The World of Henry Orient: A Novel

by Nora Johnson

Val and Marian, two teenage school girls growing up in New York City, are misfits. Val, virtually ignored by her wealthy parents, lives at a boarding house where she is watched over by an arty but childless couple. Marian lives with her divorced mother and her mother’s friend and rarely sees her father. Marian spends her afternoons eating sundaes at a local drugstore; Val disappears mysteriously each afternoon before school is let out. They don’t seem to have much in common with the other girls at their school nor even with each other. Yet together they find friendship and adventure in this poignant and witty novel, as they follow the life of one mediocre pianist, and learn what it means to grow up.

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Coming Of Age, Novels, New York, Classics

243 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Nora Johnson was the daughter of film writer, director and producer Nunnally Johnson, pivotal in such acclaimed films as 'The Grapes of Wrath'. She attended the Brearley School in New York City and in 1954 graduated from Smith College.

Her first and most well-known novel, The World of Henry Orient (1956), was based on her experiences at the Brearley School. In 1964 it was made into a movie produced and co-scripted by her father, Nunnally Johnson, and starring Peter Sellers. In 1957 The Atlantic Monthly published her influential article "Sex and the College Girl", which culled her experiences at Smith to discuss then-current attitudes towards sex on American campuses.

Reviews

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The movie The World of Henry Orient was one of my favorites when I was a kid, but I never knew it was made based on a book until I found the book on Goodreads. I really enjoyed reading this. Pure nostalgia. While reading, I pictured the movie’s actors as being the characters. As I expected, the story was slightly different from that in the movie and the ending was somewhat different as well. I’m partial to the movie (5 stars!), but most likely that’s because it’s an old favorite. When young, a friend and I got ideas for doing “detective work” about people from the movie. A fun read, although it’s actually a very serious story.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huh, for some reason I have been remembering this book like some kind of deja-vu mystery from my childhood, and then yesterday I remembered the title. So imagine my surprise to see that it was gone for years and fnally reprinted in 2002. I don't remember anything about it except that I was utterly charmed and reread it quite a few times. I may see if the library has it, I'd love to revisit the Lori I was as a child.

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those random finds that I'm glad I came across because it was far better than I expected it to be. I've been aware that this was a movie starring Peter Sellers for years, and had kinda meant to watch it at some point. I've even seen a bit of the beginning, but when I realized recently that it was a book, my mind reminded me that books are generally better than the movies based on them and sought out the book instead. That was a wise decision, even if it left me with a couple questions at the end.

So, the book itself is a great story that explores the lives of two girls growing up in New York. We see the story from the point of view of Marian Gilbert, but the focus is almost entirely on Val Boyd. I hesitate to say too much about why that is, but through her we get to explore themes of mental stability, broken homes and friendship. The ending is not what I expected, of course, but it brings a lot of things into focus that were left to the reader to either pick up on or try to remember until they are explained later. This made it an intriguing book as we slowly discover who Val is, and Marian too.

My one big question to come out of this though, and I should probably just watch the movie to find out, is how the hell they made a movie starring Peter Sellers as Henry Orient when we barely see the guy in the book? He exists, but he never interacts with the cast and never talks. He's just there as an object or idea. I guess it doesn't matter. It just baffles me a little bit, but that aside, the book is good and I'm glad I took the time to read it.

[Vivian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of two girls, both loners, who meet at a private girls' school in New York City and is told in first person, past tense by Marian who is looking back on her first friendship. She is the only child of a divorced woman in a time when divorce was stigmatized. Val is the only child of successful "jet setters" and has been raised in institutions. She is at once rebellious and delightful, energetic and creative, genius and prodigy, and deeply troubled.

Val becomes obsessed with a concert pianist and Marian aids and abets her in collecting information, creating a secret code for communication, and documenting their finds in an elaborate scrapbook -- hence "the world of Henry Orient".

There is plenty of fun, drama, angst, and suspense, all seasoned with a bit of contemplation and mentoring. Today's reader might not catch that the term "pansy" meant "gay" and the word "queer" still meant "strange" and not "gay".

Six years following the book's publication a comedy film was made, starring Peter Sellers. The film takes much artistic liberty with the book, and in many ways is certainly more entertaining. However, the book provides much more satisfaction in terms of providing substance to contemplate.

This story predates Chaim Potok's seminal novel THE CHOSEN by some ten years, yet I found myself noting similarities in each story -- two brilliant young adults who develop an unlikely friendship as they navigate their way through the shoals and rapids of growing up. Both stories include Freud's new science of psychoanalysis and its application.

[Googz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sure, it's a book about 13-year-old girls, but it's also a brilliant coming-of-age story (and really, a solid story about the perils of friendship for anyone of any age, too). I picked up the book having loved the movie (which stars Peter Sellers in the title role). Now I need to see the movie once more! The book got a little text-book-psychological towards the end (and even mentioned characters who did exactly that) but did, for a book that's about 50 years old now, seem extremely modern in its treatment of a number of subjects. Or maybe I'm just old-fashioned. Anyway, I always enjoy a good coming-of-age story, and this one did not disappoint. Deceptively simple--it seems like maybe it's going the "Young Adult Fiction" route at first--THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT actually works, cerebrally speaking, on a lot of adult levels. Kudos to Nora Johnson (daughter of famed Hollywood screenwriter Nunally Johnson), who adapted her own novel for the screenplay to the movie of the same title...I don't know if she ever wrote any other novels, but I would be interested to seek them out if she did!

[Czarny Pies · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book after having seen the movie. Being thirteen at the time, I found the teenage female protagonists quite fascinating. My sons however when they were the age of the heroine simply found her infatuation a middle-aged second-rater to be utter folly and had no sympathy with her.

Nonetheless this novel is well done even if it no longer connects with the audience that it was written for.

[Steven Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago and love to go back to it. It is a great adolescent story of friendship, adjustment, and an evocative picture of New York in the fifties. I first saw the movie of this book (which is also very good but somewhat more optimistic), and the writing and empathy with the characters makes for an enjoyable and satisfying read. 'Someone who can play violin to your piano' is how friendship is defined. isn't that what we all want?

[Kiwi Carlisle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I've ever read about the mind of an adolescent girl moving from childhood into the edge of adulthood. It definitely presents a vanished world, but there is much there for many who remember the tribulations of that age. I was intrigued to note that Nora Johnson changed the ending to a rather more upbeat one for the movie, as well as deepening some plot lines at the expense of others.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was first aware of this story via the wonderfully charming 1964 movie with Tippy Walker and Merrie Spaeth as the two girls, Angela Lansbury as Val's mother, Tom Bosley as Val's father, and Peter Sellers as Henry Orient.

Wow! How very different the ending is from the movie version. Val's father in particular! I wonder how Nora Johnson felt about what the other screenplay writer, Nunnally Johnson (Nora Johnson's father), did to change her story.

Surprisingly, I prefer the movie version. Usually it's the other way around.

     Val was looking thoughtfully at my mother. "I can't stand to call you Mrs. Gilbert any more," she said. "I'd like to call you Wimpole."
     "Good God," Boothy said. "Why Wimpole?"
     "She just looks like Wimpole, and acts like Wimpole. I can't explain it."
     "Do I?' my mother asked. "Funny, it's never occurred to me."
     "Your maiden name was Wimpleton, so you're Wimpole. I know you too well to say Mrs. Gilbert, and I can't call you Avis. So something in the middle is needed." [chapter 4, p.48]
~~~~
     "Do you girls have any idea what time it is?"
     We both jumped. Wimpole's voice came through the air like a gong.
     "How did she get in?" Val whispered. "I didn't think any was . . ."
     As though to answer her, Isabel appeared in the living room door, and Wimpole behind her.
     "I don't understand!" I gasped, before I could stop myself.
[...]
     I wondered if I was losing my mind. How could she . . . did I ever see her at Henry's apartment, or was it all a nightmare? Perhaps I had had some sort of vision in the hall, like a saint. But here she was in the same dress she had been wearing, a dark red dress with a low neckline, and a gold necklace, all as I had seen it before. [...] She must have just gotten here, about five minutes ago. Isabel was watching me with a curious, unfathomable expression on her face.
     "I just discovered all this a few minutes ago, " she said, echoing my thoughts. "I've been at the Billings', and I just got back." [...] "I found your mother here. She's been calling all over. And Arthur has been distraught."
     Slowly, we followed her into the living room. Wimpole stood by the door, still in her coat. Arthur was sprawled in a chair with a drink in his hand, looking not at all distraught. [chapter 12, p.184,185,186]

The girls are pretty much the same in the book and the movie. Their dialogue is also virtually identical in book and screenplay.

The book contains some beautiful writing.

I wandered up Fifth Avenue. It was snowing softly, and the shop windows glittered with Christmas. From inside, I could hear carols being played on chimes. [...] Up above in the windows, behind the glass revolving doors that turned and whispered in the flaky snow, beyond the fragile crystal trees in the Park, in all the carpeted steaming lobbies and in all the living rooms where candles glowed on the mantles and the lights twinkled and moves on the trees, there, if you could gather it all up in your hand like a snowball, was fulfillment. [...] Can you ever have everything you want? I wondered, standing on the corner of Fifty-ninth. Or do the people inside and above just rush around, trying to have a bit here and a bit there, hoping it will do? It seemed like an unjustifiable cruelty, for one place to have so much; for one place to be so agonizingly beautiful. [Chapter 7, p.86]

[Diane Ensminger · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I saw this book, I immediately remembered the movie from the '60s. Had been 14 at the time and I remembered it well. I read the book and enjoyed it, except that the end wasn't as satisfying as the movie. I didn't see why it was necessary that the friends break up. I kept remembering the movie and wishing that the book had a more upbeat ending. In the book Val's psychiatrist explained that the girls shouldn't be friends any more, but I couldn't follow that logic. It sounded a little harsh. I saw that YouTube has the movie for free so I watched it. The movie was more amusing, especially the part where the girls followed Henry Orient around. Today that might be called stalking, but since this was made years ago in the days of Beatlemania, maybe it would have been considered normal to follow a musician that had developed a crush on. It does provide an amusing part in the plot where the girls are outside Henry's apartment in the morning. In the book the character, Val who has a crush on Henry Orient, doesn't follow him, but she and her friend collect information on him in a scrapbook. Then her mother finds the scrapbook and misunderstands. In the book Val's family get back together. That sounds good, but you wonder if it really is since Val's mother is very superficial and not really interested in her. However in the movie Val's father steps in to help her. Also, the friends remain friends. The book did have better character build up that described who the main characters really were and why they acted the way they did.

[Poptartk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after two friends discussed it on Facebook—it had been a tween favorite of theirs, something they read repeatedly, and the movie version was also a childhood treat for them. I, on the other hand, had never heard of either the book OR the movie. From their descriptions, it sounded like a book I would have also gotten hooked on when I was 11 or 12 years old, so I thought I'd take a look.

It IS the type of book I would have fallen in love with at that tender age. It would have certainly influenced my outlook on my rather pedestrian small-town life (although even by then I knew I'd end up a city girl eventually). The conclusion would have bothered me, though. Well, maybe puzzled and worried me is more like it.

I found the conclusion to be a bit too realistic for the audience (i.e., me at 11), and at first I thought that this was a deal-breaker for a rating of 4. It totally undercut the most wonderfully shiny descriptions of NYC at Christmas (my favorite time to visit the city), told through the eyes of child. It suddenly became very serious and, for the 11 year old who still resides within me, disturbing. But the more I pondered this turn of events, the more I realized that the serious ending was a bold, if jarring move. It spoke the truth to the kind of reader of target age who was ready (but maybe not so willing, yet) to hear it.

I'm sorry I didn't find this when I was part of that target audience—but maybe that is just as well.

[Zoann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember fondly a 1964 movie called the World of Henry Orient. Recently, I saw that the author of the book the movie was based died. I didn't realize the movie was based on a book and decided to read the book.

The book is much darker than the movie and is more serious in its purpose. It definitely gives one a sense of what New York city was like in the late '50's--a place where two young teenagers could freely wander the city without a second thought. I liked this:

"I had an alarming view of the narrowing end of the way, with mystery over the horizon. It will end, I thought. It won't go on forever, like this. And every day is important, and the most important of all are the moments when you choose what to do next. "

[L.M. Vincent]

Decided to read this after learning of Nora Johnson's recent death; I had never read this book or seen the movie. I'm glad I did, although I needed to continually transfer my sensibilities into that of a 15 year old female reader. Nonetheless it was impactful in a strange way, and still hard to get out of my mind, so I must consider it a success even if I can't exactly figure out why.

[Danny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hated the last chapter.

[Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm tempted to tag this book as young-adult fiction, 20th-century fiction, and even as a classic (the movie made that is based on it is certainly a film classic). The two main characters are teenage girls, and the setting is the particularly distinctive time and place of the late 1950s in Manhattan. There are descriptions of various nightclubs and department stores, lots of smoking, and the dilemmas of girls of that era: to wear stockings or not, necking parties, and a crush on a concert pianist (Henry Orient) they saw at Carnegie Hall.
The story is told through the eyes of Marian, one of the teens, and centers mostly on her friendship with a wildly spontaneous girl she meets at the private girl's school they both attend. There is much less about Henry Orient in the book than in the film, but the basic storyline is the same. The casting of the film is perfect and features Angela Lansbury, Peter Sellers, and a couple of unknown actresses who pretty much dropped out of films after this one.
I recommend it for its depiction of New York through an upper-middle class, white, teen girl's eyes in the Eisenhower era. The writing feels authentic, but it seems like another world entirely.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

After recently seeing the 1964 movie again, I was curious to read the 1958 book. They are not the same, but both are good. I saw the movie as a kid and have always remembered it. I would have really liked the novel as a teenager but didn't know of it then. I would have related to Marian's sense of isolation and questioning the behaviors of those around her.

The original story was obviously re-written for the movie to be a comedy vehicle for Peter Sellers since Henry Orient himself isn't present in much of the book. It does capture the spirit of two adolescent girls on the verge of maturity, but the novel is deeper and doesn't have the same happy ending with an enlightened dad and friendship that would continue. I enjoyed the nostalgic fifties New York City setting, its original story, and engaging characterizations. The two girls seem a bit older than 13 in many respects, but then I don't remember very well what it was like at that age.

I wish there was an epilogue in the book or even a sequel to find out what happens with these girls when older. I'm interested in more details about Nora Johnson and how she came up with the idea for the story.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have seen the 1964 movie "The World of Henry Orient" many times. Recently I saw it again and realized that it was based on a book. Through interlibrary loan, I was able to secure a copy. I was impressed to find that the movie followed the book pretty well. The only part that really differed was the ending. The movie had a happier ending with Val going off to travel and then settle in NYC with her dad. In the book, her dad is just a name and speaks only a couple of sentences. There is no personality developed for him except as a busuiness tycoon. Tom Bosley played him in the movie and he was a very likeable, loving father and person. In the movie we see the girls going off on new adventures as they become teenagers. Unfortunately, in the book, that doesn't happen. I'm not really sure if the book ending was realistic, but maybe it was in 1958.
The book is set in NYC on 8th Ave., for the most part. It was kind of fun to see the NYC of the late 1950s. I imagine that in some ways, it is still the same.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came to mind as I was enjoying Favia's adventures (Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie). I remembered little of the book other than it's setting and the name 'Henry Orient'. I had originally read it in my very early teens. Although in some respects a more serious story than I remembered, it was as satisfying as ever.

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is adorable. RIYL: old-timey New York Stories, teenage girl rituals, celebrity concert pianists.

[Ainsley kerr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This movie has been a favorite of mine since I was about 10-years-old. I remember reading the book when I was about 14. I'm tracking down an inexpensive copy so that I can re-read it as an adult.

[Corinne Driscoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't usually think this, but I like the movie better than the book. I read this years ago and don't remember it as being so dark.