ancestry can live in America ‘for anthousand years’ without becoming annAmerican? In short, are you a vengefulnblack racist? Perhaps a masochisticnwhite flagellant? If so look no further. Inhave found the impartial televisionnshow of your dreams.”nBut there is far more to these essaysnthan fun at the expense of trendynpolitical messages. Grenier’s commentarynhelps us to confront and to understandnbetter what Judge Robert Borkndescribed in his introduction as, “Onenof the wonders of the modern world”;nnamely, the hostility of the intellectualnand cultural elites of the Western democraciesntoward their own societies.nPaul Hollander is the author ofnPolitical Pilgrims, among other books.nHis Anti-Americanism: Critiques atnHome and Abroad will be publishednthis year by Oxford University Press.nYou Never KnownWhat the DaynWill BringnbyJ.O. TatenGringosnby Charles PortisnNew York: Simon & Schuster;n269 pp., $18.95nCharles Portis’s fifth novel is ofncourse a pleasure in its own right,nbut it’s also an occasion — or should Insay I am making it one — for reflectingnon its author and his work, his style, hisnliterary profile, the way he does thingsnwith words. I’d like to do that, because Indon’t think, in spite of his success, thatnMr. Portis has entirely gotten his due,nthe recognition that he deserves as anwriter.nAs he shows once again in Gringos,nGharles Portis is a deceptively laid-backnperformer. His narrator, Jimmy Burns,nis so relaxed that we forget just hownmuch is going on beneath the surfacenof his pages as we scan them. The ridenis so absorbing for its incidental joysnthat we forget where we are going. Wendon’t care. Later we realize that thenjourney was more .thoughtfully conductednthan we ever knew. The non­n40/CHRONICLESnchalance of the experience reflects thensprezzatura of the artist.nI suppose that Gharies Portis’s stylenand diction are not only personal accomplishmentsnbut are products of hisnArkansas background. He seems tonhave advanced the tradition of southwesternnor frontier humor as we havenreceived it from Thorpe and Twainnand Faulkner, and to have forged hisnown unique sound and subject matter.nThat tone of his, in Norwood, The Dognof the South, and Gringos, is a specialnblend compounded of cunning andnnaivete, of rustic whimsy and contemporaryncool, of first-person narrativenand neurotic digression. There’s annarbitrary, quirky readiness to leave thenline of the tale, to pursue any point, tonfuzz the focus, that is reminiscent ofnEudora Welty’s speaker in “Why InLive at the P.O.” Portis’s narrators arenso often beset by con men, madmen,nand cranks that their own hobbyhorsesncan sometimes confuse our perspective.nYet their stories have the compellingnforce of that of the Ancient Mariner.nGringos is about Americans in Mexico,nwhere no amount of craziness cannerase our sense of the presence of thenpast. Portis catches with effortless accuracynthe surreal world that juxtaposes angarbage dump here with a pre-Golombianntemple there. The overlay ofnHispanic culture reminds me that thenpicaresque, on-the-road quality of Portis’snnovels is beautifully affirmed innGringos, some of whose charactersnremind me of Don Quixote, and onenor two of Sancho Panza.nThe overwhelming background ofnMexico — the Catholic, the pagan, thenSpanish, and the Indian cultures —nassert themselves even as various gringosnand locals attempt to exploit themnor trash them or steal them or subvertnthem, or even penetrate their mysteries.nJimmy Burns, a lost soul who haulsnjunk and locates missing persons, setsnout to find one and winds up savingnanother — not for money. There’s anhint at a kind of grace, a marriage, annew dispensation, one embedded in antale of idols and dwarfs and witches andnritual sacrifices, as well as litfle mennfrom flying saucers who must existn(mustn’t they?) to explain all thosenMayan ruins.nIt is Refugio, the Sancho character,nwho declares, “You never know whatnnnthe day will bring,” which may be truenoutside Mexico and outside a novel bynCharles Portis, but is certainly the rulenwithin those entities. Let’s say that thenfictional Mexico is a Portisland, andnleave it at that. Ironies abound.n”Things had turned around, and nownit was the palefaces who were beingntaken in with beads and trinkets.” “Younnever know what you’ll run into innMexico, John Knox in a guayaberanshirt, or a rain of tadpoles in the desert,nor a strangely empty plaza in the heartnof a teeming city with not even a birdnto be seen.” Portisland, if not Mexico,nis a place where anything can happen,nand does.nBut in a novel by Gharies Portis,nwhat happens next sneaks up on thenreader, who is so busy listening to whatnthe narrator says that he neglects tonwatch out for big surprises. When onenwoman challenges Jimmy Burns with,n” ‘You’re afraid of smart women, aren’tnyou?'” his internal comment steals thenshow:nShe had used this ploy before,nhaving heard via the femalenbush telegraph that it wasnunanswerable. She was rightnthough. I was leery of them.nArt and Mike said taking annintellectual woman into yournhome was like taking in a babynraccoon. They were bothnamusing for awhile but soonnbecame randomly vicious andnlearned how to open thenrefrigerator.nBy an idiosyncratic art of combination,nPortis has honed a style so beguiling thatnhis books are consumed for the sheernpleasure of their discourse, rather thannfor the resolution of suspense. The mannhas style.nSo Jimmy Burns speaks in a knowing,nrueful, and flexible way that wenhave heard before and would knownanywhere. He seems to be superficialnbut is shrewd; he seems to be antiintellectual,nbut reveals knowledge ofnhistory and evidence of thoughtfulness.nHis good humor and openness arenappealing, but they have their limits. Inlike what he says about UFO literature:n”Still, the flying saucer books were funnto read and there weren’t neariy enoughnof them to suit me. I liked the belligerentnones best, that took no crap off thenscience establishment.” I relished alson