Elizabeth Appleton, John O'Hara, Random House, 1963, 310 pp
Immediately after reading Bad Sex, I picked up the #5 bestseller of 1963 and found myself again reading about adultery. Also again this is a male author writing about an unfaithful woman. What a difference 52 years can make, but then again adultery is infinitely older than half a century. It is in the Ten Commandments!
This makes the sixth John O'Hara book I have read because that is how many top ten bestsellers he had between 1949 and 1963. I have deeply mixed feelings about his fiction because, though he creates fully rounded female characters, I usually feel like he is mansplaining women to me.
What he is always actually writing about is the white American class system of the eastern part of the country. Not a whiff of diversity can be found nor is he fully comfortable with self-willed, self-realizing women. The sex is all window dressing and probably had a lot to do with how well his books sold.
Elizabeth Appleton, nee Webster, met John Appleton at a party and fell in love with him on the tennis courts. She was raised in upper class New York City wealth and privilege but found the young men of her class uninspiring. So she married Professor John Appleton, descendant of a line of professors at an old, revered private college in rural Pennsylvania. When the small college town in which she found herself and John's lack of push for advancement became uninspiring, she entered into an affair with the town's most eccentric, but also upper class bachelor.
That affair, successfully concealed from John for some years, and their marriage are the story. It was entertaining and O'Hara's writing as smooth as ever. I just was not convinced of its truth.
As far as the intervening fifty-some years go, Elizabeth ends her affair and goes on to live contentedly with her husband while Brett just keeps circling the drain. Of course, Bad Sex was not anywhere near a bestseller but despite my dislike of that novel, it may be closer to the truth.
(Elizabeth Appleton is out of print, so look for it in libraries or from used book sellers.)
So you liked it but didn't believe it?
ReplyDeleteI suppose you could put it that way.
DeleteIt's interesting that you've read two such different books on a similar subject. I haven't read anything by John O'Hara - I didn't know he'd had so many bestsellers!
ReplyDeleteI find it almost weird when two books come back to back like this in my reading plan. It is as though someone is making a syllabus for me! I checked and he has no more top ten bestsellers so I am done with John O'Hara.
DeleteI know I read some of O'Hara's books many, many years ago, and yet now I can't seem to remember a single one. Guess they didn't make much of an impression. I don't think I ever read this one though.
ReplyDeleteNo worries. If you read one, you read them all. Almost what I call Bestseller Bullshit, except he can write pretty well. Also, because I grew up in Princeton, NJ, I was deluged with that class system stuff.
DeleteThe subject of the book is interesting, but if the story is not convincing, we remain somehow frustrated about the read. Apparently this is the case of this book according to your review.
ReplyDeleteExactly! The value of reading such a book for me is getting more insight on how a male sees the subject, as well as how it was viewed in the 1960s compared to today.
DeleteYou've read quite a few adultery novels this year. Must be the 60s. Mansplaining of women by an author sounds painful to endure. 1963 was the year my older brother was born -- he lives in L.A.
ReplyDeleteActually adultery seems to be a big topic in fiction all the time, but possibly even more in the 60s. The mansplaining in this book was more humorous than painful. In 1963, I was a sophomore in high school living in New Jersey.
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