6/CHRONICLESnperhaps Mr. Greenwood is not just anplain old country kind of guy. On thenother hand, perhaps the pubhc relationsndirector of his organization is. Ornat least a plain old country kind ofnperson.n—Paul StallsworthnThe Progress of Modern Dance mightnhave been choreographed by OswaldnSpengler. At least that’s the view ofnWalter Sorrell, a long-time Americanndance critic whose pessimistic perspectivenon American dance was recentlynfeatured in the New York Times. Surveyingnthe world of dance today,nSorrell detects a “decline of qualityn[that] goes hand in hand with thendecline of Western civilization as predictednby Oswald Spengler.” Sorrellntakes little comfort in the growingnnumber of dancers and dance instructors:n”Ancient Rome—before itnwas sacked — abounded in dancingnschools.”nThe New York Times is not surenwhat to do with this man of “stimulating”nopinions, a critic who “considersndance within a broad intellectual andnrich cultural context.” After some hesitation,nthey lump Sorrell with criticsnwho “identify with the period in whichnthey discovered an art form” and whonthen resist later innovations—a “neo-nRomantic” whose aesthetic developmentnstopped after the ExpressionistnAgamemnon in MiddletownnThe story of the Western frontiernhas become the great Americannmyth, but before settlers crossed thenMississippi or began to fill up Nebraska,nthe Northwest Territory wasnthe West, the El Dorado that firednthe imaginations of younger sonsnand impoverished farmers. While itnmay be hard to imagine anyonenwaxing poetic over the history ofnOhio, a college professor from Middletownndid just that back in then1930’s. George Dell’s The EarthnAbideth, a family saga of Ohio pioneering,nlay unnoticed until hisndaughter-in-law sent in the manuscriptnto Ohio State University Pressnand Dadaist movements of the 1940’snand 1950’s. As “a writer defined bynhis own time,” he was unprepared fornthe new directions dance took duringnthe 1960’s and 1970’s. (Sorrellnwas “shocked when … a youngnchoreographer . . . [used] an expletivenabout Beethoven on public television.”nHe was “disappointed whennMiss Rainer introduced stag moviesninto a performance in 1969.”)nGive the devil his due: The Timesnoccasionally deviates into rectitude.nThere is an increasing number of culturencritics (not to mention politicalnideologues) who went along with everynhare-brained trick, so long as it wasnmodern: withholding tax and abstractnexpressionism, serial music, and sexneducation. But we all grow old. ThenNew Deal of our youth or JacksonnPollock is one thing, the Great Societynand plastic-wrapped islands is quitenanother. While wc welcome Sorrell’snchange of heart, we might be happiernif he’d just apologize and then shut upnabout it. There’s nothing more tediousnthan a reformed alcoholic (or ex-nCommunist) who goes around spoilingncocktail parties with lectures on thenperils of drink (or Marxism or stagnmovies). Converts to any cause oughtnto take a 10-year (renewable) vow ofnsilence. Which reminds us of ourndefinition of a liberal: someone whonscreams at his children when theynfollow his advice.nREVISIONSn(Columbus). She thought the worknmight be publishable after the successnoi And Ladies of the Club.nDell is, in some ways, a strongernwriter than Helen Hooven Santmyer,nalthough his story does notnmove along nearly so well. It is,nhowever, well worth the few eveningsnit will take to read. It is thentale of men and women who makenchoices, not always right, and havento live with them, of one man innparticular who in his youth seemsnto do everything right until he killsnan enemy and seduces a friend’snwife. Living with the consequencesnturns out to mean shooting one sonnas a thief and turning over the farmnto another from whom he has es­nnnThe Reagan Revolution is dwindlingndown in its latter days into somethingnthat in the final analysis differs in onlyna few details from its predecessors. Innfact, Reagan may have established thatnno Administration, no matter what itsnwill or the size of its majority, cannsurvive the push of the media and thenpull of the bureaucracy.nConsider: An honorable nomineenfor Chief Justice of the United States isnsubjected to a marathon impugnationnby Senators whose private moral characternis such that no prudent mannwould leave them alone in a roomnwith his female relatives or portablenvaluables. The Administration respondsnto this outrage by a policy ofnpassive resistance. Consider: An egregiousninterference into the complicatedninternal affairs of a remote countrynwhich has never expressed the slightestnhostility toward us is promoted as angreat moral victory. (Remember thatnthis interference could not have beennconsummated without massive aidnfrom the President’s own party; that,nthough sought for decades, this interferencennever before occurred underneven the most leftist administrations;nand that it is as certain as any empiricalnprediction can be that our newnSouth African policy—if it has anyneffect at all—will be disastrous for allnparties in that country.)nConsider: Under the guise of “taxnreform,” some of the last remainingntranged himself In the end, at thenage of 70, he goes back to the plow,nand as he dies, the old man has anvision of all the people he hasnknown taking part in an oldfashionednthreshing.nThe Earth Abideth, a work ofnaffection and moral force, joins andistinguished body of regional Midwesternnliterature now almost forgottennin these times when novelistsnmay be divided into prisspants likenTruman Capote and foulmouthsnlike Norman Mailer or—best ofnall—the androgynes that succeednin combining both qualities. If younare satisfied with John Updike,ndon’t buy this book.n