Archive for New Great Depression

The sky is falling.

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on January 11, 2010 by litterbury

So full disclaimer: I’m not loaded up with fancy degrees, despite all the book learnin’ that goes on around these parts.

I’m an armchair English major, just as I’m an armchair art historian.  I’m an amateur chef, and budding windowbox farmer, and the biggest politician to ever grace my own living room.  I also happen to be something of a budding economist, which is a timely pursuit given the national condition right now.

I’ve been yammering elsewhere about the economy, but I haven’t made a sustained and coherent argument yet, so one is definitely in order.

First, a bit of a background check.

Roughly three, maybe four years ago I began telling people that the New Great Depression was coming; if only then I had a blog.

Granted the economy was murky then, and one could make a case that things were pretty lousy ever since the first of the second Bush administrations began.  That was a period where the Republican party abandoned every key cornerstone of their political philosophy regarding fiscal restraint and small government in favor of gushing excess.  It left our two-party government no longer operational under appropriate checks and balances and it severely weakened the country as a result.

Whether you disliked him or not, Bill Clinton could count one of the biggest political and economic accomplishments in our country’s history under his tenure: the national debt got paid off, and with a surplus to boot.  That was no minor thing, and whether he could even be credited directly for such an accomplishment didn’t really matter.  He was the one running the show at the time and the buck stopped with him; the Clinton years really were a time of relative peace and prosperity, and that was even a selling point that Hillary Clinton used on the 2008 campaign trail in her own bid for the presidency.

2008 was, in fact, the year of the Democrat.  It was a very exciting year because of the general election, and because both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were running for president, as the first African-American and female contenders, respectively, and the country was clearly poised to rally behind one of the candidates in a national rebuff to the Republican party’s lack of discipline.

I supported Hillary Clinton during the 2008 California primary.  I liked her tough-as-nails image, her lovable wonky side and I really believed that she was going to come back stronger than ever and deliver national healthcare reform as she kicked in the White House front doors.  She didn’t win, so I’m not going to talk about her.

It was Barack Obama who won, and while I do like the guy, he makes it hard for me to really love him, and I’m surprised that the qualities that kept me at bay during the ’08 primary are now so widely apparent as he sits in the oval office.  During his campaign, he and his team took a wait and see approach to everything they did, which didn’t instill much confidence in me.  I also didn’t like refrains of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ because I’ve followed politics for far too long and am jaded as a result.  It was, however, a welcome relief to see him get into office, and to see Bush packing up for the ranch.  He didn’t deliver a good, swift kick in the ass to Bush, which would have delighted me, but the changing of the guard couldn’t have happened soon enough.

So I’m not going to rant, but I now have complaints, since Obama and his administration grossly fumbled with healthcare reform, as handing over a blank tablet for congress to scribble on was like tossing cows over to sharks.  There has also been a complete stall on gay rights, and the administration appears bothered and squeamish should the issue even be brought up.  So I’m dissatisfied and disappointed, though unsurprised.

But there have been a few successes.

Watching Michelle Obama grab a shovel and move ground on a genuine victory garden on the white house lawn pleased both the environmentalist and the foodie in me at once, just as I’m sure it pleased Bay Area chef and activist Alice Waters who had lobbied for such a thing for years.  It seems small to talk about the garden, but it sets a very positive example for the rest of the country and could (and should) inspire everyone to do the same.  It offers quite a bit of leverage in putting some power back into the hands of people, both from a preventative health standpoint and for some much needed economic relief.

And believe it or not, President Obama also did right by the economy as well.  Nobody was comfortable with the possibility of throwing piles of cash at a growing economic hole, but miracle of miracles, it worked, and kept the country from seeing a genuine financial collapse.  Credit also goes to to Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve and Tim Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury, two people that nobody really wanted to support.  Together they all delivered a real safety net to halt the country’s financial free-fall, and while it lasted, it worked.

That financial free-fall I mention began years ago, though it would go relatively undetected, but became noticeable and mainstream in mid to late 2007, and accelerated into 2008.  That was the period in which two very big Wall Street names went belly up: Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers.  While Bear Sterns was rumored to be having major troubles and even mismanagement, the collapse of Lehman Brothers was seen as something of a shocker, and it very loudly announced that a recession was indeed underway if anyone could still stand foolishly to deny it.  That period also seemed to usher in a snowball effect that took down other banks in the process, necessitating a government bailout to prevent a massive financial breakdown.  Toss in a weakening dollar, rising unemployment and then a full-blown housing crisis and it became vastly apparent that this was going to be no ordinary recession.  Two operational wars and a growing federal deficit added insult to injury; and then even individual states were going bankrupt.

The Great Recession was clearly in effect, but I was relieved to see that real action was taking place and things appeared to slow down.  I was humbled, but satisfied to see that my bold, Paul Revere style warnings had been little more than Chicken Little scurrying around the hay.  I called for a New Great Depression, and was happy that it didn’t show.

Until now.

A couple of days ago I came across a few articles that crunched out unemployment data and struggled to squeeze it into percentages and figures.  The claim in the articles, and has been for some time, that the unemployment rate is at, or around 10%; I would disagree with that, but more on that in a second.  The recent articles also had a curious new revelation in which there were ‘monthly’ unemployment numbers that were juggling 17% for a monthly unemployment rate; around 17% for both October and December, if I recall.

This is where the armchair economist in me goes on full display, perhaps, much in the way that scientists toy around philosophically with the Doomsday Clock ticking towards midnight.  I’ve actually been playing with numbers on this matter almost as some sort of new little parlor game, and I always feel confident that national unemployment is situated at 13 to 15%.  The numbers change, sometimes I hold things accountable that I didn’t before, and things alter depending on different articles for different days, but I always feel good about 13 to 15% being the magic numbers.

Now the ‘monthly’ assessment of 17% is cause for concern, and directly puts the assumed national unemployment average of 10% into serious question.

First of all, I find it very hard to believe that unemployment is still kicking around 10% month after month even as a ‘monthly’ average would consistently offer up a rather high number of 17%.  Those monthly averages are not static.  17% from one month to another does not equate stability, and would indicate that even if that percentage is the same, it still is making a case that unemployment keeps rising, and dramatically at that.  If unemployment keeps rising, then there is no reasonable basis to assume that we’re dealing with a 10% national unemployment rate.  This puts me back into confidence with my own fantasy lottery sweepstakes numbers of 13 to 15%.

Then there is another thing.

All the articles that bring up the 17% figure do so by folding in people who are part-time but looking for, or, accustomed to full-time work, and probably people who have given up looking for work out of frustration and are no longer being tracked by the Feds or the experts.  I always make room for the frustrated people who have given up looking for work, as until they find a job, they’re still unemployed in my book.  My 13 to 15% figures are essentially a running (and growing) tally akin to tossing more wood on the pile, part of the reason I feel more confident with my own estimates versus others.

I have a really big issue with including the part-time, wannabe full-time workers, however.  I mean, seriously? Are real world economists actually counting reasonably employed people as unemployed? Who wouldn’t want a dependable full-time position right now? It was within my understanding that if you even have a job pushing a broom you should be kissing the sweet-ass floor in that it meant you could actually claim to be working for a paycheck.  And is this a kosher, even common practice in the economic world? I thought unemployed meant out of work with no prospects, perhaps with qualifying factors of being poor, hungry and no money in the bank.  Granted, that doesn’t even address people who are employed and still having severe financial issues, but that’s a whole other mess.

During the Great Depression that lasted from 1929 to about 1940, national unemployment achieved a staggering 25%.  I had always just assumed that the 25% were fully out of work legal adults, but I wonder; in economic circles what qualifies or defines unemployed, and who exactly made up the 25% from the depression past?

That’s worth digging up because if I had to factor in another couple of percentage points to put my unemployment numbers in the same league as the experts, then my 13% very comfortably becomes 15%, and my 15% percent grows even higher.  High enough to 17%? Maybe.  That wouldn’t be a ‘monthly’ jobless estimate, either, but a baseline level of national unemployment; which is scary.

I’m also curious about what this strange monthly number is in relation to the assumed 10% that keeps getting bandied about.  I’m suspicious that there is the throwaway 10% of losers who should just give up hope, and that there is this revolving-door total that goes up and down on a monthly basis that is viewed and treated independently even though it shouldn’t be.  To put it bluntly, that there is the 10% sitting in Hell, and the added monthly numbers that somehow qualify as Purgatory.

And I’m still baffled as to how unemployment can seemingly sit still at 10% and yet with job losses trending at anything higher than zero on a continuing basis.  It’s very strange.  I don’t do math well, admittedly, but that just appears to defy logic and common sense as well.

If I sound a little hysterical about the whole thing it’s because when I mentioned that the New Great Depression was coming, people looked at me as some sort of tin-foil hat wearing sideshow in polka dots and stripes.  I was very confident that the economy was in for a rough spell but received little more than eye rolls and sighs.  People just wanted to pretend that the situation was going to go away.  I’m feeling the same sense of deceit, if you will, all over again, as things look bad and the experts we lean on don’t seem to have a full grasp on what we’re all talking about.  My fears are bolstered by the fact that I’m beginning to notice that various news articles now seem to be diverging towards different conclusions, and it’s starting to look like not everyone is on the same page.

I consider the unemployment numbers one of the key indicators in regards to our economic health, and pretty much the only way to beat out this dire economic climate is going to reside with job growth.  I also look at even a high number of 15% unemployment still doable as a recession indicator, but getting up to something like 17% is right on the cusp.  I would definitely qualify unemployment numbers at 18 to 20% as a very real depression, which I was beginning to believe we had avoided, but now I’m starting to wonder if we could really hit that magic number.  And when.

History has also shown us that gingerly treating the situation, as the government did in regards to the Great Depression, cannot be allowed if we are to avoid severe consequences.  The government then felt that things were going reasonably well, took away support too early, and then things proceeded to roll back down the hill.  The recent government stimulus plan was painful to pay for, but it was really doing the trick, and there is no reason to believe that further stimulus programs won’t stabilize the economy and protect any progress we’re making long enough for job growth to kick in.

But my old problems with Obama that haunted him on the campaign trail have returned.  His wait-and-see approach is back in familiar form, and it’s benefiting Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke’s probable conflict of interest issues with their friends on Wall Street.  The war between the Democrats and Republicans isn’t helping matters, either, and with housing a mess, and a weakening dollar, jobs are the only thing to look toward.  I thought things were improving, perhaps, even made safe, but tonight the colander goes back on my head and a wooden spoon goes over my shoulder.

Leave A Comment »

Considerations/Depression Era Novels: The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain

Posted in Cain, Depression Era books with tags , , , , , , , , , , on January 10, 2010 by litterbury

“They threw me off the hay truck about noon.  I had swung on the night before, down at the border, and as soon as I got up there under the canvas, I went to sleep.  I needed plenty of that, after three weeks in Tia Juana, and I was still getting it when they pulled off to one side to let the engine cool.  Then they saw a foot sticking out and threw me off.  I tried some comical stuff, but all I got was a dead pan, so that gag was out.  They gave me a cigarette, though, and I hiked down the road to find something to eat.”

* * *

My curiosity with the Great Recession (The New Great Depression) has had me sifting through my personal libraries looking for content to see how a different generation framed it’s own dire economic straits.  I don’t necessarily have as much to pull from as I had assumed, but I managed to pick out a few little things of interest.

While I do own a copy of Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath, I’ve yet to read it, so what is assumed to be the great novel of the depression era isn’t really up for a literary debate over here; yet.

I also picked through a whole bunch of my classic crime and noir novels, but was surprised to realize how few in my collection were actually written during the depression period, or, for that matter, seemingly relevant to it even if they were.  Also, what qualifies as a depression era book to begin with? Mood and atmosphere? Specific financial worries clearly stated and implied? Or bleak landscapes complete with tumbleweeds set as a backdrop?

Published in 1934, The Postman Always Rings Twice is set during the Great Depression, but it’s not stated, per se, and I’m not sure that it’s even the context that it’s author, James M. Cain, would want it to be objectified under.  Still, when looked at it from that vantage point, it makes an already compelling book just that much more so.  And why so compelling? Need I even go into the story…

Frank Chambers is broke and out of work; he’s been grifting and bumming rides, and thumbing his way up and down one highway to the next.  “That was when I hit this Twin Oaks Tavern,” Frank says.

“It was nothing but a roadside sandwich joint, like a million others in California.  There was a lunchroom part, and over that the house part, where they lived, and off to one side a filling station, and out back a half dozen shacks that they called an auto court.  I blew in there in a hurry and began looking down the road.  When the Greek showed, I asked if a guy had been by in a Cadillac.  He was to pick me up here, I said, and we were to have lunch.  Not today, said the Greek.  He layed a place at one of the tables and asked me what I was going to have.  I said orange juice, corn flakes, fried eggs and bacon, enchilada, flapjacks, and coffee.  Pretty soon he came out with the orange juice and the corn flakes.”

Frank takes up a job with the Greek, a Mr. Nick Papadakis, and the proprietor of Twin Oaks, and it doesn’t take Chambers long to notice that the Greek has got a beautiful young wife, named Cora.

Soon begins a tale of an illicit affair where Frank and Cora realize that her husband is looking a little inconvenient, and since divorce is naturally not a consideration in this case, as it always is in these cases, they devise a scheme to bump him off and pursue a more successful life with each other.  Things don’t go according to plan (naturally), but even when things don’t go according to plan they don’t occur within expectations, as one calamitous thing happens after another.

* * *

“He never did anything to me.  He’s all right.”

“The hell he’s all right.  He stinks, I tell you.  He’s greasy and he stinks.  And do you think I’m going to let you wear a smock, with Service Auto Parts printed on the back, Thank-U Call Again, while he has four suits and a dozen silk shirts? Isn’t that business half mine? Don’t I cook? Don’t I cook good? Don’t you do your part?”

“You talk like it was all right.”

“Who’s going to know if it’s all right or not, but you and me?”

“You and me.”

“That’s it, Frank.  That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Not you and me and the road, or anything else but you and me.”

“You must be a hell cat, though.  You couldn’t make me feel like this if you weren’t.”

“That’s what we’re going to do.  Kiss me, Frank.  On the mouth.”

* * *

The roman noir is distinctly an American concept and product; it’s the story of the failed promise of the American Dream, and the darker undercurrent of the mainstream American belly that ‘they’ never wanted ‘you’ to read about.  It’s birth is tough to pin down, but the book Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir, by Geoffrey O’Brien, includes a comprehensive checklist for majors and minors in the noir cycle; his list begins in 1929 and goes all the way to 1960.

And then there is the excellent release from the Library of America, Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s & 40s, and edited by Robert Polito.  There is a companion (American Noir of the 1950s), but I’ve yet to read all of the included pieces, and it’s the first volume that actually includes Cain’s Postman.

Typically, and unfairly regarded as merely ‘pulp’ work, the written noir canon has captured some of the best American writing ever published, though for all the combined efforts not every entry would be a masterpiece, but an excellent writer like Cain would contribute many phenomenal works, including the very famous Double Indemnity.

What captures and defines a noir is tough to describe, as the rules aren’t necessarily rigid and each writer’s style could vary significantly from one offering to the next, but The Postman Always Rings Twice is one of the most fully realized, and therefore comprehensive noir works available.  It’s the base narrative of the American ‘everyman’ and how he was done wrong, lured into crimes he didn’t anticipate, thrown off-balance for carnal desires he never knew he had.  Moments of violence are quickly traded and, often, equated with scenes of sex, but the literal action taking place is often just a subterfuge for the mental deterioration and unravelling of the poor character left struggling at the story’s center.

The psychological undercurrents in noir are not accidental, either, as the entire genre functions as both honest and literal male perspective, as well as commodified parody, and, additionally, as thrilling potboiler to satisfy the longings of the average, perhaps, desk-bound joe.  The multi-tasking noir book was essentially the fears and longings of the straight, white male, and told his story of newfound suspicion for Uncle Sam, and his quiet appreciation for the little guy ‘sticking it to the man.’  Even the popular construct of the femme-fatale was less of an easy mechanic to fold in available sex, but instead spoke to the fearful and fretting anxiety of man’s specific place as the societal breadwinner, and offered explanation to the ever increasing presence of the working class woman.

In short, it’s reactionary: every nice white boy grows up to be a nice successful white man.  The American male is heterosexually ‘normal,’ will settle down with the wife and kids and just might even get the gold watch for showing up to work.  His president would never send him off to get hurt in a war, and he’s casually heroic just when he’s mowing the lawn.  The Great Depression would hit well before the suburbs would take on national importance (motivated by both government interests and matters of social vanity), but by 1934 the American Dream was frayed, because if the first World War had been at one time unthinkable, then the economic ravages of the depression must have seemed wholly unconscionable.

That’s why Cain’s Postman takes on such a new sheen when not framed as just a thrillingly bleak novel about adultery and murder, but when looked upon as a product and even a relic from the depression era.  So what if Cora made a mistake and didn’t marry the right guy? Or the fact that the right guy is someone who isn’t necessarily her husband, and why should Frank care one way or the other? That ‘can-do!’ American spirit has taught us that we can all reinvent ourselves without consequence if our collective goal is to better ourselves off for future good and use; that the final and giddy swipe for the brass ring is worth shooting for even if the aspirations are a tad lofty to start.  Even when Frank and Cora talk about the importance of just being together, there’s still the added sell of trying to have it all, and having it all does not include starting from the ground up with scratch when there is a perfectly good diner and auto yard in the Twin Oaks.

To see such morally bankrupt characters plot away is almost laughably obscene, but the great perverse thrill is that, frankly, it makes perfectly logical sense.  After all, what’s a little sex and murder when the moral high ground is simply pursuit of the American Dream? It’s the story of deserving to have it all because it’s your right by birth as an American, and whatever debt you’ve accumulated along the way is of little consequence or responsibility when you were just doing what you were told to do in the first place.  It’s the book’s brilliant title that warns, however, that fate, much like death, is sure to knock again, and that debt accumulated never fully goes unsettled.

* * *

My voice sounded queer, like it was coming out of a tin phonograph.

“And this you don’t know how you got.”

I hauled off and hit her in the eye as hard as I could.  She went down.  She was right down there at my feet, her eyes shining, her breasts trembling, drawn up in tight points, and pointing right up at me.  She was down there, and the breath was roaring in the back of my throat like I was some kind of a animal, and my tongue was all swelled up in my mouth, and blood pounding in it.

“Yes! Yes, Frank, yes!”

Next thing I knew, I was down there with her, and we were staring in each other’s eyes, and locked in each other’s arms, and straining to get closer.  Hell could have opened for me then, and it wouldn’t have made any difference.  I had to have her, if I hung for it.

I had her.

* * *

The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain, 1934

Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks And The Masters Of Noir, by Geoffrey O’Brien; original copyright by Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1981; expanded edition published by Da Capo Press, 1997.

(A photo taken of a still from the Tay Garnett directed film starring John Garfield and Lana Turner, both pictured.  The film version didn’t come out until 1946, as Hollywood couldn’t figure out how to tone down the raw sexuality from Cain’s novel; the Italians, however, would film an unauthorized version, entitled ‘Ossessione,’ in 1943.)

Leave A Comment »

Considerations/Depression Era Novels: Appointment In Samarra, by John O’Hara

Posted in Depression Era books, O'Hara with tags , , , , , , , on January 7, 2010 by litterbury

So the economy is bad right now; perhaps, it might even be getting worse.

All economic professors and professionals claim that the very worst is behind us, and that while the recession is over, it will continue to feel like one as things improve over a prolonged period of time.

I am not reassured.

There are signs that things are starting to go a little bit haywire as people get increasingly desperate, as now one in eight Americans are on food stamps; one in fifty count their entire household income from food stamps alone.  In my own apartment building, people who could typically make rent so far are starting to have trouble making it work, and a family friend just recently told of a story involving a neighbor, in her very upscale country club residence, who was so distraught for cash that he was set to lose his business and his multi-million dollar home.  He committed suicide.

I’m finding that people who have jobs quietly nod with a tough smirk saying how things will get better soon.  People who don’t have jobs all say that they can’t even remember when it’s been this bad before and they think that it’s only going to get worse.

This is in addition to the concept of ‘recession gardens,’ which, in itself, are a nod to the ‘victory gardens’ of past wartime eras, which took hold this past Summer even at the White House.  Talk of homegrown organic food seemed to be the epitome of the fussy and liberal Bay Area’s progressive streak, and now everyone is starting to take a thoughtful eye to backyards and window boxes with visions of green.

And I noticed something else when I went to Trader Joe’s this past week: my sales receipt didn’t include any sales-tax added on.  The subtotal and total were one and the same, and while a slight relief, it makes one leery to think even the government is lacking enough knowledge on the matter to do little more than offer minor discounts on the basics for life.  It was embarrassing, too, that I was almost giddy and gleeful with pleasure at discovering the result.

My memory was jogged of this past Summer, when both my mom and I had run-up short at the bank and we only had a few bucks to buy food for a holiday weekend until our respective checks cleared days later.  She held up a loaf of bread in either hand and, first, tried to figure out which looked the biggest, and then, second, tried to figure out which was the heaviest and I had said, “So, do you want to weigh it, or what?”

We are, in fact, distinctly middle-class (or were), too poor to cover all the expenses like monthly credit card minimums and to make sure the fridge is fully stocked on a take-it-for-granted basis, and yet too unbelievably wealthy (ha!) to take a further slide into the banana split of poverty’s embrace.  It’s very uncomfortable being stuck, but that’s exactly what it feels like.  Stuck with little to do, and caught out unexpectedly spinning your wheels.

When I look at the small thousands I somehow loaded up with on credit card debt, I’m shocked and unnerved to try and find even an ounce of anything really great to show for it.  That isn’t just my story, mind you, but it’s funnily enough the story of all those boys and girls on Wall Street, too.  It seems that the profits and the progress from a whole decade’s worth of trades has been eroded and lost, and we’re no better off now than we were roughly ten years ago.  The American Dream was apparently unfulfilling and it cost a whole lot, too.  Keeping up with the Jones’ never seemed so silly as it does now.

It’s all got me in the mood for Depression-era books, however, and much of that school of thought happens to be right up my alley: roman noirs and hardboiled writers who wrote with a tough-but-tender sentiment that would define a literary landscape for a bygone time; a time which is now stoically familiar.  John O’Hara published one of the great American novels in 1934 with Appointment In Samarra, and it would prove to be a major addition to that period and cycle.

The novel’s title is actually a reference to a play, Sheppy, by W. Somerset Maugham, and is included as a sort of epigraph or frontpiece in my volume, though I’m not clear if it appeared in editions that were originally sanctioned by the author or published during his lifetime.

* * *

Death Speaks:

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.  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 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.  I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

- W. Somerset Maugham

* * *

Taking place in December of 1930, the book starts a little more than a year after the great stock market crash of 1929, which incidentally happened October 29th, just in time for Halloween.  O’Hara described the premise of the novel, in a letter to his brother, as “essentially the story of a young married couple and their breakdown in the first year of the depression.”  One half of that couple is a Mr. Julian English, who in a matter of days, is consumed with the nagging unease and desperate fears that would plague and define his generation.  Small town life proves suffocating and stifling, and it all begins to reel when everyone becomes casually observant to the fact that they’re just a bit on the brink.

The back of the book says that ‘in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction,’ but that’s only a partial take on the narrative itself.  It’s a novel set in 1930 around a thirty-something set, as the birthright and promise to the twentieth-century wouldn’t quite go as anyone imagined, but then it never does.

The Roaring Twenties gave way to a severe reality check that many didn’t see coming, and early life in the new century would be bookended by major world wars.  The story is a youthful one, and brash in it’s sexuality (censored before and after it’s publication), but it also has a masterful ability to be fondly reminiscent when the book’s own status and the lives of it’s characters could barely yet be qualified into existence.

(Portrait of the author, credited to C. J. Pujol, referenced to be courtesy of Pennsylvania State University.)

Perhaps that’s why I find the book so provocative and obviously timely.  To find a great American novel at a time when the great American dream is being questioned as to it’s basis and fact, is somehow less than comforting, but reassuring in it’s own melancholy.

Make no mistake about it here: life is a hell of a lot more complicated now than it was back in the nineteen-thirties.  To just even get a sense of how ridiculous American life has become, take a look at healthcare, or try to cut through all the red-tape of just securing a job nowadays even when faced with ‘now hiring’ signs.  Credit cards proved to be a disastrous exercise, too, and could wind up being the next shoe to drop in an ongoing financial mess.

You see, I like the book, not because it’s so immersed in a timely topic of national strife, but in spite of the fact, as it’s going back to a time that was definitely troubled, but one that also made do with a whole lot less.  It’s the simplicity of reexamining what defined the promise of a modern America, not by a lot of simpering flag-waving or ego-centric cries, but by embracing a proud legacy of keeping your chin up in the worst of lows and letting your own pride be exemplified by that sense of the Incomparable You.

John O’Hara was sure one hell of a good writer, and this, his first novel, could probably never find an equal, though he would try with a prolific literary career.  His writing is tough and sweet, funny and sarcastic, but there’s no getting around the fact that the story is a little missive to break one’s heart.

Julian English is just trying to traverse the American Dream as best as he knows how, and he just wants a highball to send it off right; don’t even get me started on how Samarra is a place in Iraq and that this is being written circa January, 2010.

* * *

Appointment In Samarra, by John O’ Hara, copyright 1934

Vintage Books edition published July 2003, 269 pages,

featuring an introduction by John Updike

Leave A Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.