Interest in Barnes probably also stemsnfrom the fact that her novels aid shortnstories and plays consistently present anradically pessimistic, drearily deterministicnview of life that still squares nicelynwith the prevailing Zeitgeist. Accordingnto Barnes, man lives amid bewilderingnflux in a backwater constellation, in anninterminable limbo where there is neithernjoy nor light nor certitude nor peace.nMan is himself a superfluous and grotesquencreature, characterized principallynby a propensity to selfishness and brutality.nThe best one can do, then, is to adoptna stance of comic passivity—a detachednacceptance of the absurdity that is everywhere,nand of those intermittent andnspontaneous carnal pleasures that providena bracing respite from the continuingnpain.nUndoubtedly, Barnes’s unfortunatenupbringing contributed greatly to hernWeltschmerz. The three principal rolenmodels in Barnes’s life—i.e., her parentsnand her feminist-spiritualist grandmothern—^were all, as Field politely notes, “ineptneccentrics.” Of them, Wald Barnes,nDjuna’s father, was surely the mostnstrange. He was a volatile, megalomaniacal,nand probably psychopathic characternwho hauled his wife, mother, andngrowing brood off to rural upstate NewnYork so that he could run them throughnhis various “experiments” undisturbednby nosy burghers. As Field notes, OldnWald had decided views on, among othernthings, eupepsia, and for a time made thenBarnes kids “emulate the regimen ofnpoultry by swallowing a small amount ofnfinely pulverized gravel as hens do innorder that thefr digestive systems mightnbe cleansed by it.” He also called for thenbreaking of all sexual restraints—and henpracticed what he preached. Accordingnto Field, Wald Barnes was an inveteratencollector of concubines. He was alsonquite possibly a sodomite and a childnmolester who, on at least one occasion,nbrutalized the adolescent Djuna.nWendell Ryder, the central figure innthe lengthy Ryder, owes much to WaldnBarnes, and is accordingly—not surpris­n12inChronicles of Cultureningly—unsympathetically drawn. Atntimes he does appear as a mildly charmingniconoclast gutsily defying “the authoritiesnof the state and the wiseacresnof the nation.” But more often he is nothingnmore than a phallus with legs, aimingnto fecundate anything that moves. He isnlecherous, shiftless, stubborn, uncaring,nand, in the end, ineffective: he is fornBarnes the typical male writ large.nField tells us that the Barnes he met inn1977 disdained “the exaggerated posturingnof the contemporary feminist movement.”nBut you can bet that feminist criticsnwill be foraging about in Ryder fornyears to come, pointing to its “Rabelaisian”ngusto and its tacit commemorationnof female superiority. Of course, the booknis secure in its status as a literary curio—nas a remarkable example of just how ex­ntensive was the influence of Joyce onnthe impressionable avant-garde writersnof his generation. Ryder, indeed, reads asnif it had been produced by a clever creativenwriting student who had been instructednto “construct a novel in thenmock-epic mode, avoiding a linear plotnstructure but being careful to employneach of the following: a) paronomasia;nb) parody; c) stream of consciousness.”nIn short, it is stiff, pretentious, and dull—nparalyzingly dull.nr* ield makes no outrageous claims fornRyder. But he is very much taken withnNightwood—Barnes’s novelization ofnher tumultuous love affair with thensculptress Thelma Wood, another beautifulnand mysterious self-exile on the LeftnBank scene. Nightwood is thick withnIn the forthcoming issue oi Chronicles of Culture:nTo See the World and MannThe application of tmthfiilness and rationality to the dissectionnof ideologies and the promotion of liberty and justicendoes not mean being confined to a narrowly scientific, quantitativenset of instalments. Certainly those who I have calledn”the defenders of freedom,” the Machiavellians, did not relynupon Gallup polls or electronic computers to gain thieirnextraordinary insights into the nature of the politicalnprocesses. As I obser’ed, a touch pla’ililly, in the openingnlines of my book Congress and the American Tradition, “Innancient times, before the illusions of science had corruptedntraditional wisdom, the founders of Cities were known to bengods or demigods,”n—from “To See the World and Man”nby James BurnhamnOpinions & Views—Commendables—hi Focusn—PerceptiblesnWaste of Money—The American Prosceniumn—Screen—^Art—MusicnCorrespondence—Liberal Culture—Journalismnnn