Áo khoác lông chồn

by John O'Hara, Đinh Thị Thanh Vân (translator)

Ngay từ lần xuất bản đầu tiên vào năm 1935, Áo khoác lông chồn đã trở thành cuốn sách bán chạy nhất nước Mỹ. Nhà văn John O'Hara - tác giả của tiểu thuyết - đã lấy cảm hứng từ thông báo tìm thấy xác một cô gái trẻ đẹp trôi dạt vào bãi biển Long Island. Đây có thể chỉ là một tai nạn, một vụ giết người hay tự tử? Không ai biết được sự thật về cái chết ấy, nhưng John O'Hara đã chộp lấy tấn thảm kịch này và tưởng tượng ra cuộc đời đầy thăng trầm của một người con gái ở New York vào đầu những năm 1930.
Nhà văn O'Hara đã khéo léo khắc họa chân dung cuộc sống của cô gái Gloria Wandrous trẻ đẹp từ giây phút cô tỉnh dậy trên một chiếc giường lạ đến khoảnh khắc cuộc đời của cô chấm dứt.
Với sự chân thực đến xấc xược và sự thính nhạy độc đáo, Áo khoác lông chồn đã bóc trần những sự thật thường là xấu xa và được che giấu, ẩn nấp dưới cái vẻ bên ngoài của một xã hội quay cuồng vì ảnh hưởng của cuộc Đại Suy thoái. Có thể nói đây là một tuyệt phẩm trên văn đàn nước Mỹ.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literary Fiction, Novels, American, Literature, New York

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

American writer John Henry O'Hara contributed short stories to the New Yorker and wrote novels, such as BUtterfield 8 (1935) and Ten North Frederick (1955).

Best-selling works of John Henry O'Hara include Appointment in Samarra . People particularly knew him for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue. O'Hara, a keen observer of social status and class differences, wrote frequently about the socially ambitious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O&#...

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing on the topics of Adultery, Class, sex, alcohol, child abuse and suicide was always going to be categorized as heavy going, and it is, especially when thinking of it now I didn't like a single character. However, like Yates, Fitzgerald, and Selby Jr, O'Hara portrays a New York with truthful harsh realities, where the city's elite would rather just brush unsavory events under the Persian carpet. Considering this was published in 1935 it's pretty open and frank on it's subjects, leading to an uncomfortable in places but quite addictive read, which featured some great use of dialogue that goes arm in arm with the people it represents.

It's depression era New York, where big hitters took big risks and ended up with nothing, work is hard to come by, and trouble is rife on the streets, unless of course your part of the Yale crowd who seemingly go on having good times whilst others continually struggle. But there is always sex, there is sex on the very first page, and masturbation on the second, not for the reader’s titillation, but just, well, that's what humans do. Can't think of any other book that starts in such a way. The focal point is of two, The heroine (if you could call her that) Gloria Wandrous, a young woman endowed with beauty, a strong libido, and sexual experience who is neither a dirty fantasy nor a femme fatale to put it simplistically. Then there's Weston Liggett, upper class, married with daughters, flawed and a bit ridiculous, who becomes hooked on Gloria. Through a grotesque series of coincidences and abrupt decisions, we see the two go about trying to patch up a night spent together, where Gloria wakes alone, finds her clothes torn, and leaves in the expensive mink coat of Liggett's wife. Gloria, we learn as the story progresses was abused as a child, and thus may explain
behaviour, which is at times wild, she is not only a victim but an enthusiastic consumer of sex, while still being an empathetic (if doomed) character that must have been revolutionary for the year the book was published. This is not least because so much of the sex and sexuality in the book is rendered from the woman's point of view.

Sitting in the background are themes of money, the great depression, and business, which adds a bit more depth to the story, and O'Hara is good at conveying the tense, edgy atmosphere of New York City at this time, when so many fearfully hoped that the Crash's aftermath was nearing its end and recovery would soon blossom, a time of waiting and hoping. But it's Gloria who really leaves the mark, through her sexual freedom, hanging out in speakeasies, matching the men she meets drink for drink, and yet she also has a kind and tender friendship with Eddie Brunner (he loves her, she doesn't really love him), we see her when she is at her most vulnerable, but also when confidently strong.

I don't think O'Hara is in the same class as the writers I mentioned before, he doesn't cut through bread with the sharpest of knives; however, I do find men writing of women far more appealing than women writing of men, and it's impressive the way he conducts human relationships, and his sympathetic and revealing characterization of Gloria, she loves Liggett (can't see why), but maybe more in the father figure role, someone to make her feel special after her abused childhood. I admit, even though I didn't always like her, I admired her will to live free, have fun, and face the consequences later. Which unfortunately for her gives little chance of a happy ending.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot, so I must give it four stars. That isn't to say you will too. I will attempt to explain who and what the book is about and why it spoke to me. I want to give you the feel of the book.

John O'Hara has in this novel imagined how it came to be that on June 8, 1931 the body of Marian Starr Faithfull, a beautiful young promiscuous socialite, liberal with drugs and drink, was discovered washed up on Long Beach, Long Island, New York. Accident, murder or suicide? The circumstances were never resolved. Two non-fiction crime books have been written about the death: The Girl On The Lonely Beach by Fred J. Cook and The Passing Of Starr Faithfull by Jonathan Goodman. Several novels have been written too. John O'Hara’s was the first and the one most well-known. In 1960 the movie BUtterfield 8, based on O’Hara’s book, starred Elizabeth Taylor. She won an Oscar for her role. The movie, the novels and what is actually known about the Starr Faithfull case all differ one from the other.

Look at the title. Are you wondering why the U is capitalized? BU refers to the telephone exchange number that went to the residences in a ritzy district of the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

This is a novel where the characters are loose with their morals, drinking and sex. The setting is a posh area in NYC, the year 1931. Architects, journalists, industrialists, an aspiring author, Yale, Harvard and Princeton graduates hanging on to family name and wealth in the unstable years following the Great Depression and during the years of Prohibition—these are the protagonists. Times had been better, but the partying had not stopped.

So how has the author managed to write about such people? Why is it that readers do not turn away in disgust?

Gloria Wandrous, Weston Liggett and Eddie Brunner-- those are the three central characters to keep your eye on. Lots of characters are thrown at you in the beginning, and it can be difficult to make sense of what is happening. Be patient; you will recognize who is who soon. Even if the people perhaps do not live lives you admire, you can still come to like them. As you come to know what lies in their past, empathy and warm feelings grow. Gloria is just coping as best she can with what life has thrown at her. I felt a warm spot in my heart for Gloria, despite what she does. Eddie is her best friend, and I liked him a lot too. Weston is not my favorite, but even he is not all bad through and through. An author who can make you see the good in such characters is talented.

The book contains sexual child abuse. There are both misogynist and racist statements. What is drawn is REAL life. If you cannot deal with that, the book is not for you.

I like the realism. I do not mind reading about gritty life circumstances. The sex is not graphic; it is candid and it is real and it remarkably well draws sex from a woman’s point of view.

The lines are bubbling over with humor. Dry humor that is sometimes satirical, sometime ironical, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

The author’s ability to draw people through what they say and what is going on in their head is fantastic. At home Gloria feels she is “surrounded by furniture she would not bump in the dark.” She observes how a police bitch (dog) teaches her favorite tan pup “hardly more than a little piece of meat……….to stand up like a man and not sit down like a pansy” to pee. What do you think of this proposal of marriage? “Remind me to marry you next summer.” And here is another description of Gloria: “She swung her butter knife like a bandmaster’s baton.” I have written down just a few fragments here and there, and maybe from these few bits you cannot get the mood or see the humor, but take my word for it, the lines are very, very good. The dialogs stand out as being exceptionally well-crafted.

The audiobook I listened to was narrated by Gretchen Mol. The story is told, moving from one character to another, often we are in the characters’ heads. When we are in Gloria’s head Mol’s intonation is utterly superb. Gloria is no demon, and hearing her voice as Mol speaks Gloria’s thoughts and words is the added dot over the i. When Mol speaks men’s words the intonation is not as good. They sound just a bit more base than the women, but if you are listening carefully to the author’s words you know who is speaking anyhow……..even if you might not easily hear it. Her intonation for Gloria is so wonderful, I simply would not want any other narrator. Mol adds a dimension to Gloria’s character that I love; the voice you hear mirrors who she is. I am glad to have listened to the audiobook rather than having read the paper format.

Are you up to a book that presents real life in NYC in the early 30s? Then this is a book for you. I lived in NYC, not in the 30s but in the 50s. The energy of the city feels palpable. You can easily read the story just for that, to capture the feel of the city.

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

John O'Hara's novel, BUtterfield 8 (the title came from Gloria's telephone exchange when phone numbers were a combination of letters and numbers), differs considerably from Elizabeth Taylor's film. A significant contrast is set in 1931, the beginning. However, not yet the depths of the Depression, in a New York City where Prohibition is still in force—spent that a great deal of time drifting from one speakeasy to another, a portrait of a city starved for alcohol. It takes a while for Gloria Wandrous to focus as the book's central character, as it begins as a kaleidoscopic portrait of the city and its inhabitants. The torn evening gown and the stolen mink coat, so memorable in the film, propel the plot forward. In the movie, the trio of Gloria, Liggett, and her friend, Eddie (as played by the hopelessly inept Eddie Fisher), eventually takes control of the narrative.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not often that I read two works of fiction from the same author back to back, but I was digging John O'Hara so much after Appointment in Samarra that I thought I would read this one. I would never have guessed that both books issued from the same person! Not that the quality of writing has changed: both books are from the mind of a master. Well, maybe not this one so much....this roman a clef had its beginnings in real life, but it is quite intriguing and, in spite of an extremely small body count and practically no action, still manages to hold the reader's attention.

There's really not much one can say about the story line without giving the whole business away, it's a story of a tragic figure, a feminine anti-hero, adulteress and thief (if being single and doing the nasty with a married chap makes you an adulteress...I know his marital status makes no difference to your being branded a thief if you steal from him or a member of his family). Having being introduced to sex at an early age by a male family associate, she seems to be aware of the effect her sexual presence has on men and, as so often happens , promiscuity is the order of the day.

The book is way ahead of its time for its description of people involved in adult situations, but there is nothing here to shock modern readers, deadened as we are to literary excess. I struggled a bit with knowing who was who at first because O'Hara tossed new characters at you frequently, and almost always in pairs. I frequently had to go back and check on a name to see just who the heck this or that character was. But O'Hara made me care enough to keep reading; when an author has kept you turning pages, he has done his job well.

[WJEP · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually like the book more than the movie, but I found myself thinking that I would prefer to be watching the 108-minute movie (which I have never seen). I liked the main story: chippy versus chump. But it seemed like half the book was lengthy paragraphs of detailed anecdotes about the many side characters. O'Hara eventually gets back to Gloria versus Liggett, but they were not chippy or chumpy enough to hold my attention.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5, rounded up.

I found this rather dated. It is no longer shocking when a young girl has affairs with older men, or when they have sex promiscuously (sad fact, but true). Without the shock factor, the central character, Gloria, seemed more of a self-destructive, careless and unfeeling person than she might have seemed in 1935. She was not a character that I could make a real connection with, and none of the other characters was the least bit likeable either. I couldn’t help thinking that I was glad not to live in 1930s New York City if it was as cynical as this.

The book itself made me think of the story of The Black Dahlia, in that the girl in question, Gloria, seemed that same sort of misguided person, seeking love in all the wrong places, and wondering why she was outside the norm and not like the other girls around her. O’Hara does succeed in conveying the desperation of the times, mostly through glib conversations that seemed to me poor imitations of Fitzgerald.

O’Hara based this story on his imaginings of the life of a young girl whose body was washed up on a beach in Long Island, with no account for how she had died. It is a pretty grim story, in the way that depression era stories can be, with an overall cloud of despair seeming to wrap around the characters’ souls. I suppose I was looking for some glimmer of hope or moral fiber and found none at all. Perhaps that was intentional, after all it would take a severe lack of both to create a girl like Gloria.

I have Appointment in Samarra in line to read, and will still read in despite this not being a great book for me. Some authors write in a way that transcends their time. Based on this novel alone, I don’t think O’Hara was one of those. I think he was a man of his time, with little to say that would propel his popularity forward.

[Ana Cristina Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

La protagonista es una joven de 18 años, cuyo nombre – ‘wandrous’ suena como ‘wonderous’ (maravilloso) – ya prefigura su destino deslumbrante y trágico, basado en un notorio caso que sacudió la sociedad neoyorkina, y que fue carne de tabloide. Gloria es una especie de arquetipo de las ‘flappers’ de los años 20, jóvenes que desafiaban las prohibiciones, fumaban y bebían en público – en la época de la Ley Seca – llevaban el pelo corto y adoptaron una moda que se distanciaba totalmente de los corsés y las faldas largas que habían aprisionado a la mujer hasta entonces.

En realidad, John O’Hara pretende ofrecer una ambiciosa visión de conjunto de la sociedad de la época, de la vida de las clases acomodadas en contraste con la de otros que se apiñaban en las ciudades luchando contra la miseria que trajo la crisis del 29. Nos hace recorrer los ‘speakeasies’ (bares clandestinos) donde se juntaban personajes de todas las clases sociales, aliados por una especie de complicidad en el desafío de la ley.

Todo el planteamiento suena interesante, pero a mí me ha decepcionado y aburrido a partes iguales. Es cierto que algunos apuntes sobre la época y las costumbres son agudos y dan pinceladas sarcásticas sobre la sociedad que se está configurando como:

Kitty Meredith, la actriz cinematográfica, llegó con su hijo adoptivo, de cuatro años, y todo el mundo se puso a comentar lo guapo y lo elegante que estaba mientras ella le daba a sorber un poquito de su copa.

Pero, en general, el retrato de los personajes es deficiente y hay un exceso de ellos que en algún momento te hace sentir que estás recorriendo la guía telefónica, sin que te dé tiempo a asimilar la información ni a conocer bien a ninguno de ellos. Incluso los personajes principales quedan emborronados porque sus motivaciones y acciones son contradictorias y yo no los he acabado de entender – y ya no digamos empatizar. He leído que John O’Hara tenía un carácter difícil y que le caía mal a la gente – creo que eso se manifiesta en sus personajes, que son desagradables e incongruentes y parece que se dejan arrastrar por los acontecimientos en medio de una sucesión de diálogos vacíos y absurdos. También hay comentarios muy ofensivos de carácter racista y no digamos respecto a las mujeres.

En resumen, que no me ha gustado nada, pero imagino que mi desconocimiento de la época – y de muchos de los acontecimientos y personajes que se citan – hace que mi valoración pueda ser inferior a la de sus contemporáneos o gente con más conocimientos del tema. A falta de leer sus cuentos ni otras obras, creo que es un autor clásico - al que muchos alinean con sus contemporáneos Scott Fitzgerald o Cheever – pero parece que esta novela en concreto no ha sobrevivido bien al paso del tiempo.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Halfway through the novel is this passage: "...it seemed to him as though he and Gloria were many times on the verge of a great romance, one for the ages, or at least, a match for the love and anguish of Amory and Rosalind in This Side of Paradise and Frederick and Catherine in A Farewell to Arms. With this, we are reminded that O'Hara is a contemporary of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, with even some similar preoccupations, notably love in a time of Prohibition. But this is where the resemblance ends, for O'Hara's New York in Butterfield 8 is sordid, dark, repulsive, and pulsing with a frightful and pervasive misogyny. This novel is full of surprises, notably the way in which O'Hara frames Gloria Wandrous' call-girl life against the New York/East coast milieu of Yale boys, corrupt cops, speakeasies, the theaterical demi-monde, Pittsburgh industrialists, and even pedophilic clergymen. It is with a sinking feeling that you know Gloria will end badly even before you finish the first chapter, but it is a testament o O'Hara's forceful writing that you read on. There is no other way for her story to end. Part John Dos Passos' Manhattan, part Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, part Hitchcock's Marnie, and all O'Hara's vigorous writing, this is realism at its finest.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars I swear the author used "irregardless"
This is one book that I totally appreciate its Hollywood appeal. I actually want to see Elizabeth Taylor play Gloria.
Plot has typical 1930s devices: gin palaces, economic depression, loose women, cheating men. What's so true to life still today is the abuses of attention from older men to young girls that twists their mind sets about sex and self-worth. Also the constant manipulation and lies of the offending spouse were believable and deplorable.

[Joseph Sciuto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gloria

One name, Gloria Wandrous! One of the greatest female characters I have ever had the pleasure to read about in any novel. She’s twenty-two, tall, and beautiful living in New York City in the late 1920s. I hesitate to compare her with Audrey Hepburn in the film version of “Breakfast at Tiffany,” but Ms. Hepburn immediately comes to mind. The big difference is that Gloria is so much more than Ms Hepburn’s character. Gloria is everything and more... independent, sexually active, and she understands men and women and their needs and desires in a fascinating way. Mr. O’Hara stretched this character to the limit and beyond during the complicated era of the depression. This is an excellent book, and Mr. O’Hara’s depiction of the depression era in NYC is as good as I have never read,

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gloria habe ich mir ein wenig wie die auf die schiefe Bahn geratene ältere Tochter von Leopold und Molly Bloom vorgestellt, die nach New York ausgewandert ist. Eine Assoziation, die ich mir selbst nicht recht erklären kann und die in Ansätzen darauf beruhen mag, dass irische Einwanderer, innerer Monolog und Nierchen zum Frühstück eine Rolle spielen in BUTTERFIELD 8. Gloria säuft wie ein Loch - überhaupt vermittelt der Roman den Eindruck, während der Prohibition sei mehr gesoffen worden als davor oder danach -, konsumiert Drogen und wechselt die Sexualpartner ständig. Dabei stammt sie aus ordentlichem Hause, ist ausgesprochen gutaussehend und witzig. Dass sie so auf die schiefe Bahn gekommen ist, ist nicht einfach erklärbar. Missbrauch im Kindesalter (Nabokov lässt grüssen) und die Wirtschaftskrise mögen mit ursächlich sein.

Hier liegen Wagnis und Erfolg von O'Haras zweitem Roman eng beieinander: eine 1935 im Erscheinungsjahr skandalöse Story, die sich Symbolen und Metaphern erklärtermaßen verweigert, wenn auch Menschentypen darstellt, und das Risiko eingeht, dass ein männlicher Autor eine weibliche Hauptfigur mit glaubwürdiger Psyche darzustellen versucht - und das gar nicht einmal schlecht zuwege bringt.

Zwei Adjektive beschreiben den Roman besonders treffend: urban und realistisch erzählt O'Hara vier Tage aus Glorias Leben und dem einiger Männer und Frauen aus ihrem Umfeld,deren Wege sich in New York immer wieder kreuzen, just wie die der Personen im ULYSSES. Wo Glorias Cousine Holly Golightly naiv und unbedarft scheint, ist Gloria spitzzüngig und es haftet ihr etwas Tragisches an, dass sich in Promiskuität, Drogen und Alkolkonsum nicht erschöpft.
Bis auf das Ende des Romans, das auf mich pathetisch wirkt (auch wenn es auf Tatsachen beruhen mag), bietet BUTTERFIELD 8 viel erzählerisches Licht: O'Hara hat ein großartiges Ohr für Dialoge, die in der deutschen Übersetzung leider gelegentlich etwas kryptisch klingen, und sein Romanpersonal ist quicklebendig und erfreulich klischeefrei. Aber so modern der Roman in seinen erzählerischen Mitteln und seinem Personal auch ist,geht O'Hara den Weg leider nicht konsequent zuende. Sein kommentierender auktorialer Erzähler stört gelegentlich den Fluss und dass realistische Mosaik, das O'Hara ausbreitet, könnte an manchen stellen straffer und mehr auf den Punkt gebracht daher kommen.

Ich denke, dass der Roman 1935 eine kleine Sensation war, modern und skandalös, und dass O'Hara sich nicht ohne Berechnung im Roman vor seinem Saufkumpan Fitzgerald verbeugt. Und auch für mich als heutiger Leser war der Roman trotz seiner Schattenseiten ausgesprochen lesenswert. Nicht verhehlen will ich, dass ich ihn vermutlich innerhalb der ersten 40 Seiten abgebrochen hätte, wenn er nicht Gegenstand eines gemeinsamen Leseprojektes gewesen wäre. Danach häuften sich dann Kapitel, die mich regelrecht begeisterten und die für sich genommen locker ihre fünf Sterne wert gewesen wären; aber leider kamen auch immer wieder andere dazwischen, die den Fluss störten.
Fazit: leicht aufgerundet vier Sterne und eine klare Leseempfehlung!

[Gerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read BUtterfield 8 years ago, and revisiting it now I realize I hadn't gotten much from it at the time. O'Hara was something of a legend, but now he seems incredibly dated. The story is set during the Great Depression and asks the question, "What if a woman could behave like a man?" That's not to mean that she took on masculine traits but that she played by the same rules. What if, as a young person, she drank and used drugs liberally and recreationally, and she had a lot of intimate partners, many of them temporary? And she was especially fond of attractive, upperclass men. Married men who were as shameless in their cheating and scheming as she was in dumping them one after another. And, she wasn't a pro. Just a pretty, well-dressed girl from the suburbs who craved a fast life in Manhattan. Story aside, this is a serious think-piece on the role of women in urban society, written far ahead of the feminist revolution. But in many ways, and especially by today's standards, O'Hara is both sexist and racist. His portrayals of people of color are as stereotyped and phony as the shuffling servant roles in the movies of his day. He's obviously in love with his gorgeous heroine and jealous of prep-school-bred aristos. But his ultimate judgment seems to be that a man might get away with being a playboy, but carrying on like that can only make a woman miserable.

Oh, and I knocked one star off because he used "irregardless" twice, and not because he was writing authentic dialogue.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather unlikable characters, their lives in New York, 1931 and inspired by a true event. First time I have read this author but it will not be the last. The passion in his writing, wonderful prose, the characters interactions with each other, the speakeasies, well to do people and their desolate lifestyles all combined to make this a very atmospheric read.

[Jill H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to like this book but just could not get interested in it. I know that O'Hara is a classic author but it just wasn't for me.

[Alena · Rating 4 out of 5]

My copy came courtesy of the publisher.

Reading John O'Hara is like stepping into a time machine. He completely immerses the reader in the speech patterns and atmosphere of the well-to-do speakeasy set. Even though this novel, like Appointment in Samarra, is filled with truly despicable characters, all of whom seem to be drunk, cheating liars, I loved reading it. From the opening scene of Gloria waking up in a stranger's apartment with her dress ripped, O'Hara grabbed me. (It probably didn't hurt that Elizabeth Taylor's iconic performance in the movie version came to mind immediately.)

There's not much to say about the story. Miserable people full of despair during the depression, all circling in and out of each other's lives. I didn't read this book for plot. I read it for the environment, setting, language. I was not disappointed.

[Gabriel Valjan · Rating 5 out of 5]

BUtterfield 8 – the camel-case title references retired telephone exchanges – is O’Hara’s ‘ripped from the headlines’ novel. A real murder inspired the novel. Elizabeth Taylor as Gloria Wandrous earned her her first Oscar in 1960 for the 1935 novel adapted to the big screen. The novel is provocative: it details up-town and downtown adultery with cross-town machinations. Fate hinges on a telephone number and a mink coat. The novel uses the word ‘slut,’ which should remind readers that their grandparent’s era was not so innocent or halcyon.

Fran Leibowitz presents some cultural signposts in her preface to BUtterfield 8. 1935 America roiled in the grinding despair of the Depression, but the one factoid that I think is crucial to understanding O’Hara’s novel is the 13 years of Prohibition, which ended in 1933. Leibowitz sees Prohibition as “oddly democratizing” on sexual mores. O’Hara, in a word, applied the stethoscope to America’s “animal impulse(s).” The opening scene is a girl waking up in a married man’s apartment. The rest of the novel is a downward slide.

O'Hara might be, to some readers, a time capsule of Americana, because of all the dialog but – and I say, but – the overhead conversations, the heated resentment between schlep and boss, no matter how wrong or misunderstood, are still alive. O’Hara was famous for sitting down and cranking out a story during the lunch hour. O’Hara could have written any of the scenes in Mad Men because he understood the civility above and below the line of social propriety. William James and Tennessee Williams come to mind. O’Hara can calibrate the register of speech. In a few cut-and-polished phrases John O’Hara created real characters. More to his credit, he, for a man of his generation, imbues women with all kinds of appetites. I think that this is a neglected and overlooked accomplishment in his writing. He wrote about sex in candid but pointed terms. Readers can decide whether or not O’Hara was prescient about his critique of the so-called American Dream. I read his Appointment in Samarra as an answer to The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby’s fate is tied to an automobile and the same can be said to numerous characters in O’Hara’s novel. The automobile is ubiquitous and symbolizes the capricious, almost Darwinian selection of success and failure in American life.

John O’Hara died in Princeton, bellicose to the end. The Nobel Prize was never to be his. He had striven to present the elevated and universal condition, a seeming prerequisite of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and had believed that he had done just that. The Committee might not have seen that, but there is no denying that he did capture the pulse of privileged and not so privileged America.

“An Irishman’s revenge on Protestants who had snubbed him” is how John Updike characterized O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra, considered O’Hara’s masterpiece. Updike writes from the position of O’Hara’s better, and he knew that O’Hara was writing against him.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a number of "classics" sitting on my shelves to be read. This summer I picked up BUtterfield 8 and dove right in. I had almost no idea what to expect. I'd never seen the movie and hadn't really ever heard anything about the story. Reading the back cover gave a slight insight, but still left me wondering what to expect.

The book started out a little slow, but still very vivid. O'Hara writes with great description and passion and was able to make the scenes very alive and full. However, for the first few chapters, the book felt rather disjointed to me and I felt a little disoriented and confused. There were a ton of characters dropped in and I wasn't yet sure who was important and who was peripheral.

Looking back, I think the disorientation could be a deliberate stylistic choice. Our central characters are all caught up in a whirlwind of life's adventures filled with big hopes and dreams, but still just whipped around dizzyingly by real life interactions.

Pushing through the first few chapters, I found myself getting really attached to the characters. This is really a character driven novel and the characters are deep and engaging. It was a while before I even knew the name of the girl I was following around for the first few pages and I wasn't sure yet if I was supposed to be sympathetic to or disgusted by her situation, but I still felt compelled by her and wanted to know more. As Gloria Wandrous grew more and more alive and as I learned more of her back story and current situation, she began to feel truly real and I found myself sympathizing for her.

Many of the themes of the book dealt with Gloria's sexuality both in the present world and with the encounters of her youth. O'Hara isn't explicit/graphic with his sexual content, but I can see where even the allusions he presents could be controversial both then and now. Sexuality is often a taboo subject anyway. Add to that the molestation/rape of a young girl and the subject becomes all the more disputable.

O'Hara doesn't wholly portray Gloria as a victim, which would be a natural response. He does explore her psychology and reactions, but he also gives her an inner strength and drive. I really enjoyed the description of her conflicted moral judgments. She has a real desire to love and be loved, but she has a low sense of self worth because of her past that she feels she has to live up to.

In addition to the depth in Gloria's character, the book also expounds on the sexuality and behaviors of all the other characters.

Weston Ligget, the male love interest for Gloria, is a character with a lot of depth though it's harder to feel sympathetic towards him. I feel almost sorry for him in that he does seem like he genuinely wants to care for Gloria, but at the same time, I read his love as more of an infatuation based on the thrill of the chase and the excitement of the affair. He just sends off the creepy vibe through his pedophiliac/incestual behavior not to mention his infidelity and reckless abandon.

I really liked Eddie as Gloria's best friend. Part of me hoped that they would somehow get a romance going, but I knew early on that any chance of love between them was totally ill-fated.

I've spoken mostly about the characters and this really is a character driven novel. The characters are the life of the book. The plot itself felt a little thin. It was compelling only in the fact that I was attached to Gloria. The environment of New York and the speakeasies was meticulously created and felt very real and compelling. The dialog was fresh and real.

The themes and content, while somewhat controversial and dated to the ~20s/30s, were still strikingly relevant in our modern society. The 21st century club scene is obviously a little different than that of the speakeasies. The stresses and concerns of modern day 20-somethings and white-collar-30+s have become more technologically advanced, but the general worries are still very similar.

People want to be loved. They want to be accepted. They want to figure out who they are and how they fit into the world. They want to overcome the problems of their past and be able to take control of their future.

This novel has a lot of great themes to think on and wonderful characters to help open up the realities hiding under the pasted on smiles of society. I would have liked to have seen some better resolution or morale at the end of the story, but it still left something to think about. Probably my biggest complaint was the "200 pound gorilla in the room" that's alluded to on the back cover by telling us that O'Hara was inspired to write this book when he read a news article about an unknown girl found dead in the East River. With that in mind, I knew what was coming and new the book couldn't end well.

Still, I hoped for a little more enlightenment or for something more to come from the impending death. In that regard, the book left me somewhat disappointed...a bit of metafiction, placing me inside Gloria's own disappointment with the world.

Overall, it was a book worth reading. I enjoyed the reality of it, the depth of the characters and the interesting themes. The pacing was a bit slow and disjointed, especially early on, and the plot itself felt a bit contrived at moments. Still, I am glad I read it and will likely seek out more O'Hara to put on my shelf.

****
3.5 stars (out of 5)

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A minor O'Hara work. It's still O'Hara - so his writing often compensates - but there's a lot of peripheral padding here as well, indicating the author's awareness that he didn't have enough of a story to tell in novel-length form.

Apparently, O'Hara got a kick out of the fact that the book was "a shocker to the literary cocktail party set." One can see why: just using the word 'lesbian', for example (even if there isn't any actual lesbian sex involved or described)... and the depiction of pedophilia (only slightly graphic)... not to mention the main character's oh-so-casual attitude towards bed-bouncing... must have made a bunch of people (in 1935) say "Oh, my!"

But the main problem is the protagonist. Gloria Wandrous just isn't that interesting a person. Granted, it's tough making an 18-year-old fascinating - but, even though we learn many details about how she views life, Gloria remains surprisingly colorless. However, O'Hara is to be commended for the experimental approach of applying his penchant for losers to the female POV.

I'm glad I came to this book kind of late in my reading of O'Hara's work. He has certainly written much better novels (and tons of really terrific short stories) - so that made it a little easier to use patience for 'BUtterfield-8'. (It's still superior to the badly adapted, borderline camp classic that, bizarrely, won Elizabeth Taylor an Oscar. Giggle-worthy though it may be, the book does not contain the film's apologetic line, "Mama, face it - I was the slut of all time!")

One of the novel's strengths is its view of New York City during the Depression. I believe I've said elsewhere that, even when his storyline is less-than-compelling, O'Hara is able, largely through sharp observation, to maintain interest. 'BUtterfield-8' isn't a boring book - it just doesn't soar, as O'Hara's work so often does.

[Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, great novel! BUtterfield 8 starts with the mink coat and ends with the mink coat, but the story of young Gloria Wandrous in between is truly some terrific fiction. In some sense I think that John O'Hara has rewritten Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Although, the protagonist of O'Hara's tale, Miss Wandrous, is not the social or sexual naif that Tess was. Gloria's crime--if it is even such--is that she wants to live her life and be treated by other people as the men in her day are. She's had a rough life from the get go, and is simply trying to make something of herself in New York City at the height of the Great Depression.

John O'Hara, I'm discovering, has quite a knack for really delivering on the characters in his novels and short stories. They are all slightly to severely flawed, but are undoubtedly quite representative of the people that he grew up with, worked with, and saw all around him on the streets of New York City. Things do not just happen in an O'Hara novel, there's always cause and effect, and it is O'Hara's eye on these little things that we do, day in and day out, that makes his stories ring true as we read them. We want to believe in our heart of hearts that young Gloria Wandrous is gonna make it and find her bliss, but then there is always that little bit of niggling doubt. There's always cause and effect, isn't there?

BUtterfield 8 is strong 4.5 stars of 5 for me, and I highly recommend it!

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

BUtterfield 8 by John O’Hara
If interested, you can find a few other words on this and some other books and plays on YouTube, at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
- Notes on Chef d'Oeuvres

The title of the novel is very strange…in case you haven’t noticed it has two capital letters to start with.
They refer to telephone exchanges in the old days when that would stand for 288.

BUtterfield 8 is an appropriate name for an otherwise eerie story, unusual enough to necessitate an abnormal title.
In the center of the tale we have Gloria Wandrous, who has to explain that it is with an a and not and o…
- But she is a wondrous woman and Gloria may have inspired Pretty Woman, although she is not exactly a prostitute
For all my rejection of Freud, who is passé with his obsession and emphasis on childhood sexual desires, lust for mother, penis envy and the rest, the major tragedy of Gloria’s early adolescent days has affected all her later trajectory and misery in life.
Gloria Wandrous is moving from one man to another and she is proposed by quite a few women too, from hairdressers to doctors.
The start of her relationship with Weston Liggett is unpromising to say the least, as she wakes up in his apartment to find she has no clothes and he has left some money before going out and her torn dress behind.
The main male character- albeit we may divide the male leads between Liggitt and Eddie- is not a knight in shining armor out to rescue the damsel in distress.
He is married and has two daughters, living in the flat where he has the immorality to bring what looks like a one night stand.
As stated in the introduction, this is a strange tale and there are more aspects that make it challenging and intriguing
Liggitt and Gloria have seen each other for quite a while, frequenting the same speakeasies and did not talk.
- How do they fall in love after ignoring each other for so long?
- Perhaps we might as well quote a foolish song:
- “Why do fools fall in love?
- Why do they fall in love?
- Love is a losing game…”
The love affair between the man and the woman in this novel contradicts somewhat both Malcolm Gladwell and john Gottman, the former with his “thin slicing „expertly explained in Blink and the latter with his Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work and his reputation of being able to tell if a couple would stay together after only a few minutes listening to their heated exchange…
Gloria Wandrous has an uncle with desires that recall Humbert Humbert and his Lolita and he aggravates this sexual tension by bringing in another malefic character, a middle aged colonel that molests the child.
We could say that it is all downhill from here and argue that those who have been abused as children have a high rate of becoming abusive themselves.
When Gloria discovers that she has no dress and nothing to wear when she leaves the place where the infidelity happened, starts looking around, only to discover a mink coat, that would cost thousands of dollars, which would be over one hundred thousand in today’s money, I venture to guess.
Nevertheless, it would be unacceptable in most quarters to come with a coat for which so many creatures have been killed and skinned…again I dare opine.
The disappearance is quickly observed and a great kerfuffle ensues, but it is impossible for Liggitt to tell his wife who took the fur.
At least at this stage, where he is very upset and angry with Gloria who has a defiant and uncompromising, unrepentant attitude…

- Here I am again, even this late in the story wondering about Wandrous and Liggitt
- Love works in mysterious ways and other sound bites from songs come to mind:
- “Let's make it clear
- That this is free love
- No hidden catch
- No strings attached”
I am baffled by the evolution of the feelings between the two lovers and it was all unexpected, climax and anti-climax included.
If interested, you can find a few other words on this and some other books and plays on YouTube, at
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
- Notes on Chef d'Oeuvres
John O’Hara has mesmerized me before, with his Appointment in Samarra, which is among the best books ever written.
The story of that novel is summarized in a way by Somerset Maugham in these words:
- “There was a merchant in Bagdad 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 marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled 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. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. 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. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said- Why did you make a threating 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. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

O'Hara writes with such an intense passion and excitement that it is a very difficult book not to like. But unfortunately, much of the brilliance lies within that passion and excitement, and not in the story or characters involved. The author's sense of dialogue is tremendously flowing and spot on, but at novel's end you have that lip-biting feeling that you've just read an unfinished masterpiece. Read it for the character's interractions with one another and for O'Hara fiery prose.

[Bobby Bermea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads like Last Exit to Brooklyn and The Great Gatsby-lite, with a heroine, Gloria Wandrous (no less) at the center, who is by turns: sexy, exasperating, funny, thrilling and appalling. She's a piece of work alright. When people are so deeply unhappy and searching, you want to root for them but she makes doesn't make it easy. You meet her when she's stealing a mink coat. When her lover tries to get it back (it's -- heh -- his wife's) she coolly watches him get the shit kicked out of him by some thugs at a bar and then professes to love him and want to marry him. Okaaaayyy. Then she spews a racist diatribe the likes I haven't read or seen by any character maybe ever. John O'Hara manages to blend all these disparate elements into something resembling a real person and the feat is commendable. She's super compelling, you want to know what she's going to do next and what's going to happen to her but by the end, you're not rooting for her anymore.

Which is fine. I haven't read too many female characters like her and she's almost refreshing even 80 years later. Right up to the end, she refuses to play by any rules but her own, which isn't easy, even for assholes.

I don't know that this book is going to leave a mark. At times, O'hara can't resist naked philosophizing. He has opinions -- oh yes -- on the era, the place and the people who lived there. But he was a forward thinker, perhaps ahead of his time, especially in his depiction of the nuances and struggles of women being explored by a male author. But I don't know that I'll ever think of this book again. It was weird that I picked it up at all and was interesting more as an anthropological exercise, a slice of New York life in the 1930s, than a compelling work of literature.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man is this a hell of a book-- it's, as much as anything else, a portrait of NY life ca. 1931 that is maybe the least varnished I've ever seen. It's like every question whose answer you doubted when you heard it in history class is re-answered here, in totally convincing and layered fashion.

In her introduction, Liebowitz talks about the difference between O'Hara's knowingness (which she thinks is bad) and his knowledge (which she sees as good). But for me, it's impossible to distinguish them.

The story ostensibly concerns a woman and those who surround here: mostly two men, one her age, and one older, who gravitate to her amoral ways. Maybe we're supposed to read this as an indictment of license, but really, it just feels amazingly interesting. The central characters amorality really feels so genuine and mostly-untroubled that it's hard to see it as an indictment of much.

The ending, which does try to tidy up the legacy of that central character, is a little odd; it seems to point a finger at one source for all the book's ills, ills that I'm not sure I read before them as sickness. But it's otherwise of a piece with the book, in terms of being sort of brusque and businesslike.

Really, this book is quite an achievement, but totally not for kids.

[Moonreaders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Romanul o are în prim plan pe tânăra Gloria Wondrous , rămasă orfană de tată, crescută de mama şi de unchiul său. În copilărie este protagonista a două extperienţe traumatizante, care îi vor marca iremediabil destinul.
La 18 ani, vârsta morţii sale, ea este posesoarea unei vaste experienţe în consumul de alcool, droguri, petreceri, nopţi albe şi relaţii sexuale pasagere.
Imaginea Gloriei – frumoasă, tânără, încrezătoare, cunoscătoare a plăcerilor efemere - pare a fi imaginea Americii în Marea Criză. Decăderea morală a eroinei ilustrează decăderea valorilor morale şi iubirea viciului - elemente care afectează societatea americană după război. Devalorizarea materialului cultural(imobile, terenuri, maşini, obiecte de artă, bijuterii, etc.) şi lipsa lichidităţilor aduc profunde modificări asupra gândirii americane: valorile tradiţionale se luptă cu desfrâul, înşelăciunea, decadenţa.
Scurta viaţă a Gloriei Wondrous ne vorbeşte despre mirajul New Yorkului, despre întunecimea care se ascunde în spatele luminilor, zâmbetelor şi strălucirii marelui oraş.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first encounter with B8 was a scant three minutes on television. Elizabeth Taylor lolling about with her hair mussed and a drink in her hand.
"It's awful," my mother said as she changed the channel. "She should have won that Oscar for Hud." To which I took away that Elizabeth Taylor movies cribbed their titles from rejected candy bar names.
Four decades later, I agree that the movie is awful. And the book is awful too in all the right ways. This is a sharp and still relevant take down of class in America. The people are awful, their circumstances are awful, and the smell of the speakeasy gin wafts off the page. Even nice guy Eddie is a perfect example of why people find the term friend zone so offensive, and his decision to finally give up on Gloria and commit to a nice girl is based on such muddled, I-like-to-eat- sandwiches-that-I-like reasoning, Gloria's fate almost seems merciful.

Note: Patricia Neal was in HUD and not Liz Taylor, but that's how I remember it, dang it.

[Victoria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having never watched the movie, I feel I was pretty much a blank slate reading this. I found that I just feel disappointed ... All of the characters seem so underdeveloped that I really couldn't connect with them, even though I wanted to. I often felt I had to spend time remembering who some characters were because I forgot about them. I feel this book is more about a time period than about an actual story. This easily could have been a riveting short story by eliminating everything but the last 4 or 5 chapters.

[Mary Durrant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gloria a 1930's glamour girl wakes up alone in a strangers apartment one Sunday morning.
Wearing nothing but her underwear, her dress torn she takes a fur coat and leaves.
She sets in motion a series of events that will lead to tragedy.
Her entanglement with a married man, set among the Manhattan bars and bedrooms.

Made into a film starring Elizabeth Taylor.

[Melody · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't get through this and stopped maybe 25 pages into the book. I didn't care about any of the characters because they are all sleazebags and I didn't want to waste my time reading about a cast of unremarkable people exhibiting the worst in human behavior.

[Sophia Eck]

this is a book that Richard Gilmore would recommend but in a bad way

[Amanda Burns · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can’t stand this anti-feminist garbage. Why is O’Hara given so much credit for name dropping? Anyone can do that. I wanted to like this novel, I really did. But it’s hateful and reeks of vintage incel.

O’Hara attempts to convince the reader that only a woman who is a dedicated mother has any value, and that the ideal woman would raise the children that give her life its only purpose without any help from the father. He does this by comparing Gloria to a literal bitch (82.6% of the way through). I wanna shove a turd pie in O’Hara’s face. (Yes, I’m aware that he died fifty years ago. His views are still disgusting. Side note: please speak of me honestly when I’m dead.)

“ . . . that a woman ought to have one man and quit. It made for a complete life no matter how short a time it lasted. Gloria resolved to be a better girl . . . “ Are. You. Kidding. Me?! I don’t CARE that this was written ages ago, the idea that a woman can only be complete if she loves a man—and only ONE man at that—is absolutely bonkers. If you are the sort of person who gives authors of yesteryear a wide berth when it comes to social justice and basic decency, even then—at best this novel hasn’t aged well.

And let’s not forget the racism! It really comes out towards the end, about 84.7% of the way through.

Another gem: “Gloria was like most female children. She was cruel to animals, especially to dogs.” Um, what?! O’Hara had some unresolved issues (to be fair, nearly all of us do).

Doing my best to only vaguely allude at plot points below, without true spoilers, but you’ve been given a head’s up!
—I can see the argument that O’Hara is actually somewhat compassionate towards Gloria because he provides a past trauma to account for her behavior, BUT
—the aspect I can’t get away from is the ending. O’Hara decides the best story is one in which Gloria suffers a horrific, violent death, seemingly as punishment for her failure to be an ideal woman. He seems to be saying that her “sins” MUST be punished, even though I think we all know who the real villain of this story is. (*cough* Liggett!)
—also: O’Hara’s take on how Gloria’s past has affected her present may not be all that compassionate at all. Does he consider anyone victimized by sexual assault to be “ruined”? That a trauma like that can only lead to socially unacceptable behavior in an adult and can not be triumphed over or healed from? Tough to say. This is the one point I’m undecided on.

Overall, O’Hara’s view on proper, ideal womanhood (and manhood) are blatant: If you are a man who falls for a “loose” woman, you’ll be punished (though not really very much, and really it’s all HER fault). If you’re a woman who is promiscuous or otherwise taking charge of your sexuality, you’ll suffer extraordinarily.