user: IN: Books Of The Times
By Anatole Broyard THE LIFE OF JOHN O'HARA. By Frank MacShane. Illustrated. 274 pages. Dut- ton. $15.95.

JOHN O'HARA wanted fame, money, social and literary recognition, love and the good life. He proposed to accomplish all this by telling people unpleasant things about themselves. In this one sense, he was ahead of his time, for readers of fiction in the 1930's and 40's had not yet learned to enjoy this sort of punishment.

O'Hara was sentimental, and his sentimentality was not exalted by the kind of romanticism that F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway brought to their work. Even if his characters were true to life, O'Hara overestimated the value of truth. He sometimes treated it as a literary value, as if all a writer had to do was find the truth, any truth, and tell it. 'Facts, Facts, Facts'

As Frank MacShane says in ''The Life of John O'Hara,'' his truths were narrow ones, for ''most of his characters are aggressive and selfish or defeated and lost.'' For a worldly man, O'Hara himself was rather narrow, too. The author of 33 books, he never, according to Mr. MacShane, read the great Russian, French or English novelists. When he first visited Europe, he showed little curiosity about its culture. When, in a review of ''Across the River and Into the Trees,'' he called Ernest Hemingway the most important writer since Shakespeare, there was some question as to how many of the intervening authors he actually knew.

Although he was praised by Lionel Trilling, O'Hara complained that he wasn't taken seriously by serious critics. John Updike said that his prose was ''tuned to less than highest pitch.'' Reviewing ''From the Terrace,'' Alfred Kazin protested that the reader was ''deluged, suffocated, drowned in facts, facts, facts.'' Saul Maloff lamented the absence of ''controlling intelligence.''

While writing his books, O'Hara made charts for his characters, recording dates of their birth and marriage, schools they attended, restaurants and clubs they frequented, plays they might have seen, books they might have read, news of events in their times, clothes they bought, where and for how much. In a sense, he was the first computerized novelist.

For reasons that were as much psychological as circumstantial, O'Hara felt himself to be an outsider. And ''as an outsider,'' Mr. MacShane writes, ''he put too much emphasis on the paraphernalia of upper-class life such as club ties and fraternity insignia. What he did not understand is that adults generally put away the insignia they had used as insecure undergraduates to show that they belonged.''

Of the heroine in ''A Rage to Live,'' Mr. MacShane observes that she was only ''a mannequin,'' only ''a woman in society whose position is more important than she is.''

Shining through his novels and stories, O'Hara's own pathetic yearning for social standing may have helped to give them pathos. He was closer to the tears in things than those in people. Early in his life, he tended to sabotage his relations with women and then feel sorry for himself. He was a heavy drinker, and his stories have both the buoyancy and the sadness of the drunk. In the final analysis, he himself was a better O'Hara character than any he invented.

Mr. MacShane tells us that O'Hara squared off in a bar one night to fight a midget and was thrown to the sawdust floor when another midget suddenly materialized. He was the kind of man who was insecure enough to sleep with a woman and boast about it. He was always revenging himself on a world that didn't appreciate him as much as he thought he deserved to be.

Yet, for all his faults, O'Hara's early short stories in The New Yorker played a significant part in freeing the form from certain rigid conventions. ''You cannot positively give the impression of an ending,'' he said. ''You must let something hang.'' And New Yorker stories have been letting something hang, for better or worse, ever since. A Critical Study

''The Life of John O'Hara'' is also a life of New York City and its literature to a degree, especially during the 30's and 40's, when O'Hara's influence was at its strongest. Author of books about Ford Madox Ford and Raymond Chandler, Mr. MacShane is generous with the details, anecdotes and atmosphere of O'Hara's life, which ended in 1970. Yet he never simply surrenders to his material, as some biographers do. This is a critical study as well, and the author's appraisal of his subject is judicious and fair.

After O'Hara called Hemingway the most important writer since Shakespeare he explained that his importance was not based entirely on literary considerations. The same might be said of O'Hara, who, like Hemingway, was both a hero and a victim of his prototypically American aspirations.

Illustrations: Photo of John O'Hara
What is a short summary of the above article?

OUT: By Anatole Broyard THE LIFE OF JOHN O'HARA. By Frank MacShane. Illustrated. 274 pages. Dut- ton. $15.95.   JOHN O'HARA wanted fame, money, social and literary recognition, love and the good life. He proposed to accomplish all this by telling people unpleasant things about themselves. In this one sense, he was ahead of his time, for readers of fiction in the 1930's and 40's had not yet learned to enjoy this sort of punishment.


IN: FAMU band to return to the field after hazing suspension
updated 5:27 PM EDT, Thu August 15, 2013

(CNN) -- Florida A&M University said Thursday that its famed Marching 100 band will return to the field for the first time since its suspension after the hazing death of a drum major nearly two years ago.

The band had been one of the top university marching bands in the United States, but Robert Champion's death and other reports of hazing damaged its reputation.

"We have made a thorough assessment of the students who have auditioned for the band and firmly believe that we are ready to return and positively represent Florida A&M University and its proud students, faculty, alumni and community," Sylvester Young, director of marching and pep bands, said in a statement.

'Enough is enough': Roommate sentenced in band member's death

"We embark on this season reflective of the circumstances that led to the band's suspension and are optimistic that this is a new day for the band and the university. Our goal is to support the mission of the university and use this program to recruit top scholars and elevate the stature of the university," he added.

The band will perform during the halftime show at the MEAC/SWAC Challenge presented in Orlando, Florida, on September 1, and at other games during the football season.

Trayvon Martin's father honored as FAMU band captain

The university stressed in the statement that positive steps have been taken since Champion's death.

It created an anti-hazing plan that includes a revised student code of conduct, a new anti-hazing website, scheduled campus training and beefed-up procedures for reporting and investigating hazing allegations.

Champion was beaten on a bus after a November 2011 football game in Orlando, as part of a band hazing ritual. The 26-year-old died "within an hour" of the beating, medical examiners reported.

The Marching 100 was suspended shortly after his death.
What is a short summary of the above article?

OUT:

assistant: FAMU's famed Marching 100 band will return to the field for the first time since its suspension after the hazing death of a drum major close to two years ago.