34 / CHRONICLESnA good deal of selectivity must benemployed to build Dolan’s unattestednthesis that there have always been twonequally important schools of thoughtnregarding Catholicism in America:nEnlightened Catholics wanted thenpluralism that came with a nationalnchurch in tune with the American waynof life; the benighted “Europeanists”nwere the opposition. Those with propheticnforesight wanted a congregationalnmodel for the church, but theynwere defeated by a hierarchicalclericalnchurch. The lay people “werenleft to pay, pray, and obey.” On thenkey issue of authority, in Dolan’s view,nthe right side lost, and the consequencesnproved to be devastating.nCatholics were “taught to be docilenand submissive.” The Catholic view ofnsin made guilt central and created “anculture of sin.” Ritual identified withnUnmythical MonsternSome time in the last century, artistsndecided they were heroes.nHomer and the troubadours restedncontent with celebrahng the exploitsnof great men; their own activitiesnwere not a suitable subject forngreat literature. Some heroes, ofncourse, were also poets—Richard Inof England, James I of Scotland,nand Sir Philip Sidney—but that is andifferent matter. Whether Byron ornWordsworth or Goethe was the firstnpoet-hero is of little importancen(although, ironically, SamuelnJohnson may be the first Englishnwriter whose life is as important asnhis works). The fact is that for overn100 years, writers—first poets, thennnovelists—managed to pass themselvesnoff as cultural heroes.nIn America, the heyday of thenheroic novelist was the 1930’s.nHemingway’s toughness, Fitzgerald’snalcoholism, Sinclair Lewis’nnastiness were all the stuff of legends.nIn each case (and one mightnthrow in Eugene O’Neill, DylannThomas, Brendan Behan, andnRobert Lowell) the legend swallowednup the artist, the myth devourednthe man. Whether ThomasnWolfe was ever an artist or even anthe “feminine personality” becamenemotional and sentimental. Sistersnwere “the Catholic serfs.” The miraculousnwas reduced to folklore, magic,nand charms. This church was dominatednby the pastor who “ruled as lordnand master of his parish,” while then”boss rule” of bishops became “thenaccepted norm.” This is caricature asnhistory—polihcal cartoons submittednas serious commentary.nThe question comes to this: IsnDolan a historian or a politician?nWherein lies the central weight of hisnbook? Clearly, I think, on the side ofnpolitics and the rhetoric of advocacy.nOne need only examine how he usesnwords like “new” and “old” and theirnvariations. The ways of the past willnno longer work. A new spirit is alive innAmerican Catholicism, the spirit ofnthe next century. The progressive het­nREVISIONSnman is open to question, but hisnpersonal story, told ad nauseam innhis novels, practically defines then”artist as doomed hero” genre. Innhis superb new biography, Loo^nHomeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfen(Boston: Little, Brown; $24.95),nhistorian David Herbert Donaldnhas succeeded in doing somethingnThomas Wolfe never achieved:nmaking sense of Wolfe’s life.nThe facts are familiar to mostnnovel-readers, of the wild mountainnboy (actually from urban Asheville),nthe semiliterate GothicnSoutherner (of Pennsylvania Germannblood with an education atnChapel Hill and Harvard that madenhim, perhaps, the most learnednsuccessful novelist of his time)nwhose gargantuan appetites led himnon from one excess to another untilnhe died, a casualty of his lust for lifen(pathetically shy, Wolfe relied onnprostitutes and older women untilnhis celebrity attracted a stream ofnunbalanced young women. He diednof tuberculosis). Donald is morensympathetic to Wolfe’s irresponsibilitynand pretensions to geniusnthan the author deserves, but therenis something attractive in a novelistnwho did not know how to play thenliterary version of “Careers.” Hennnerodox have seized the future; they arenthe new. The traditional orthodoxnhave buried themselves in the past;nthey are the old. Pope John Paul II isn”calling Catholics back to the oldnchurch, and trying to restore uniformitynand control. But it [will] no longernwork.” Rhetorically, “new” is the operativenword throughout the entirenwork.nFor a historian, such a sensibility isna disaster. Such a mind has failed tonobtain, by the necessarily arduousnlabor, the matter and significance ofntradition. Such a sensibility is markedlyndeficient in the historical sensenwhich, according to T.S. Eliot, “involvesnnot only a perception of thenpastness of the past, but of its presence.”nRespect for the past compelsnsuch a man to write not only “with hisnown generation in his bones” but alsonwas what he was, he wrote what henwrote (with considerable assistancenfrom editors).nBecause he did not know how tonlie, much less conceal his provincialnprejudices, critics accusednWolfe of fascism, anti-Semitism,nand—worst of all—ignorance ofnMarx. The Southern Agrariansnmade an effort to like him, but mostnof them were too infected with criticalntheories ever to appreciate thenlumbering poetry and squalid magnificencenof Wolfe even at his best.nRobert Penn Warren wrote a witheringnreview of Loo^ HomewardnAngel but left Wolfe alone after thentwo met in Colorado. DavidnDonald realized that Wolfe entertainedn”a certain hatred and loathingnfor the South, perhaps all thenmore because he recognizes it asnpart of himself “nThis is Donald’s first literary biography,nand with it he goes to thenhead of the class. Whatever flawsnLook Homeward has — a certainnethical indifference to Wolfe’snsometimes inexcusable behaviornand a questionable use of fiction asna guide to real events—it will standnfor decades as an exemplary worknon an (unfortunately) exemplarynfigure in American letters. (TF)n