We move away from Julian for a moment to focus, again, on the crowd. His imagination runs freely and he pictures his drink flowing down Harry Reilly’s body, under his clothes. Still, it was fun to think about it.Īnd think about it he does. Julian English sat there watching him, through his eyes that he permitted to appear sleepier than they felt. Why, he wondered, did he hate Harry Reilly? Why couldn’t he stand him? What was there about Reilly that caused him to say to himself: “If he starts one more of those moth-eaten stories I’ll throw this drink in his face.” But he knew he would not throw this drink or any other drink in Harry Reilly’s face. He and his wife Caroline are members of the Gibbsville social elite. Julian is getting drunk and is becoming increasingly upset by the boisterous Harry Reilly. It is at at this holiday part that we meet the principle character, Julian English, a relatively successful Cadillac dealer in his early thirties.
The curious thing about her was that four of the young men had had work-outs with her off the dance floor, and as a result Constance was not a virgin yet the young men felt so ashamed of themselves for yielding to a lure that they could not understand, in a girl who was accepted as not attractive, that they never exchanged information as to Constance Walker’s sex life, and she was reputed to be chaste. We meet people who will never again appear in the novel, but the scene is a nice collage of the secrets that live under the surface of this small town’s society: Notwithstanding the fine introduction to the Fliegler’s sex life, we move quite quickly past them and arrive at a holiday party where “veryone was drinking, or had just finished a drink, or was just about to take one.” In this scene we see O’Hara stretch out and employ his larger skills of social observation and criticism, which is probably the reason he was so often in The New Yorker.
They have money trouble, but it seems that most of the problems are social. The Great Depression is affecting everyone, but most of the characters in this novel are among the least affected. The title and short vignette would never have led me to think this story took place in Pennsylvania honestly, the title and the vignette would never have led me to think of anything that takes place in this story, except, well, death. The Flieglers serve to introduce us to Gibbsville, the Pennsylvania community. The awful proximity of his heartbeats makes Luther Fliegler begin to want his wife a little, but Irma can say no when she is tired. She has earned her sleep, for it is Christmas morning, strictly speaking, and all the day before she has worked like a dog, cleaning the turkey and baking things, and, until a few hours ago, trimming the tree. (L for LeRoy) Fliegler, who is lying in his bed, not thinking of anything, but just aware of sounds, conscious of his own breathing, and sensitive to his own heartbeats. Lying beside him is his wife, lying on her right side and enjoying her sleep. I was pleased when I started reading the actual book O’Hara wrote to find that it, too, would have convinced me to buy the book. The first paragraph is frank and written in the kind of clarity I find very attractive: Well, even though Maugham didn’t write the book, his short story sold me. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.
I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. I went into the bookstore looking for BUtterfield 8, but, when it wasn’t there, I opened Appointment in Samarra and found at the beginning this short vignette by Somerset Maugham: I don’t know much about John O’Hara, other than that during his lifetime he was frequently published in The New Yorker and that of the books he wrote a couple are still frequently brought up, BUtterfield 8 and, his first, Appointment in Samarra. Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara (1934) Vintage (2003) 251 pp
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