comprises only ten percent of their newntitles. A smaller number of fiction writersnmake larger amounts of money thannever before, however, so the situationnbedazzles even as it contracts the numbersnof those who furnish the nationalnchambers of imagination. The freedomsnof fictions have been dissected into categories:ngothic, mystery, spy, historical,nscience-fiction and general.nThis bureaucratic regimentation, stiflingnthe freedom of creativity and impoverishingnculture, has favorednanother notable new aspect of thenWouk’s two novels have appearednat a time when our civilization is menacednby Dostoyevsky’s devils, and whennnot one, but a series of holocausts havenoccurred. This is not ordinarily the stuffnof which popular novels are made, butnthe Second World War occupies a peculiar,nalmost unprecedented time-warp.nMost huge and ruinous wars havenbeen followed by a period of bitterncynicism, and World War II is not completelyndifferent in that respect. Butnunlike its predecessor, the Second Worldn”• If is di-‘pri’.s.sini! lo ili.xcovir liniillv t haf .i novi-i \ ho.sf w.v. sciipi’ .iiid niei hoiinremind us ol War ,H!il Piuci jnd whosi- tlu-nu- is IxnuKJ to riiuind us oln.Mann’s Diicldtlviiisfus has for its ri-al hi-ro liie L’nin-d Sr;iti-s N’.uy.”n— I7H- CU’ Repuh/icnmodern novel in the United States: itsnincreasing addiction to surface realismnand special pleading. In that sense, fie-‘ntion has drawn closer to nonfiction; hasnbecome a sort of pseudononfiction.nNovelslike Hotel and Airpor( by Hailey,nattract attention by the verisimilitudenof their backgrounds as much as byntheir cleverly choreographed turns ofnplot.nBoth The Winds of War and War andnRemembrance use the new emphasis tonexcellent advantage. The accuracy ofntheir detail and their documentary approachnto describing various settingsnand activities contain their own fascinationsnfor a fact-drenched audience.nSome reviewers, by noting that Wouknhas played his fictional characters amidnthe scenes of a real war, have drawnnattention to the earlier example of Tolstoy’snWar and Peace.nThe surface resemblance, indeed, exists.nBut there is a vast gulf betweennthe audiences to whom Tolstoy addressednhis efforts, and the multitudentoday. Tolstoy wrote when the Czar wasnon his throne and Christendom rulednthe world. The educated levels of hisnaudience were still professing religionists,nand virtually all the West wasnunited—if not on matters of faith—atnleast on matters of morals.nWar has evoked no outcries againstnmunitions-makers or profiteers; no accusationsnthat it was unnecessary. Itnstands, in truth, as the shining momentnin Britain’s history that Churchill predicted,nand in the United States only thentruly perverse hold our effort in retroactivenscorn.nThe fact is, however, that a phenomenalnamount of literature on World WarnII is in circulation. The Nazis seem tonstrut the screens of Hollywood and inntelevision in greater numbers than whennthey were in power. They always lose,nof course, and the heroism and skillnwith which they are outwitted mightnpersuade the young that in their daynNazis were buffoons. Such retroactivenvictories hide a mountain of shame; ofnFrench retreat before reality and Englishnhumiliation on the battlefield; ofnAmerican ineptitude and Soviet intransigence,nand a host of dark and bristlingnissues as yet not fully defined or resolved.nSuch issues have expanded since thenend of World War II into the tanglednsituation we know today. But long beforenour times, the West took a downwardnpath. Many argue that the FirstnWorld War was launched for what wasnthen considered good and sufficientnreason—that is to say, for colonial dom­nnninance — and nonetheless flew completelynout of hand. That governmentsnthen deliberately wasted the lives ofnmillions can be considered evidence ofnthe Western collapse of traditional faith,nof morals in the deeper sense, and ofnsanity. Only lust for power remained.nAt its close, the fallen men of Versaillesncompleted their butcher’s work in antreaty that made a renewal of the warninevitable—whether Hitler rose to rulenGermany or not. The road to war in thenThirties, however, could not be admittednby the responsible groups to havenbeen a logical outcome of precedingnerrors. Therefore the Thirties remainnan essentially unexamined decade, andnthe Satanic Hitler, the most useful pegnever discovered upon which to hang allnresponsibility. World War II, a continuationnof this explanation, then dwindlesnto an adventure tale in which the whitenhats won—made more vivid than mostnsuch yarns by the horrors of Dachaunand the villainies of the Gestapo. As anresult, the period from 1935 to 1945 isnetched in the minds of millions as thoughnunique, separate and apart from thenflow of history before or since—asnfascinating, in a grisly way, as figuresnon a new urn, carved by new artists ofna generation ago, repeated and radiatednby later copies.nHerman Wouk, therefore, although anveteran of the conflict and a member ofna group whose sufferings under Hitlernwere deliberately devised, entered uponnthese scenes as a novelist skilled in portrayingnwhat American audiences likento read. Half his audience, we mustnremember, recalls the period. The othernhalf was not then alive. One half, therefore,ndoes not want its settled convictionsndisturbed, the other half hasnalready been educated to the officialnversion, which contains neither originsnnor afterthoughts.nSuch speculations are not, of course,nnecessarily novelistic. A novelistnchooses a period that is essentially anslice of life and of time. His choice cannrange from hours to years, and a war,nwhich has a certain physical beginningnI ^ M M B ^ M H H l SnChronicles of Culturen