onistic points of view, it was thencommon reader who ruled in favor ofnDefoe: Gulliver was not read in termsnof its real intent and so the RobinsonnCrusoe perspective prevailed, fanningnthe flames of empire in the popularnimagination. It is Defoe, however, whonis banned from the realms of high culturenas the landed gentry, representednin the personage of Dean Swift, was notnabout to offer any discretionary privilegesnto a spokesman for the risingnmerchant class.nOf the other writers Green discusses,nTolstoy and Kipling present thenmost striking paradoxes for the establishmentncritic. In The Cossacks, Tolstoynembodied the life force of the militaryncaste that stood apart from the centersnof civilization. Viewed from inside,nthe Cossacks were wild, unruly and free;nviewed from the outside, they were enforcersnof political discipline, thencounterpart of the American frontiersman,nwho was the actual vehicle fornwestern expansion, the lawless tamer ofnthe Indian and’his lands. The sensibilitynof Tolstoy’s adventure stories, however,nis not easily dismissed because he wentnon to write serious literature of thenhighest order. This should then pointnthe reader in the direction of the energynand the issues that provoked Tolstoy’snimagination. Surely in a world of empirenbuilding, the brother’s concerns mustnalso be seriously addressed by the writer,nand seriously considered by the literaryncritic.nKipling, on the other hand, is for thenmost part dismissed by the academy asnan unsubtle propagandist for the whitenman’s burden. Therefore his influencenlingers powerfully in the area of children’snliterature where, ironically, itnmight have the greatest effect on thenreal course of culture—as testified tonby the large number of men of action innthis century who read and were movednby Kipling’s stories in their youth. Kipling,nof course, was a supreme craftsman,nbut more than that he was ablento capture the particular experiencesn24inChronicles of Culturenthat made up the lives of those holdingnthe responsibility for the extension andnmaintenance of the British Empire.nStalky & Co., an unrecognized classic,nshows Kipling at his complex best exploringnthe nature of the antagonismnbetween youth and age in a militaryschoolnsetting. In this story, Kiplingnraises the fundamental question for thenbrothers: how can individual initiativenand independent judgment be developednin the face of the necessary but tyrannicalnofficial rules of the organization?nThe rebellious characters of Stalkynand his two cohorts hardly fit the moldnof the docile, disciplined, order-followingnlife portrayed in a 19th-century booknof manners, for Stalky is a modernnCossack. He excites the possibilities ofnour own power in the face of authoritiesnthat would grind us into submission.nAnd so the cool reception accordednProfessor Green’s book must come asnno surprise. In legitimizing the adventurentale, which has always stretched thenboundaries of present existence, Greennhas implicitly passed judgment on thenacademy for functioning as the exclusivenbastion of the domestic novel. Butnalthough this means the continuingnimpoverishment of the people’s stories,nperhaps, ironically, it is best. Oncenturned over to the critical establishment,nthe secret power of the forbidden talenmight be lost forever. DnA Cowboy In a Sex UtopianJerzy Kosinski: Passion Play; St.nMartin’s Press; Nevi^ York.nby Lev NavrozovnIvike William Styron’s Sophie’snChoice, or Irwin Shaw’s The Top ofnthe Hill, Jerzy Kosinski’s Passion Playnis pulp from beginning to end: it hardlyncontains a passage that could be considerednliterature, not a single interestingnobservation, thought, memory or fact.nIs there anything that would distinguishnMr. Kosinski’s pulp from an ocean ofnother pulp, such as that recentlynchurned out by Mr. Styron or Mr. Shawn(who was once a gifted writer)? There is.nShaw, in The Top of the Hill, strivesnfor a degree of verisimilitude. If his heronconquers numberless beauties, this isnbecause he is young, irresistibly handsome,nhas a degree from a good university,na good salary, is “terrifically intelligent,”nand free with his money. Thisnimparts an elementary degree of pulpnplausibility: “Aha,” says the reader, “nonwonder he does so well with all thosenbeauties.” Kosinski dispenses with evennMr. Navrozov is a frequent contributornto these pages.nnnthis kind of plausibility: his pulp is asnimplausible as a television soap opera.nThus, during an altercation with a rich,nimportant gentleman seated before ann”ornate hunt table,” the hero of PassionnPlay, a polo player named Fabian,n”sliced off the tip of his ring finger”—nto emphasize his point, so to speak—nthrew it on the table, and:n”… his fury an anesthetic againstnpain, he reached out and picked thenfingertip up, held it reluctantly betweennhis thumb and forefinger.”nKosinski might recall that inside thenhuman body there is a liquid known asnblood, which he indeed mentions elsewhere,nand that his hero’s retrieval ofnthe sliced-off part of his ring fingernought to be accompanied by a spurt ofnblood, which messes things up, andnwould prevent the operation from beingnas cool and sure as though the remnantnof the hero’s ring finger were anpencil stub.nIronically, while Kosinski’s inventionsnare as bloodless as a child’s fantasies,nthey all seem to have been takennhelter-skelter from printed or electronicnmatter, be it Tolstoy or pornography.n