the hotel and bash them on the skull.”nCharyn’s writing is here and there sonbad that one is uncertain whether it is andeliberate satire, an intended sendup.n”He tapped them once on the skull tongive the lads something to dream about,”nor: “The waiters at the restaurant sawnthe bum get into that big car. They werenwise men. They understood that strangenthings existed in this world,” make thenreader feel embarrassed, whichever theirnorigin. The heroine, in an effort tonshake herself loose from Isaac, her admirer,nsays, “If you say anything, onenword about a French restaurant, I’llnsquat right here and piss on the sidewalk.”nWhat does Seymour Epstein, thenTimes’ critic, say about such stylisticngems.^ “But so skillful a writer as Mr.nCharyn must know what he is doing.nThese representations must be assumednto be deliberate,” he concludes.nJ. here is one more strain that consistentlynruns through the novel, andnthe way it is mishandled may be anothernkey to Charyn’s popularity. I refer tonwhat the novelist and his readers perceivenas the “Jewish” qualities in thenbook.nAs American Jews move farther awaynfrom their heritage, they seem to graspnat anything that gratuitously refers tontheir “Jewishness,” no matter how superficialntheir own connections to theirnpast often are. If a comedian uses wordsnlike “shtick” or “lox,” peals of laughternresound from all sides of the theatre.nThis is supposedly “good for the Jews.”nThings are not much different in thenliterary world. Whatever one thinks ofnIsaac Bashevis Singer’s books, it is annerror to view him as a typically Jewishnwriter merely because he writes innYiddish. His demons and imps are partnof his own mythology, less central tonthe Jewish tradition than reviewersnwould have us believe. To a publicnlargely ignorant of the religious rootsnof the Judaic tradition in Western civilization,nI. B. Singer is “good for thenJews.” Irving Howe conceded in a NewnRepublic review that Chaim Grade,nzznChronicles of Culturenwho also writes in Yiddish and has beenntranslated into English, “digs deeper”nthan Singer does. Robert Alter hasnsingled out Hugh Nissenson for praisenas one who is both within the Jewishntradition and a major literary talent.nEdward Lewis Wallant is unquestionablyna great Jewish-American writer,nyet Wallant, Grade and Nissenson arentoo authentically close to a traditionnthat asks too many uncomfortable questions—innshort they are too Jewish—nfor an audience that yearns only fornaccouterments of a tradition. Nostalgianis all the rage, but few want to returnnto or confront the real thing. AlthoughnProfessor Charles Angoff proposed thatnChaim Grade rather than Bellow deservednthe Nobel Prize for literature,nonly a handful of readers are acquaintednwith Grade’s masterpiece. The Yeshiva,nbut everyone has read Herzog.nCharyn is conscious of the literarynprofit to be derived from being a Jewishnwriter. He pays lip service to Joyce andnoccasionally invites Farrell, but hisnmodel is Saul Bellow. Charyn’s characters,nlike Bellow’s, think in Yiddish.nOf course. Bellow is careful enough tonrestrict Yiddish thinking only to Jewishncharacters. Charyn is sloppy in this regard.nOne of the prerequisites of thisnkind of pandering to an ethnic group isnthat the writer know his subject; Bellow,nat least, never misuses a word or misunderstandsna concept. Charyn is as ignorantnof the tradition whose viewpointnhe is supposedly writing from, as mostnof his audience is. Jews are reprimandednfor waiting “years and years before theynput a stone on a grave.” The Jewishncustom varies from waiting one monthnafter death to one year before a memorialnstone is erected. The name of thenJewish cemetery in Secret Isaac is calledn”Hands of Esau,” an impossible namenfor any Jewish organization or institution,nsince Esau represents the historicalnenemy of Israel and is a synonym fornan evil adversary. The equivalent namenfor a Catholic cemetery would be somethingnlike “Children of Satan.”nJerome Charyn has no authenticnvoice of his own. He attempts to imitatenBellow, but lacks Bellow’s talentnand education. He wishes to pass for anmodernist without Joyce’s understandingnof innovation. In a sense, the criticsnreflect recognition of this lack in thatneach one compares Charyn to a differentnwriter: Jack Ludwig thinks Charyn isna Nathaniel West or Isaac Babel. PublishersnWeekly thinks it has discoveredna new Nabokov. The New York Revietvnof Books detects a “Dickensian vigor,”nthis last a peculiar aberration of mindnsince Dickens wrote one-dimensionalncharacters but created recognizablenpeople.nYet Charyn is a man of integrity.nOn July 16, 1978, he started a booknreview of his own. in the New YorknTimes with these words:n”Count me among the Philistines.nI’ve never been able to finish ThenMagic Mountain, Magister Ludi, ThenPlumed Serpent, Orlando or LordnJim . . . But the smell of ‘literature’nsickens me.”nJerome Charyn will soon be AndrewnW. Mellon Visiting Professor of Englishnat Rice University. Caveat emptor. DnCorporate Responsibility:nThe Viability of Capitalism In an Era of Militant Demandsn• Yale Brozen on the ethics of corporate profits.n• Adm. William C. IVIotl on American corporate dealings withnSouth Africa.n• Leopold Tyrmand on modern culture and the corporatenImage.n• Jeffrey St. John on Ralph Nader, his allies and his practices.n• Barbara Shenfield on business’ attitudes toward the homosexualnrights movement.n• John A. Howard on the damages of affirmative action.nAvailable for $1.50 from: Rockford College Institute, Rockford, Illinois 61101.nnn