Customer Reviews

A Rage to Live

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Grace Caldwell was the young woman who stood out in her community, for her wealth, her athleticism and her confident, striking appearance. She was beloved of her family and suffered little in the way of childhood traumas or incidents that might darken her satisfied sense of life and herself. She was also a girl and later a woman with the sex drive of what at the time was considered- a man. More than that, she acted on it and what began in youth became a part of the rest of her life, that is the addition of a secret sexual fire and behavior that smoldered through her position as nothing less than wife, mother and social leader of the town.
The Rage to Live is a book that accurately and presciently tells of an era of transition. In that Pennsylvania small town, the country and the heroine; a transition was occuring wherein the upper classes would no longer be secure to behave however they chose. It was also an era when over-indulgence itself was in the process of entering the mainstream, i.e. was democratized. That did not lead to an increased forgiveness in the part of the newly liberated, however. The old horse riding, martini drinking gentry has transformed even more over the years, but the Grace Caldwells and their trademark entitlement still can be found in various suburbs in and around the east coast and in the summers along the various coasts. Grace and her family and her fate makes for a great story, dated, but so what.

O'Hara is one of the most underrated of American writers. _Rage to Live_ builds a strong character in Grace Caldwell Tate-- her passions are handled with delicacy and skill and her story is told with a rare combination of affection and judgement. A good place to begin with O'Hara if you don't know his work already.

Grace Caldwell was the young woman who stood out in her community, for her wealth, her athleticism and her confident, striking appearance. She was beloved of her family and suffered little in the way of childhood traumas or incidents that might darken her satisfied sense of life and herself. She was also a girl and later a woman with the sex drive of what at the time was considered- a man. More than that, she acted on it and what began in youth became a part of the rest of her life, that is the addition of a secret sexual fire and behavior that smoldered through her position as nothing less than wife, mother and social leader of the town.

The Rage to Live is a book that accurately and presciently tells of an era of transition. In that Pennsylvania small town, the country and the heroine; a transition was occuring wherein the upper classes would no longer be secure to behave however they chose. It was also an era when over-indulgence itself was in the process of entering the mainstream, i.e. was democratized. That did not lead to an increased forgiveness in the part of the newly liberated, however. The old horse riding, martini drinking gentry has transformed even more over the years, but the Grace Caldwells and their trademark entitlement still can be found in various suburbs in and around the east coast and in the summers along the various coasts. Grace and her family and her fate makes for a great story, dated, but so what.

This review is from: A Rage to Live (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)

Just finished Rage, read and re-read the A. Pope poem, from which the book title is derived. This is, indeed, a novel centered in transitions, and treats the heroine, Grace, with sensitivity and judgment. Most, like Louis Begley, who wrote the introduction, might leap to the conclusion that Grace, through her choices/dalliances, was relegated to exile in NYC. My somewhat feminist perspective is that Grace outgrew her provincial circumstances, embraced an essential part of herself, and moved on in the wake of unavoidable tragedy - almost certainly to the benefit of herself and her children. I'm not so sure much has changed in the US, especially in small towns. Rage is a good read, overly long in some places, and as mentioned, abrupt in others, in significant respects. I skimmed much of the boring dialogue and superfluous character setups, but otherwise found the novel engrossing.

Just finished Rage, read and re-read the A. Pope poem, from which the book title is derived. This is, indeed, a novel centered in transitions, and treats the heroine, Grace, with sensitivity and judgment. Most, like Louis Begley, who wrote the introduction, might leap to the conclusion that Grace, through her choices/dalliances, was relegated to exile in NYC. My somewhat feminist perspective is that Grace outgrew her provincial circumstances, embraced an essential part of herself, and moved on in the wake of unavoidable tragedy - almost certainly to the benefit of herself and her children. I'm not so sure much has changed in the US, especially in small towns. Rage is a good read, overly long in some places, and as mentioned, abrupt in others, in significant respects. I skimmed much of the boring dialogue and superfluous character setups, but otherwise found the novel engrossing.

I haven't written a book review for quite a while, but I thought I'd join the discussion again, as I just finished this book yesterday. I don't know. To me it leaves quite a bit to be desired.

One of the things you hear about John O'Hara is that he writes good dialogue, and he does. The trouble, though, is that he writes lots and lots and lots of dialogue. I personally thought many of his scenes were too long, and a fair number of them could have been dropped altogether.

I personally much prefer long novels to short ones. In fact, if a novel is less than 500 pages long, I approach it with a great deal of reluctance. And the shorter ones that have become the vogue in recent years miss me altogether. I won't even read the reviews on them!

Also, I should point out that I read--and thoroughly enjoy--Victorian novels. So, length, in and of itself, is not a problem with me. Padded length is something else, though, and I really had the feeling that O'Hara padded a lot of his scenes. Also, we grew to know his characters almost exclusively through dialogue. And there was quite a bit of abruptness to some of his scenes, notwithstanding the novel's length.

When one of the male characters, happily married with two children, decided to start having adulterous affairs, I found myself wondering why the hell he would do such a thing. I thought the author could have done a lot more to explain this particular lapse, and especially so, when he had done so much to explain why Grace found it necessary to drop her knickers on a regular basis.

All in all, I would say, for those who are in the mood for over-blown passages, it is doubtlessly an interesting book. In any case, because it's John O'Hara, and he has such a reputation, it is certainly worth a look.

I think I am alone in my opinion that pretty much everything written or said in the 60's was over blown pap.

O'Hara's fantasy women drop their pants and have orgasms like men. Men wish...

I've tried a couple of his stories now and I don't get his appeal. He sounds like he's being paid by the word. His women are from another planet. Men only wish that sex were that easy.

O'Hara's reputation is much like another icon of the 60's -- Elizabeth Taylor.

Producers kept giving her employment in film - and even after the gushing results - they voted to give her AWARDS!!

But then I thought Elvis Presley was an embarrassment too -