Thursday, October 18, 2007

Pal Joey -- John O'Hara


My interest in John O’Hara’s work continues. PAL JOEY is an early novel of his from 1940 that’s told in the form of letters from Joey, a struggling nightclub singer in the Midwest, to his friend Ted, a much more successful singer and bandleader. I was aware of PAL JOEY only as a movie musical I’ve never seen starring Frank Sinatra and didn’t know the film was based on an O’Hara novel until recently. It must have been quite a chore for the screenwriter to turn this book into a coherent screenplay, since there’s not much actual story to work with. Joey sings in various second-rate nightclubs, romances an assortment of beautiful young women (or “mice”, as he calls them), and is jealous of his friend Ted’s success. That’s about it for the plot.

But O’Hara’s work isn’t really strong on plot to start with. He concentrates on characterization and dialogue instead. PAL JOEY manages to be both funny and very dark at the same time. Joey is uneducated, as is evident from the misspellings, grammatical errors, and tortured sentence structures in the letters he writes, but he has more than enough lust, greed, and ambition to make up for it. His jealousy of his friend’s success comes through plainly, as does his unwillingness to take any of the blame for his failures, even though most of them result from losing his temper or trying to take advantage of someone. He’s about the most venal character you’re ever going to come across, which is probably just what O’Hara intended.

PAL JOEY is also short and moves right along, always a plus in my book. I enjoyed it, and it’s got me really curious about the film version. I’m going to have to hunt up a copy of the DVD and give it a try.

6 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

I haven't read O'Hara in years, but this makes me want to return to his writing. He was one of my first loves.

DGB said...

The movie is actually based on the Broadway musical with a book by O'Hara himself. I, too, am a big O'Hara fan. I discovered "Appointment in Samarra" when I was in high school and have re-read it a couple of times since. I certainly agree that O'Hara was more interested in character than plot, which for me is what makes him so re-readable.

Anonymous said...

Philadelphia::21 June 2008

For more on John O'Hara, join us at OHaraSociety.blogspot.com, the John O'Hara's blog, at +267:253:1086, or via JohnOHaraSociety@comcast.net.

Richard Carreño

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