Word: hara
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ASSEMBLY (429 pp.)-John O'Hara-Random House...
...title page of his first collection of short stories in twelve years, John O'Hara has set a remark of Joseph Conrad's that is far more apt than most epigraphs: "My task ... is, by the power of the written word, to make you feel-it is, before all, to make you see. That-and no more. And it is everything." At least it is everything that O'Hara does well (if, for this master of the ear, it is understood that feeling includes hearing). The peculiar limitation of the author's great skill is that...
Contrarily refusing to accept this, O'Hara over the years wrote a succession of long, turgid novels that required two hands to hold, said not much, and invariably buckled of their own weight, since sight, sound and mood cannot sustain a span of 900 pages. Lately, however, he has begun writing short fiction again. Last year's trilogy of novellas, Sermons and Soda-Water, was a highly successful return to the style of his early work. Some of the stories in the present collection are even better...
KENNETH G. O'HARA Cleveland...
...Daniel Eigerman's "Cirrhosis to Benefit by Gala," another short story; this one has bits of excellent dialogue and snatches of humor, but its two main characters, a Jewish photographer and an alcoholic society woman seem awfully familiar: Mr. Eigerman is in danger of becoming a Jewish John O'Hara...