Word: haras
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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OURSELVES TO KNOW (408 pp.)-John O'Hara-Random House...
Perhaps irked by critics who have patronized him for his ability to write flawless (and endless) dialogue, John O'Hara has lately turned to a more inward sort of conversation-the colloquy a lonely man carries on with himself. The protagonist of his new novel is a rich and solitary Pennsylvania landowner who, past 50, marries an 18-year-old girl and eventually murders her. Why did he do it? For a long time, the reader is not told, while the narrator sifts the aging murderer's memories for the quirks of mind and the twists of fate...
Consistent but Shallow. With his usual sharp and overly detailed sense of time, place, speech and custom, O'Hara sets the scene. The events are dramatic enough-the murder itself, a near lynching, and several seductions (not nearly as many, though, as in recent O'Hara novels). But the real drama, revealed piecemeal and with a strange detachment, takes place in Millhouser's own soul. He was born in the 1850s, idolized his father, and never really recovered from the father's death shortly after the Civil War. His mother, a strong but withdrawn woman, could...
Understanding but Awkward. The trouble may be that Novelist O'Hara has hedged his commitment to interior dialogue. He strains Millhouser's musings through a narrator, a young man who begins to talk with the murderer out of curiosity and continues the conversations because he hopes to write his master's thesis in form of a novel. The device is awkward, and the frequent asides to the reader are irritating. A scene in which the young man fancies he js in communication with the shade of Millhouser's mother is as embarrassing as any in recent...
...soon followed, and Kishi wondered whether he should wait for arrest by the Americans or commit suicide. A large family conference of Satos and Kishis assembled in his sick room to argue the question. One of his old schoolteachers tactlessly reminded Kishi of his fiery arguments in favor of hara-kiri when he was 16 years old. Kishi's answer was to brushstroke a short poem, which translates: "In another role, I shall commemorate the just war forever." This is nearly as obscure in Japanese as it is in English, but one thing was clearly apparent: Kishi...