The Dark Gift of Writer John O’Hara
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Below is
a review from Amazon.com about a collection of O’Hara short stories followed by
three comments from review readers and then an afterword by the blog author.
Not among the great writers of short- stories
June 27, 2010
By Shalom Freedman
This review is from: Collected Stories of John O'Hara:
Selected and With an Introduction by Frank MacShane (Hardcover)
Frank MacShane in his informative
introduction to these Selected Stories claims that O'Hara is among the first
rank of story writers. MacShane says it is the skill at dialogue, the
brilliance at capturing so many different human types and voices which puts
O'Hara in the first rank of story- writers. The opening story of the collection
which was the best of those I read 'The Doctor's Son' gives some substantiation
to MacShane's assertion. Set during the influenza epidemic during the First War
it tells of a doctor's son and his adventures with the young doctor who comes
to fill in for his father. In making the rounds we meet various communities
each a part of the American mosaic. The dialogue brings the various voices to
life. But what makes the story powerful is the harrowing and frightening
descriptions of the effects of the epidemic. There is a sharpness and strength
in the writing. One has a sense of a writer who really knows his characters and
world. And yet the story ends to my mind in a disappointing way. Somehow the
characters are not explored deeply enough. And if this is true in the opening
story it is even more so in many of the more incidental smaller pieces which
are more properly called vignettes. There is in the O'Hara world much
incidental meaning, much off- hand connection. There are not the passions of
Chekhov and Isaac Singer, nothing like the linguistic brilliance of Joyce, no
characters who win our sympathy as Anderson 's do
in 'Winesburg Ohio
In one sense the greatest Literature is that which makes us love life more, and
see it as something greater than what we ourselves have known and experienced.
Unfortunately O'Hara's work has for me the opposite effect.
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Three reviews of the above review
Magyar says:
You are certainly entitled to your
opinion. I, personally, disagree with you VERY strongly. I don't know what
stories are in here, EXCEPT "Imagine Kissing Pete", which (again in
my opinion) is one of the best Novellas ever written.
My suggestion to you is to pick up "Cape Cod Lighter". Read "You don't remember Me", "Your Funeeh, Funeeh face", and the short story with Lefty Gaines as the main character. (The story that starts at a funeral). If you STILL do not think John O'Hara was one ofAmerica
My suggestion to you is to pick up "Cape Cod Lighter". Read "You don't remember Me", "Your Funeeh, Funeeh face", and the short story with Lefty Gaines as the main character. (The story that starts at a funeral). If you STILL do not think John O'Hara was one of
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manny says:
writing is subjective. I believe I
have read most of his shortstories. my sister recently gave me the gift of
"the horse knows the way", which I had read long ago. still
wonderful. if you don't get the writing , well, whatever.
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Anna Hunt says:
I would have to say I'm for the
defense on this. O'Hara is a brilliant writer, but requires close reading. In
his best writing the real story is in the background, the Doctor's Son being a
perfect example. The characters in the foreground of the story are the son,
Myers and Evans; the affair being the center of the plot, but the real main
character is the influenza and how it is affecting everyone's lives. The change
in the relationship between Myers and the father shows this. The father
obviously finds out about the affair and cuts it short by returning to work; he
casually mentions he doesn't have a place on his staff for Myers and steers him
away from Gibbsville. How the epidemic affects everyone is dealt with in a very
matter of fact way, the way it happens in real life. It's something he does
over and over again. It is more obvious in works like Pal Joey, but much more
subtle in, for example, a Rage to Live. Having said that, it can be easy to
miss what is happening in the background; that just makes him more of a
pleasure to reread. But I would agreed there is a toughness, and sometimes a
meanness, towards his characters and you can feel him toying with them.
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Afterword by the Blog Author
More than a little bit like Kipling, John O’Hara remains one
of the genuinely hated twentieth century writers. I think O’Hara will survive and grow in the
twenty-first century, partly because of the bias
in that hatred.
O’Hara himself was needled by the critics of his own time
and not regarded as one of the best writers; specifically, he was a second
banana in the eyes of critics to John Steinbeck. O’Hara’s defense, which is my own defense of
O’Hara as well, is that he was writing about the actual lives of most Americans
in the first half of the twentieth century rather than writing sentimentally
about rural America
O’Hara believed in the inherent pettiness and resentfulness
of the American people, a view that is abhorrent to many but which has not been
successfully challenged as a matter of intelligent criticism. Because O’Hara brought the concept of
original sin into modern life, vividly and through the storytelling of a
classic, Greek, cynic narrator, he was a significant and even great
writer. O’Hara is telling us that the
great American religion is resentment and that the overwhelming mood of
Americans is competitiveness.
O’Hara’s peer and fellow-traveler, at least in terms of my
own reading, is Margaret Mitchell and her not-yet-fully-appreciated masterpiece
Gone with the Wind, a war epic that
hauntingly remains the great story of obsessive love that falls apart. These are both writers that shunned happy
endings. And contrary to most cookbooks
on how to write fiction, they both wrote books that became fabulously successful
movies. O’Hara’s Butterfield 8 secured a best actress award deservedly given to
Elizabeth Taylor.
O’Hara’s world is neither pretty nor optimistic. But I want to say something about his
overview because this is 2016 and I am 64 years old. My grandparents were born in 1894, 1894, 1900
and 1907. They were in their 20s and 30s
when O’Hara wrote his best work during the depression. He was right.
He wrote accurately and journalistically about a mean world that
worshipped resentment. The worth
inherent in such narration may finally be valued when the last of the
depression era children are gone.
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