concerned with the peril posed by thenprogressive Western loss of the sense ofnthe sacred, of place, of craftsmanship, ofnfamily, of political genius. His remarks.nThe Insecurities & Envies ofnthe Liberal MindnDavid Lodge: Souls and Bodies;nWilliam Morrow; New York.nJoan Williams: County Woman; Atlantic/Little,nBrown; Boston.nby Gregory Wolfen1 he novel which sets a story against anbackdrop of turbulent social upheaval—civilnor foreign wars, revolution—nhas wide appeal. At the lower end of thenliterary scale are the thick paperbacks onnthe supermarket swivel-racks; theirncovers feature such depictions as a plantationnowner in a torrid embrace with anhalf-naked slave woman, with the burningnplantation in the background. Thensocial unrest in these novels is used primarilynto echo and intensify unrestrainednlust—which is what they are all about,nanyway. On the highest end of the scalenare works like Dickens’s A Tale of TwonCities and Tolstoy’s War and Peace.nWhat transforms these tales into literaturenis the complex interplay betweenncharacter and destiny, between the rangenof human choice and the larger socialnmovement. However, the danger of thenhistorical novel is a tendency towardnideological reductionism; it easily becomesna morality play promoting thenauthor’s particular ideological viewpoint;nsomething which has been all tooncommon in an age ravaged by “isms.”nBoth of these novels, in differing degrees,nfall into this trap.nA review of Malcolm Muggeridge’sndiaries written by Lodge may shed somenMr. Wolfe is an editor o/HillsdalenReview.nS6inChronicles of Culturenarchaic and anecdotal in style (they werenreferred to playfully by Brooks asn”Rutherford County metaphysics”), arenstill as relevant as eternity. Dnlight on his way of thinking. In it. Lodgensays that the “recycling” of Muggeridgenhas reached its limit, and that Muggeridgen”had the courage, or arrogance, tonassume that his life has representativensignificance.” Very soon it becomes obviousnthat Lodge thinks it arrogance;nafter comparing Muggeridge’s spiritualnpilgrimage with those of GrahamnGreene and Evelyn Waugh, Lodgenclaims that because Muggeridge was notnan artist like them, he turned to journalismnand self-promotion. Such a view ofnMuggeridge, which ignores his talent as anwriter and the depth of his religious insight,nbespeaks a mind unlikely to seenthrough the pretensions of secular liberalism.nLodge’s tone is confident, evennjudicious. He can certainly afford to be sonconfident: at a very young age he hasnwritten some of the most popular comicnnovels and books of literary criticism (innBritain, at least) of the last 15 years.nSome reviewers compare lodge favorablynto Greene and Waugh. In Souls andnBodies, Lodge turns his self-confidentntone to good advantage, for his personanas narrator is very much the Fieldingesquenscholar-gentleman, interruptingnthe story to make short disquisitions,ncommenting sympathetically on hisncharacters, even sharing his thought processesnas he decides what to name hisnchararters. This self-conscious artistry encouragesnthe reader to assume an ironicndetachment and at the same time pointsnto Lodge’s artistic mastery, his ability tonmake the story come alive. Anotherndevice he employs is to use the transcriptnof a TV documentary (on a liberalnCatholic organization) to end the novelnon a note of comic irony.nnnThe epigraph for Souls and Bodies is,nsignificantly, from Hans Kiing; it is anseries of what might be called “fundamental”nquestioris (“What can wenknow?. . . . Why are we here? . . .nWhat will give us courage for life andnwhat courage for death?”). It turns outnthat these questions are important becausenthey deal with the universal problemsnthat Christianity seeks to answernand that stand in contradistinction to thenaccumulation of dogma and moral casuistrynwhich burden modern RomannCatholics and cause them serious difficultiesnin life. For the most part. Lodge’sncriticism along these lines is light andncomic: life for Roman Catholics is seen asna game of moral Snakes and Ladders,nwhere the object is to avoid Hell by arrangingnone’s moral status (by means ofnconfession, communion, rosaries, indulgences)nso as to die in a state of grace andnthus go straight to Heaven. The mainnquestion for Catholics who seek pleasurenwhile being confronted with moral prohibitionsnis: How far can one go? Lodgenhas great fun with this casuistry as hentraces the premarital and early marriednlives of his characters, and the humornoften lapses into farce.nl5ut Lodge lets us know that this isnnot merely a comic novel like his ChangingnPlaces, a bouncy satire on the campusnunrest of the late 60’s and on English andnAmerican academic life. In Souls andnBodies there is a tragic clement that isnsupposed to give bite to the satire;nreviewers call this a “dark power” andneven “stark tragedy.” What it comesndown to is this: Catholic sexual moralitynin general, and, more specifically, thendoctrines on contraception embodied innthe papal encyclical Humanae Vitae arenseen as having destmctive effects, in bothna practical and a psychological sense. Thengreat obstacle is the safe method of contraceptionn(otherwise known as rhythm,nor the sympto-thermal rnethod in its developednform), which is often ineffective,nsexually restricting, and just plainntiresome. In fact, the closest this novelncomes to “stark tragedy” is when onen