User:Dpbsmith/Samarra

(Personal work in progress, eventually for use in Appointment in Samarra).

The novel describes how, over the course of three days, Julian English destroys himself with a series of impulsive acts, culminating in suicide. O'Hara never gives any obvious cause or explanation for his behavior, which is apparently predestined by his character.

Facts about English gradually emerge throughout the novel. He is about thirty. He is college-educated, owns a well-established Cadillac dealership, and within the Gibbsville community belongs to the high-ranking "Lantenengo street crowd."

Our introduction to him comes seven pages into the novel, in the thoughts of the wife of one of his employees: "She wouldn't trade her life for Caroline English's, not if you paid her. She wondered if Julian and Caroline were having another one of their battle royals." Within the three-day time span space of the novel, he gets drunk several times. One almost lyrical long paragraph describes one of his hangovers. During the first of two suicidal reveries, we learn that his greatest fear is that he will eventually lose his wife to another man. Yet within three days, he propositions two women, succeeding once, with an ease and confidence that suggest that this is well-practised behavior.

On three successive days, he commits impulsive acts of not-quite-unforgiveable behavior in social situations, which are serious enough to damage his reputation, his business, and his relationship with his wife.

First, he throws a drink in the face of a Harry Reilly, a man whom, we learn later, is an important investor in his business. The man is a sufficiently well-connected Catholic that Julian knows word will spread among the Gibbsville Catholic community, many of whom are his customers.

In a curious device, repeated for each of the incidents, the omniscient narrator never actually shows us the details of this or of the subsequent incidents. In this incident, he shows us Julian fantasizing in great detail about throwing the drink; but, we are told, "he knew he would not throw the drink" because he was financial debt to Harry and because "people would say he was sore because Reilly ... was elaborately attentive to Caroline English." The narrator's vision shifts elsewhere, and several pages later we surprised to hear a character report "Jeezozz H. Kee-rist! Julian English just threw a highball in Harry Reilly's face!"

The second event occurs at a roadhouse, where English goes with his wife and some friends. English gets drunk and invites a provocatively-clad woman to go out to his car with him. The woman is, in fact, a gangster's girlfriend, and one of the gangster's men is present, sent to keep an eye on her. Both Julian's wife and the gangster's aide see the couple leave. What actually happens in the car is left ambiguous but is unimportant, since all observers assume that a sexual encounter has taken place. There is not, apparently any concern that the incident has placed Julian's life in danger. However, the gangster is a valued automobile customer who in the past has recommended English's dealership to his acquaintances.

As Julian is driven home, pretending to be asleep, he "felt the tremendous excitement, the great thrilling lump in the chest and adomen that comes before the administering of an unknown, well-deserved punishment. He knew he was in for it."

Third, the next day, he engages in a complicated brawl with a man, Froggy Odgen. English thought of Odgen as an old friend, but Ogden acknowledges to English that he has always detested him and did not want English's wife to marry him. In the brawl, which perhaps Ogden started, he slugs Ogden, and at least one of a group of bystanders in the club.

His two suicidal reverie are at odd contrast to each other. In the first


 * Julian thought and thought about Caroline and Harry, and thought against them, against their being drawn to each other sexually, which was the big thing that mattered. "By God, no one else will have her in bed," he said, to the empty office. And immdiately began the worst fear he had ever known that this day, this week, this minute, next year, sometime she would open herself to anothe man and close herself around him. Oh, if she did that it would be forever.

His second suicidal reverie follows a failed attempt to seduce a woman, the local society reporter. He believes that as a result of his behavior, and the community's sympathy for Caroline, "no girl in Gibbsville&mdash;worth having&mdash;would risk the loss of reputation which would be her punishment for getting herself identified with him." He believes that even if he divorces Caroline he is destined to spend the rest of his life hearing:


 * No, let's not have him, he's one of the older guys. Wish Julian English would act his age.... No thanks, Julian, I'd rather walk. No thinks, Mr. English, I haven't much farther to go. Julian, I wish you wouldn't call me so much. My father gets furious. You better leave me at the corner becuss if my old man. Listen, you, leave my sister alone.

Finding this apparently too much to face, he commits suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, running his car in a closed garage.

Although English faces many difficulties, some external and many self-inflicted, it is clear that these difficulties, though serious, are not insurmountable. His wife departs temporarily for a long talk with her mother, but she and the reader realize that she will forgive Julian. His business is in financial difficulties, but they do not seem impossible. It seems likely that he could have patched things up with Harry O'Reilly, who says, on learning of English's suicide, "I liked English and he liked me, otherwise he wouldn't have borrowed money from me... He was a real gentleman. I wonder what in God's name would make him do a thing like that?" and picks up the telephone to order flowers."

Biographer Frank MacShane writes "The excessiveness of Julian's suicide is that makes Appointment in Samarra so much a part of its time. Julian doesn't belong to Fitzgerald's Jazz Age; he is ten years younger and belongs to what came to be called the hangover generation, the young people who grew up accustomed to the good life without having to earn it. This is the generation that had so little to defned itself with when the depression came in 1928."

On the other hand, during his second suicidal, we discover that he is concerned that as a result of his behavior, and the community's sympathy for Caroline, "no girl in Gibbsville&mdash;worth having&mdash;would risk the loss of reputation which would be her punishment for getting herself identified with him."

Misc. notes and quotations


 * What the hell had he done? he wondered. He had thrown a drink in a man's face. An especially terrible guy who should have had a drink thrown in his ace a long while ago.... If most people told the truth they would agree that Reilly was a terrible person, a climber, a nouveau riche even in Gibbsville where fifty thousand dollars was a sizeable fortune. (p. 107)

Before putting a gun in his mouth and thinking about suicide:


 * So Julian thought and thought about Caroline and Harry, and thought against them, against their being drawn to each other sexually, which was the big thing that mattered. "By God, no one else will have her in bed," he said, to the empty office. And immdiately began the worst fear he had ever known that this day, this week, this minute, next year, sometime she would open herself to anothe man and close herself around him. Oh, if she did that it would be forever.

Riding home after the Stagecoach incident and pretending to be asleep:


 * Julian, lost in the coonskins, felt the tremendous excitement, the great thrilling lump in the chest and abdomen that comes before the administering of an unknown, well-deserved punishment. He knew he was in for it. (p. 182)

Driving after quarrelling with Caroline:


 * ...he thought of the thing that in its way was more important than anything between himself and Caroline... the discovery that all this time Froggy Ogden had been his enemy. This was worse than anything he could do to Caroline, because it was something that did something to him. It made a change in himself, and we must not change ourselves much.... the last time there had been a change in himself was when he discovered that he, Julian English... suddenly had the power of his own passion; that he could control himself and use this control to give pleasure and a joyous hiatus of weakness to a woman.... it was the change and not the act that had been lasting and great. (p. 264)

Frank references to sexuality:


 * There was the time Elinor Holloway&mdash;heroine of many an interesting event in club history&mdash;shinnied half way up the flagpole while five young gentlemen, standing at the foot of the pole, verified the suspicion that Elinor, who had not always lived in Gibbsville, was not naturally, or at least not entirely, a blonde. (p. 108)


 * She was wearing a dress that was cut in front so he could all but see her belly-button, but the material, the satin or whatever it was, it held close to her body so that when she stood up she only showed about a third of each breast. But when she was sitting downa cross the table from him she leaned forward with her elows on the table and her chin in her hands, and that loosened the dress so that whenever she made a move he could see the nipples of her breats. She saw him looking&mdash;he couldn't help looking. And she smiled. (p. 161)