In praise of John O’Hara, an apparently forgotten American writer who could write the pants of many past and present

I think I’ve mentioned the American writer John O’Hara in this blog before, or perhaps I haven’t. But I am about to do so now.

I had never before heard of him until somewhere I saw praised a novel called Appointment In Samara. I don’t know where I saw it praised or even how long ago, but, as I do all too often, I was enthused to buy it, logged on Amazon (brickbats available at all good independent bookshop for that particular internet service) and bought myself a copy. It arrived and then I promptly forgot about it and it languished on my bookshelf for, well, I don’t know how long. If I could remember when I first heard of it, I could, of course, tell you. But I can’t.

Last July I made my, now habitual, trip to South-West France to stay with my aunt – strictly, my stepmother’s sister, but I am one of those who likes to extend family as far and as often as possible) to be her ‘walker’ on visits to the range of concerts held at that time of year in the Bordeaux area. And while I was packing, I looked around for two books to take with me. At the time I was re-reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History Of The United States (which I recommend wholeheartedly to everyone for a very lucid and very useful counterweight to the widespread notion of ‘the Free World’ and how we are all immensely lucky to be living in it, if, of course, we are, and which is, rather predictably hated and po-poed by neo-cons of every stripe) and packed that.

Then I went to my bookshelf and again came across Appointment In Samara, and that, too, went into my bag. As it was I didn’t even open the history book, but read, not quite at one sitting, but at several long sittings, Appointment. And it is very good indeed. I often protest, and not with false modesty, that I am not at all well-read. For a man of my pretensions I am, in fact, abysmally badly-read (I’m assuming that phrase, too, gets a hyphen if it’s cousin does). But I do have very definite ideas on who are good writers and they are not overly conventional. For example, and despite his lack of ‘serious subject matter’, as far as I am concerned the late Elmore Leonard was an exceptionally good American writer. What he could do with words and sentences, which is, after all, partly what ‘writing’ is about, is remarkable.

I realise, being by my own admission, not ‘well-read’, I am on thin ice in my comments, so please bear in mind that I am aware of it. So, for example, quite a few of the world’s most recent novelists writing in English whose work I have attempted to read did not strike me in the slightest as being anything out of the ordinary. Take Martin Amis: I tried him, didn’t get far and gave up. Perhaps , given the hoohah about him in the Eighties – and he was very much an Eighties writer now rather living off past glories (and a new set of teeth, I understand) – I should have persevered. But I didn’t and I take the view that a writer should somehow persuade you to persevere. Amis didn’t.

Then there is Mr Will Self (whose name I thought, when I first came across it, was intended to be some kind of post-ironic, post-modern gibe at modern narcissism, where ‘modern’ holds true of each and every age since the dawn of time, whereas, in fact, ‘Self’ really is his surname): he gave me the distinct impression that by his use of extremely unusual words he was mainly doing nothing but showing off. Look up each and every ‘big’ word he uses and most certainly it is being used appositely. But why not keep it simple? Why, apparently, try to remind folk that they aren’t quite as bright as you are, or, at least, you think you are? Null points for Mr Self (who has, though, unsurprisingly, carved out quite a lucrative existence for himself among the mediocracy, with regular spots on Radio 4, columns in The Observer and as what is sadly often called a ‘social commentator’.

As I am often referred to as ‘Honest Pat’, I do feel obliged to admit that when I have heard a ten-minute piece by Mr Self on Radio 4, I found myself almost always agreeing with him, his intellectually overwrought expression notwithstanding, and that admission comes, as you will most certainly believe, through very gritted teeth.

As for contemporary American writers, I am on even thinner ice. Radio 4 runs its Book At Bedtime programme throughout the week, and a recent book serialised was the most recent by Donna Tartt. Perhaps something is lost in the process of adaptation, but I could not help thinking: she’s a big noise in Yanke literary circles? Really? Why? If some of her good writing had survived the adaptation, she’s not, in my book at least, at all. Good. Then there’s this the apparently current U.S. preoccupation with writing the ‘big novel’, with the suggestion that if it doesn’t come in at at least 600 pages, it’s crap. But let me repeat, there could be – and most probably is, given what I am about to write about John O’Hara – a greats deal I am missing.

. . .

All of the above notwithstanding, quite some time ago I became aware of what I regard as a virtue of ‘American writing’ which does not seem to be shared by British writers. I can, offhand, not think of any other way of putting it but to describe their writing as ‘looser’, and I really do not mean that in any derogatory sense. They seem less contrained, more fluid and fluent. But having said that and given my admission – it’s Honest Pat, remember – I shall say no more, because all I have to go on is the pitiful amount I have so far read. We, or at least, most of us have heard of Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Roth and the other one, whose name I can’t remember. So why does no one, it would seem, talk about O’Hara any more?

After reading Appointment In Samara and after finding out that a great many – around 400 – of his short stories had been published in The New Yorker (more gnashing of teeth by the neo-cons I should imagine, but let’s let that go for now), I bought a volume of his ‘New York’ short stories and very much like those I then read. And I also bought a copy of his second novel Butterfield 8 (Butterfield 8, if you’re a purist).

I finished reading it today and then did what I have previously done with other novels: I immediately started reading it again from the beginning and found that it was even better. I think that stems from the fact that once you have read a novel (and for me reading a novel is as much about ‘the writing’ as it is about anything else) you are more acquainted with it and can savour and appreciate aspects of it which earlier, at the first reading, were not quite as apparent. In the case of Butterfield 8 (OK, you purists Butterfield 8), the dialogue became livelier, in a sense more natural and, although very good at first reading, even better.

I gather O’Hara was respected for his naturalistic dialogue. But once you have read a novel, you – if it is a good novel, which Butterfield 8 is (and I’ll now dispense with the joke about purists) – you know the ‘shape’ and have an overview. Before you read it, you didn’t have that.

Reading O’Hara took a little getting used to. As a Brit and as a Brit who earns his daily crust working as a sub-editor (U.S. copy editor) I am sadly inclined to try to say what has to be said most effectively in the fewest number of words. (The ‘fewest number of words’ is a result of words costing money. That’s why all too often the ‘thats’ are removed from a piece because although they might be useful they are often not really necessary.) Then there’s what non-Brits might regard as Brit tight-aresedness (which is one way of putting it) .

For better or worse we are rather more rigid than non-Brits, often in our writing, hence my admiration for American writers who are good but ‘looser’. So when I first began reading O’Hara’s Appointment In Samara, I would be pulled up short by what might be regarded as oddities in his prose. But this was just a result of my training. Writers can, well all is said and done, write just how they want to, grammar or no grammar: what is important is the end result, not obeying what are at the end of the day merely conventional rulse.

For example, for us sub-editors it is something of a no-no to use the same word twice in the same sentence and we’ll strive to find an alterantive. For a writer, on the other hand, using that same word not just twice but three, four or five times, or however often she or he wants to might well be making a certain point. It’s often puzzled me that we will listen to pieces of music again and again and again, very often in the case of pop songs but also some jazz, rather more rarely with classical pieces, but watching a film again or reading a novel again, as soon as we have seen the film or read the novel, is regarded as, well, rather odd. People ask: why do you want to read it again? You’ve only just read it. Well, above is my answer: the first time is to get to know the novel – and surely to goodness most of us can agree that a novel is more than ‘the story’ – you can now really read it.

Years ago, when I was still at school and a spotty adolescent growing up, I had just one classical LP (older folk will know what that is, younger folk must be told it was the precursor of CDs). It was a recording, by whom I really can’t remember, of Mozart’s 40th and 41st symphonies. And I listened to it again and again and again. So now when I listen to it, I am at the point where I know what this passage is leading to.

There are other pieces and other books which I know as well. My favourite author is Evelyn Waugh, and although I haven’t read all his work (the short stories are very poor) I have read all his novels many times, and each time I get that same feeling of expecation: this bit is just so good. Has no one reading this never read a paragraph again because it is simply so well written. Well, I have, and reading novels again – or watching a film again or listening to a particular recording of a piece of music again, whether pop, jazz or classical – holds the same pleasure.

. . .

I first heard of Butterfield 8 as the film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. Ironically Taylor won her first Oscar for her role even though she hated the film. I saw it a few years ago and thought it was so-so. I have now read the novel on which it was – very loosely – based and although I am fully aware of the dyspeptic pseudo morality Hollywood had made its own since the Hays Act, think the film is – by comparison – abysmal.

Furthermore O’Hara’s Butterfield 8 is crying out to be made into a film again, if for no other reason that the corruped morality and the perverted notions of marriage and family it describes are as prevalent today. In many other ways a new version would be a very different film and I suspect could only be made by an independet filmmaker. And if you don’t understand any of that, read the book and I’m sure you would then agree with me.

A first dispatch . . . (with some pictures)

Las Albadas: Year Three, second day.

Pleasant as always. I was a tad indiscrete (or ‘indiscreet’ – subs please check as at this point I can’t be arsed) in my dispatches from this neck of the Spanish woods last year (or so I’m told), so I shall try for a little more discretion this time round: no names, no pack drill.

Arrived on Thursday, after stopping of at a bar in La Pobla Tornessa and when I discovered it now had wifi for free, gratis and without paying, ‘did the puzzles’ there and then and got them out of the way to make way for a hassle-free seven days (i.e. no scurrying around among my host’s friends and acquaintances as to who has wifi and would it be OK if I came along a did a bit of the work I am obliged to do come rain or shine, work or play). Arrived at just after 6pm and after a few gins it was off up into the hills for a barbecue with a friend of my host’s from when he lived in Cornwall and, would you believe it, the husband of one of the teaching assistant’s at the primary school my daughter and son attended in St Maby. It’s a small cliché, eh? It was a very tasty barbecue, and I enjoyed it immensely even though I must have eaten more meat than I usually do in three years. But what the hell.

Yesterday involved a shopping expedition to Castello or Castell0 – which spelling you subscribe to depends upon whether you are a native of the region of Valencia – to stock up an Heiniken, Larios gin, tonic and lemons, as well as one or two other essentials (including for me, English teabags: I was pleased to find among all the many brands used to prepare the panther piss which is passed off for tea almost everywhere in the world except Old Blighty, on offer was also PG Tips and Tetley teabags of which the Tetley was, at 80 for €3.80, was by far the best value. Brits thinking of heading abroad please note).

After that it was do nothing in the run-up to doing even less (in no particular order) which is my sort of holiday. I’m not really one for marching around museums and visiting other cultural artifacts. Some are, I’m not, and nor am I one for acknowledging any timetable of any description when on holiday. What is the point? Today it was a light lunch at one of the very many restaurants geared up for feeding local Spaniards their lunch. The Spaniards, it seems, are great ones for eating out and don’t need an occasion to do so. I have also been amusing myself taking various photos, of which here is a selection of four. And if you can’t see them, that means my phon is playing up and I cannot transfer them from it to my laptop.

Incidentally: how come this guy can post a blog entry with out wifi? you are surely asking yourselves. Simple really: wifi really is necessary to log onto my computer in London to do all the work, but for reading emails etc, I can use the 3G facility on my phone. It is by no means cheap - £3 for 100Mb (used up in a few secons) and then you pay through the nose – I can write this offline, then post it. And who said I wasn’t immensely clever? Hm

 

Those who are familiar with my host's work will recognise his trademark logo on the wall of his workshop here in Spain

Fuck it up: BMW shows you how. And talking of fuck ups (fucks up?), we still have no idea what is going on in Eastern Ukraine. What we do know is that the EU is getting pretty flabby about it all, now push is coming to shove. But then what do I know?

The conventional, and probably correct, wisdom is that German car makers are good on the technology, but bloody useless at design. That might sound a tad harsh – though you will not hear too many voices disagreeing – but if it isn’t wholly true, BMW aren’t doing their country many favours.

Other conventional wisdoms, now largely redudant were that the French were good at designing interesting looking cars – note ‘interesting looking’ is not exactly a ringing - endorsement, and could be quite good on the technological side, but generally were to complicated for their own good and a bugger to repair (i.e. very high garage bills). The Italians were said to have the design side sown up but generally the cars they produced were rust buckets, fine for the sunnier, dryer climate of the Med, but hopeless once they crossed the Alps.

Then there were British cars: often technologically innovative, but the Brits designed about as well as they cooked. That is their designs were a joke: so we got the ‘Dagenham Dustbin’ – usually the various Ford Cortinas, but more or less any Ford car built in Britain; the Flying Turd – the Mark I Vauxhall Astra:

more or less each and every car produced by a British company that was obliged to keep changing its name to escape prosecution, but here I’ll refer to British Leyland.

They were usually quite awful and that was when they were not simply abysmal. I, who is by no means known for my style, have owned seven of them, two Allegros, two Maestros and three Rovers. In my defence I’ll say that I don’t give a flying fuck about whether or not whatever car I am driving is cool or stylish: when I buy a car, always to replace one which is by then a short drive from the nearest scrapheap, I decide how much I intend to spend – invariably less than £800 – and then cast about for one which is still half-decent and fits my sole criterion.

That was all then, of course, and the whole industry has changed in that most car groups, especially those producing saloons for the middle market, is global. So engineers will be hired in Germany and Britain and designers in Italy. And then, of course, there is the whole range of Far Eastern cars, from Japan, Korea and Malaysia. But they are pretty irrelevant as far as this entry is concerned. This entry is purely concerned with how BMW more or less bought nothing by a name, designed a new car and, almost magically, seemed to have revived the spirit of the original. And then, almost be design, comprehensively proceeded to fuck it all up. That car was the Mini. Here is one of the very first.

It was something else technologically, although the original Fiat 500 (I might well be off on some of the names, but then I am not in the slightest what is known hereabouts as a petrolhead) was a pretty clever design, as was Citroen’s 2CV (of which I have had three, the first, for which I paid way, way, way over the odds to some shyster or other, lasted just one week). But the Mini, which took off like a rocket, was seen everywhere. It was horribly cramped and the suspension was, unless the one you were driving was brand-new, pretty awful. But it was something of an icon, which is why, I suppose, BMW kept the name after buying out British Leyland (or whatever alias it was using in 2000) and sold off everything else to whatever sucker it could find to buy it from them.

Here is one of the first BMW Minis, and the resemblance to the original is uncanny.

But enough wasn’t enough and it could not leave well alone. So then we got this

and then this in my view one of the nastiest designs I have come across. What were they thinking?

And I don’t apologise to anyone who saved up and bought one: you’re a sucker.

. . .

As usual, we don’t really have any idea what is going on except what we see on the TV news or hear on the radio. Newspapers, except perhaps – perhaps – for the ‘serious’ Press (their description, not mine). And, needless to say – although, as always when someone uses that completely redundant phrase, I shall say it, despite it being ‘needless’ – I have no better insight than you.

So, going by what you and I have heard, Russia has more or less ‘invaded’ Eastern Ukraine without appering to have done so. And that, whether you agree or not, is a pretty neat way of going about it. The free West – their description, not mine – claim that bit by bit Russian soldiers have been arriving in dribs and drabs, disguised as tourists or tradesman or something and there is now a sizeable contigent of them sitting somewhere far west of Kiev doing all the things soldiers do when they are about to fight. Russia, for its part, ‘innocent’ and ‘misunderstood’ Russia – its description, not mine – says this is all stuff and nonsense, all made up by America and if there are several of its citizens in Eastern Ukraine, well, why not: a chap needs a bit of down time, fishing or elk hunting or something. You didn’t know there were elks in Eastern Ukraine, did you? Neither did I.

ard on the heels of this revelation or complete nonsense – what you choose to believe depends very much upon whether you dress to the West or the East – comes another story: that far from presenting a united front on these matters, as the euro nerds in Brussels would so dearly love given the huge salaries they command, different EU members are blowing either hot or cold on ‘greater sanctions’. Why that should be the case, if it’s true, and I rather think it is, is the result of just how dependent different EU members are on Russian gas. The Germans, who have jettisoned all their nuclear power production because it’s now cool to be green, are a lot more dependent on it than the French, who produce more than 70pc of their energy in nuclear power plants.

That is not good news, and not just for the euro nerds who are still pushing the ‘EU: all for one and one for all’ line. The latest I have heard is that Putin is now ready for ‘negotiations’ with the government in Kiev – which, remember, is arguably pretty illegitimate given that the previously democratically elected president was more or less deposed in a coup – but that part of the substance of those negotiations will be an element of statehood for Eastern Ukraine. That sounds about right, although I am still baffled by what Putin might be aiming to achieve in the long run. Along those lines I did read – online on The Spectator website – a piece (you can read it here) that in Russian terms Putin’s nationalism, if that is what it is, is by far not the danger we think it is, but that there is a far more nationalistic element in Russia who think Vlad the Lad is a bit of a wuss in matters nationalistic. Who knows?

But I did recall a few days ago how two former British ambassadors to Moscow did opine that by his behaviour this year Putin has rather painted himself into a corner. He must now either press on and on with similar action as we saw in Crimea to keep his popularity up – which, to the universal disgust of Western liberals, is very high – or risk losing face by being more conciliatory and, dare I say, pursuing a more peaceful outcome to what is happening. I think our - the West’s – Achilles heel is our mindset which is now hooked on ever more economic growth and for whom nationalism is a dirty word and which doesn’t simply not accept that for others – many Russians, for example – nationalism can be and end in itself, but can’t even comprehend as much.

e are still stuck in the development of our varied imperialist pasts over these past 100 years or so: in the 18th and 19th centuries Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, to a lesser degree Germany, and the U.S. – yes, them, too – went around ‘conquering the world’ mainly to find more markets for their goods. That, in a way, is how we still think.

Whatever nationalism which became apparent was, as far as I am concerned, merely a fig-leaf to hide our more venal instincts. We can’t quite grasp that ‘making ever more money’ might not be quite as vital to the psyche of a nation than national pride, however lethal the national pride might find itself being expressed.

Ooh Vicar! Or how I learnt to love smut and realised early in my life that Donald McGill, Max Miller, Julian Clary, Humphrey Lyttelton and the rest are our true British heroes

A woman walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre. So the barman gave her one.

If 1) You don’t understand what’s going on; or 2) You do understand what’s going and think I should be ashamed of myself, this blog entry will certainly not be for you. But if 3) You do understand what’s going on and smiled, sniggered, chuckled or perhaps even laughed, read on.

NB This entry and the four soundfiles below will be of especial use to all those learning English and/or who are not British but are keen to gain a deeper understanding of the British psyche. Here are four soundfiles which together make up a recent 30-minute edition of a Radio 4 programme called Word Of Mouth. (It is split into four parts because that was the only way I could post it here).

I listen to it regularly because I find the English language and the myriad facets of it fascinating. The most recent edition is called Rude Health and was presented by the actor Arthur Bostrom who played the Captain Crabtree in ’Allo ’Allo!, a British spy in occupied France during World War II who has a very poor command of French. In it he talks about our British predilection for double entendre. Give it a whirl.

NB The soundfiles will not play in Opera (Edit Feb, 26, 2022: they might do now), but do play in other browsers, most certainly Firefox and Safari. I would, of course, like to add that there is a serious purpose to this post, but there isn’t. Sorry.

Happy sniggering.


First part


Second part


Third part


Fourth part

Donald McGill is mentioned in the programme, and here a couple of examples of his postcards. At the bottom is one produced by the Bamforth & Co Ltd of Leeds. They are in a similar vein, but often the entendre is not very double, though I find them just as funny.

My lad and his pride and joy

A few months ago, I recorded that my son had asked for a dog for his birthday, and that I had put my foot down and firmly told him ‘no way’.

I was wise enough to realise that my role in life is to pay the household bills but otherwise stay as quiet as possible and that the only local decision I am allowed to make is when and where to take a dump. And I predicted in the piece that when I returned home from London the following Wednesday from my weekly four-day stint playing my part in keeping the world free by battling for the Truth To Out as a member of Her Majesty’s Press (Puzzles and Tea rounds), there to greet me would most certainly be the puppy I had insisted would never, but never be a pat of our household. And so there was.

Russell, as my son has called him, is a Jack Russell - Russell, geddit - and is a lovely little thing. I soon realised, of course, that my wife also wanted a dog in the house (I’m obviously not enough for her on that score) so the deal was done long, long ago. I must admit I like dogs and I like cats.

My objection to us acquiring a dog is that they are not like some ten-a-penny object which can be bought, broken and tossed out on the same day, but a living thing which deserves as much care as, well, a young child. I kept insisting that a cat should be the answer if we were to have a pet. Cats are simple: after the initial house training, you feed them, and that is about all the care they need. They don’t need to be walked, look after their ‘exercise’ themselves, don’t slavishly run up to you for a bout of affection every 30 seconds and generally are the kind of pet this pragmatist prefers. But it was not to be.

So below is my son and young Russell.

He is still in the early stages of being house-trained and I for one still don’t recognise the signs he gives out when he needs a pee, but generally he has settled in well. He is not the sharpest blade in the box - what dog is except those trotted out on daytime TV who can perform some stupid trick with a box of tissues and a jug of water? - but he has real character and I have taken to him.