It’s amazing how much reading you can get done when “people” in your house go on vacation for a few days and you are left alone.
I liked this book (not sure about loving it). I greatly enjoyed the dialogue and the ending, although I knew it was coming, surprised me. I really learned a lot about NYC in the 20-30’s and speakeasies in general. And noticed how prevalent smoking was.
Of note: Chapter 4 –the Pioneers had a harder trip and not so long ago; they handed down a legacy of tired bodies. Chapter 4 – When is your night off? Reply: The 2nd Tuesday of every week. Hadn’t heard that before and love it. Chapter 4 – a king among monkeys rather than a monkey among kings. Chapter 4 – the raw egg drink. Yeck! Chapter 5 – I must go home to the bosom of my family. A flat chest if I ever saw one. Ha! Chapter 8 – all the cocktail shakers as wedding gifts, really?
New vocab: Mellophone – brass instrument like a French horn Shill at an auctionhouse – someone that works with the auctioneer to drive up the price Barouche – a carriage Parturition – childbirth
The movie starred Elizabeth Taylor but I kept envisioning Gloria as Marilyn Monroe, a sexy blonde does it for me better. The ending reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo ending. I gasped aloud, I did not see that “method” coming.
I finished the book. This book was very depressing. Makes me wonder what was going on in the author's life for him to write that way or if this is just his natural style of writing.
One thing did make me chuckle - the way Gloria described watching another girl walk noticed how her hips moved - tick tock tick tock. Now that will stick in my head especially since I have a cuckoo clock with a pendulum.
Reading about all the speakeasies points out that outlawing drinking had just the opposite affect intended - it sounds like it made more people drink because it became fashionable to sneak around to do it.
Didn't like being left wondering at the end what happened to some of the characters (Liggett and his wife and family, etc.)
I can't say that I really liked this book. At first I enjoyed the writing and conversations, but they got old around Chapter 5. Additionally, because of so much jumping around, I was chronically lost and spent most of the book just trying to figure out what was going on and who that particular character was. It got to the point that I couldn't wait for the end and it was a bit of a let down after guessing how it happened through much of the book.
I did learn a lot about NYC in the 20-30s and speakeasies, like J mentions and found a couple of notable sections.
Chapter 1: I did think this was a great opening for a book. The whole first page starting with the foreshadowing and going to remorse and then to looking in her pajama bottoms and laughing.
Chapter 2: "She was so incurious that he was able to keep at home the paraphernalia for the treatment of his disease." How can she be that obtuse? and incurious?
Chapter 3: The whole Yale man discussion was pretty funny.
"The most successful flouncing is done through swinging doors." Oh the problems with flouncing out of a speakeasy. :-)
"There was a silence for the benefit of Miss Day, who was being tacitly informed by everyone at the table that she should have known better then to say that."
Chapter 4: "Gloria was like most female children. She was cruel to animals, especially to dogs. She was not at all afraid of them until after they had made friends with her and then she would hit them with a stick, and after that she would be afraid of them." This sounds more like male children than female if you ask me.
"She wanted to go to school in California, but when it came down to giving reasons her only reason was that she loved a tune, "Orange Grove in California"."
Chapter 5: It was around chapter 5 that I found the writing style tedious. At the start of chapter 5 O'Hare lists all the things that happended on Monday afternoon and had no bearing on the story. Soon after I got bored with the pointless, circular conversations too.
It was also in this chapter when I got tired of Liggett agonizing over whether he loved or hated Gloria. I found his character really obnoxious through the whole book.
Honestly, after that I more just skimmed it than read it so I didn't mark any passages to mention.
I give this book a solid "Meh." It was an OK read and I enjoyed most of it, but those rambling, verbose sections irritated me. I probably won't read any other John O'Hara books.
I just loved Gloria though. She might have been a trainwreck, but boy did she have an interesting life. Today, she would have her own reality show.
Ch 2: "the thing he wanted most, eventually, was to be so far removed from the company of Gloria Wanrous, from any association with her, that ... it would cost twenty dollars to send her a postcard." Ch 5: "Most of these people were famous in a way, although in most cases their fame did not extend more than twenty blocks to the north, forty blocks to the south, seven blocks to the east and four blocks to the west." I know a lot of people who are famous like this! Ch 7: "Besides, it was right enough about Tuesday being nervous and upsetting, and when you considered daylight saving time, then all that mess in the speakeasy was part of Tuesday the day, and not the evening." How many times do we create little ways to bend our individual "rules" to make exceptions for our behaviour? Daylight saving time is one I haven't used ... yet.
I never did quite understand why Joab Ellery Reddington was in town with money for Gloria. I mean, I get that she was blackmailing him, but why? I guess we are to assume that he had an affair with her while she was in high school, but then the last chapter made me think that he was actually the Major who had molested her as a child. I had a hard time keeping track of exactly how old she was, until Ch 11 when her obituary said she was 18.
M - I had no idea what sort of "paraphernalia" was used to treat gonorrhea. I googled it (not at work, though) and found that a common cure was to heat the body to 42C (107.6F) for 4-6 hours in a heat cabinet, repeating for 5 or 6 treatments. Sound like too much time? Try localized "pelvic heating" -- "heating elements were inserted for about two hours in the vagina and sometimes the rectum in women, as well as in the rectum of men, acheiving local temperatures approaching 44C (111F) for up to two hours." Assuming this is what he was doing, wow, was she ever incurious.
My curiosity did not extend so far as to investigating the paraphenalia for gonorhea- I just assumed it was the application of some medication to sensitive areas with some sort of device. But after you found what the treatment was then I must concur, she must have REALLY not been curious!
6 comments:
It’s amazing how much reading you can get done when “people” in your house go on vacation for a few days and you are left alone.
I liked this book (not sure about loving it). I greatly enjoyed the dialogue and the ending, although I knew it was coming, surprised me. I really learned a lot about NYC in the 20-30’s and speakeasies in general. And noticed how prevalent smoking was.
Of note:
Chapter 4 –the Pioneers had a harder trip and not so long ago; they handed down a legacy of tired bodies.
Chapter 4 – When is your night off? Reply: The 2nd Tuesday of every week. Hadn’t heard that before and love it.
Chapter 4 – a king among monkeys rather than a monkey among kings.
Chapter 4 – the raw egg drink. Yeck!
Chapter 5 – I must go home to the bosom of my family. A flat chest if I ever saw one. Ha!
Chapter 8 – all the cocktail shakers as wedding gifts, really?
New vocab:
Mellophone – brass instrument like a French horn
Shill at an auctionhouse – someone that works with the auctioneer to drive up the price
Barouche – a carriage
Parturition – childbirth
The movie starred Elizabeth Taylor but I kept envisioning Gloria as Marilyn Monroe, a sexy blonde does it for me better. The ending reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo ending. I gasped aloud, I did not see that “method” coming.
So many characters to try and remember in this book. I should have written who they were as I was reading so I wouldn't get confused.
20 pages to go to finish it. Those last 20 pages better be worth it.
The writing style is a bit too rambling.
I finished the book. This book was very depressing. Makes me wonder what was going on in the author's life for him to write that way or if this is just his natural style of writing.
One thing did make me chuckle - the way Gloria described watching another girl walk noticed how her hips moved - tick tock tick tock. Now that will stick in my head especially since I have a cuckoo clock with a pendulum.
Reading about all the speakeasies points out that outlawing drinking had just the opposite affect intended - it sounds like it made more people drink because it became fashionable to sneak around to do it.
Didn't like being left wondering at the end what happened to some of the characters (Liggett and his wife and family, etc.)
I can't say that I really liked this book. At first I enjoyed the writing and conversations, but they got old around Chapter 5. Additionally, because of so much jumping around, I was chronically lost and spent most of the book just trying to figure out what was going on and who that particular character was. It got to the point that I couldn't wait for the end and it was a bit of a let down after guessing how it happened through much of the book.
I did learn a lot about NYC in the 20-30s and speakeasies, like J mentions and found a couple of notable sections.
Chapter 1: I did think this was a great opening for a book. The whole first page starting with the foreshadowing and going to remorse and then to looking in her pajama bottoms and laughing.
Chapter 2: "She was so incurious that he was able to keep at home the paraphernalia for the treatment of his disease." How can she be that obtuse? and incurious?
Chapter 3: The whole Yale man discussion was pretty funny.
"The most successful flouncing is done through swinging doors." Oh the problems with flouncing out of a speakeasy. :-)
"There was a silence for the benefit of Miss Day, who was being tacitly informed by everyone at the table that she should have known better then to say that."
Chapter 4: "Gloria was like most female children. She was cruel to animals, especially to dogs. She was not at all afraid of them until after they had made friends with her and then she would hit them with a stick, and after that she would be afraid of them." This sounds more like male children than female if you ask me.
"She wanted to go to school in California, but when it came down to giving reasons her only reason was that she loved a tune, "Orange Grove in California"."
Chapter 5: It was around chapter 5 that I found the writing style tedious. At the start of chapter 5 O'Hare lists all the things that happended on Monday afternoon and had no bearing on the story. Soon after I got bored with the pointless, circular conversations too.
It was also in this chapter when I got tired of Liggett agonizing over whether he loved or hated Gloria. I found his character really obnoxious through the whole book.
Honestly, after that I more just skimmed it than read it so I didn't mark any passages to mention.
I give this book a solid "Meh." It was an OK read and I enjoyed most of it, but those rambling, verbose sections irritated me. I probably won't read any other John O'Hara books.
I just loved Gloria though. She might have been a trainwreck, but boy did she have an interesting life. Today, she would have her own reality show.
Ch 2:
"the thing he wanted most, eventually, was to be so far removed from the company of Gloria Wanrous, from any association with her, that ... it would cost twenty dollars to send her a postcard."
Ch 5:
"Most of these people were famous in a way, although in most cases their fame did not extend more than twenty blocks to the north, forty blocks to the south, seven blocks to the east and four blocks to the west." I know a lot of people who are famous like this!
Ch 7:
"Besides, it was right enough about Tuesday being nervous and upsetting, and when you considered daylight saving time, then all that mess in the speakeasy was part of Tuesday the day, and not the evening." How many times do we create little ways to bend our individual "rules" to make exceptions for our behaviour? Daylight saving time is one I haven't used ... yet.
I never did quite understand why Joab Ellery Reddington was in town with money for Gloria. I mean, I get that she was blackmailing him, but why? I guess we are to assume that he had an affair with her while she was in high school, but then the last chapter made me think that he was actually the Major who had molested her as a child. I had a hard time keeping track of exactly how old she was, until Ch 11 when her obituary said she was 18.
M - I had no idea what sort of "paraphernalia" was used to treat gonorrhea. I googled it (not at work, though) and found that a common cure was to heat the body to 42C (107.6F) for 4-6 hours in a heat cabinet, repeating for 5 or 6 treatments. Sound like too much time? Try localized "pelvic heating" -- "heating elements were inserted for about two hours in the vagina and sometimes the rectum in women, as well as in the rectum of men, acheiving local temperatures approaching 44C (111F) for up to two hours." Assuming this is what he was doing, wow, was she ever incurious.
My curiosity did not extend so far as to investigating the paraphenalia for gonorhea- I just assumed it was the application of some medication to sensitive areas with some sort of device. But after you found what the treatment was then I must concur, she must have REALLY not been curious!
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