get to know Joe mainly by what he says. Even detractors acknowledge O’Hara’s ability to capture speech. This may seem like a minor distinction, but through speech a personality can emerge. Joe is a good man – no vices, really, until alcohol brings him down (though he had resigned from life before the serious drinking began). The odd twist is that this lawyer from Gibbsville, Pennsylvania aspires to become no less than president of the United States. Why? Perhaps the answer lies in his belief that he isn’t ordinary, and that his convictions have value. Of course, he fails dismally – in the political arena he’s a lamb among wolves. O’Hara was for many years a newspaper man, and he knew how to write eminently readable prose. This background also gave him a wide range of experience of life in this country in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. His stated purpose was “to record the way people talked and thought and felt, and do it with complete honesty and variety.” He largely succeeds. But, as is true in gymnastics, one must nail the landing; if you stumble, you detract from an otherwise excellent routine. O’Hara stumbles. I believe he made his misstep because he came to love Joe, and so he grants him a brief interlude of happiness with a woman the age of his daughter. This contrived and somewhat mushy episode is at odds in a novel that is otherwise firmly grounded in reality. All in all, Ten North Frederick is a solid achievement, both as entertainment and literature, and it deserved the National Book Award it received in 1956.

The Spoilt City - Olivia Manning

The second of the Balkan Trilogy. As with the first (The Great Fortune) the setting is Bucharest. World War II has broken out and the city is in disarray as its residents face an imminent invasion. But unfortunately Harriet and Guy Pringle get most of the attention, and they’re not particularly interesting. Guy remains vague; this is an autobiographical work, and Manning seems to be walking on egg shells when dealing with her husband (probably because he’s an ass). Yaki is still the most alive, multi-dimensional character, and Bucharest is still a fascinating place, but they get second billing.

Friends and Heroes - Olivia Manning

This last novel in a trilogy has Harriet and Guy in Greece, with Guy’s difficulty getting a job the main focus. He’s still vague (sigh). There’s a suggestion of Harriet having a fling with a handsome young fellow, but we know she’s too proper to do it. The book takes on aspects of a romance novel, and Yaki is gone, so I stopped reading about the bland and tiresome Pringles.

A Man of the People - Chinua Achebe

The problem with this novel is that Achebe mixes politics with romance, and the romance part is weak. Nanga, the corrupt political boss, is a forceful, repellant character. The narrator is a good (and amusing) observer – until he falls in love. When the emphasis changes to the love affair, the book suffers.

The Collected Stories of John O’Hara

There are lessons to be learned from O’Hara: how to entertain (all the stories capture and hold one’s attention); how to use dialogue (it’s naturalistic and reveals character); and how to make an ending resonate. There’s a revelatory jolt at the close of the best of these stories, such as “Can I Stay Here?” What is revealed lingers with you. This isn’t a trick ending; it flows from under the surface of what has gone before. The problem is that O’Hara often doesn’t have that moment. All else is there – the entertainment, the good dialogue; but, without an ending of consequence the story is merely good; there aren’t enough very good ones in this collection. The longest (a full-fledged novella) is the worst piece of writing in the book. Surely the editor, Frank MacShane, could have made a better choice. On the flip side, “Over the River and Through the Woods” belongs in any anthology of the best American short stories. Young writers should read O’Hara and recognize his virtues.