but a step removed from the “cosmicnloneliness” of Meursault, the hero ofnAlbert Camus’ The Stranger, a novelnthat haunted Styron, he tells us, evennthough he did not read it until he wasnin his 30’s. I find it interesting thatnwhen he set out to write The Confessionsnof Nat Turner, his best novel itnseems to me, he employed Camus’n”device of having the story flow fromnthe point of view of a narrator isolatednin his jail cell during the hours beforenhis execution.” Styron prefaces hisncommentary on various writers, somenof them personal friends, whose despairnended in suicide by quoting Camus’nfamous, and for me quite puzzling,npronouncement at the beginningnof The Myth of Sisyphus: “Therenis but one truly serious philosophicalnproblem, and that is suicide. Judgingnwhether life is or is not worth livingnamounts to answering the fundamentalnquestion of philosophy.” Such a statementndoubtless seems silly to the majoritynof people, and not just ordinarynpeople either — that is, to all those whonare happily free of any such pondering,nor else have decided that such teleologicalnconcerns are too far removed fromnour diurnal affairs to have much meaningnor importance. After all, one mayndecide, as great multitudes of peoplenno doubt have decided, that it mattersnlittle whether life has any meaningnor not; one still gets on with thenbusiness of living. Besides, there’s angood deal of truth in Freud’s remarknthat when one inquires about the sensenor value of life, one is sick. But nownI’m going in a circle. Styron’s essay,nafter all, is about sickness — the sicknessncalled despair. To be sure, mostnpeople who periodically suffer fromnextreme depression survive the pain,napparenfly none the worse for theirnexperience. Many of those unable tonescape its clutch destroy themselves —nironically in self-defense, as it were.nAs a piece of writing, DarknessnVisible contains all the woodnotes andnthe autumnal color one has learned tonexpect from its author. If a few passagesnreveal an unwonted kinship — stylistically,nthat is — to his fellow VirginiannE.A. Poe, they are nonetheless innkeeping with the subject of his discourse.nFor example, the followingncommentary on the perverse tricknplayed on him by alcohol, which hadnfor years acted as a shield againstnanxiety, might have been forged innPoe’s Gothic workshop: “Suddenlynvanished, the great ally which for sonlong had kept my demons at bay wasnno longer there to prevent those demonsnfrom beginning to swarmnthrough the subconscious, and I wasnemotionally naked, vulnerable as I hadnnever been before. Doubtless depressionnhad hovered near me for years,nwaiting to swoop down. Now I was innthe first stage — premonitory, like anflicker of sheet lightning barely perceived—nof depression’s black tempest.”nAnother example, this the openingnsentence of the^essay: “In Paris onna chilly evening late in October ofn1985 I first became fully aware that thenstruggle with the disorder in mynmind — a struggle which had engagednme for several months — might have anfatal outcome.” And off we go on thisnfascinating tour of darkness.nWilUam H. Nolte is a professor ofnEngUsh at the University of SouthnCaroUna in Columbia.nBRIEF MENTIONSnThe Trail ofnthe Bearnby Gregory McNameenGrizzly Yearsnby Douglas PeacocknNew York: Henry Holt;n320 pp., $22.95nLike many of his generation, TheodorenRoosevelt had a fondness forntrekking into wild places and, whilentaking in the sights, shooting the largengame he found. He was especially fondnof hunting bears. Doing so, he recountednin Ranch Life and the Hunting-nTrail, heightened his appreciation fornhis own mortality, and it made him feelnpretty good in the bargain. The stuffednMontana grizzly Roosevelt kept innthe White House watched over himnthrough frequent rough times, a talismannto remind him of the America henloved, far from the metropolis.nAn enterprising manufacturernPRESTON STURGES by Preston Sturges, adapted and editednby Sandy SturgesnNew York: Simon & Schuster, 352 pp., $22.95nSome of the great comedies of the 40’s came from the pen of writer/directornPreston Sturges: The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, Sullivan’s Travels. Thisncompilation of his diaries and journals done by his widow, Sandy, is as charmingnand funny as his movies.nBorn in Chicago in 1898, Preston Sturges was raised in Europe by his IrishnAmerican mother who claimed a line of descent from Brian Boru, the last king ofnIreland, and counted Isadora Duncan among her best friends; it was Sturges’ mothernwho gave Duncan the fatal red shawl that, wrapping around a car wheel, broke hernneck. Much of the book concerns her and Sturges’ early life sometimes with her,nsometimes without. Only on page 237 do we get to his Hollywood years. Yet Sturges’nstories of running his mother’s cosmetic business, writing plays for Broadway, andnjoining the Air Force in World War I are as entertaining as his later chapters. He alsongives as good advice as I have ever read as to how to write dialogue, and as apt annexplanation for any man’s success in the movies: “The only amazing thing about myncareer in Hollywood is that I ever had one at all.”nPreston Sturges did not think very highly of the critics of his day, many of whomnreturned the compliment: “With Recapture, they said that it was very doubtful that 1nhad written Dishonorable. With The Well of Romance, they jumped up and downnon my body and tried to squirt the blood out of my jugulars.” He stepped on toonmany toes in Hollywood as well, and by 1946 found himself unwanted andnunhired, despite his box ofiBce success. Too strapped to bring his family east fromnCalifornia, he died alone, of a heart attack, at Manhattan’s Algonquin Hotel inn1958. He was just 60. But the continuing interest in his movies and the recentnSturges retrospective that played in New York, along with this wonderful book,nshould give Sturges (and his audience) the last laugh.n— Katherine DaltonnnnJANUARY 1991/41n