ConunendablesnHoffer’snTimelessnessnEric Hoffer: Before the Sabbath;nHarper & Row; New York.nby David PietruszanIt has been over a quarter of a centurynsince San Francisco longshoreman EricnHoffer surprised academia and learnednsociety in general with his insightfulnThe True Believer, the classic study ofnthe psychology of mass movements.nSince then he has turned out eight othernvolumes of iconoclastic wisdom. Hisnninth, Before the Sabbath, reveals thatnHoffer, even in his seventies, can stillnmull over questions, paradoxes and historicalntrends that other philosophersnand political scientists cavalierly overlook.nBefore the Sabbath takes the form ofna diary. In it he covers the usual widenrange of topics—the nineteenth century,nEngland’s decline, the Asiatic soul ofnRussia, capitalism, communism, thenrole of intellectuals, the fate of Israel,nthe meaning of the work ethic. Yet, onenvery immediate and personal topic isnon his agenda. He had always expectednto die relatively young, around the agenof forty. All his life he never plannednbeyond this, and he inscribed this sixmonthnjournal at age 72 in 1975, “Itnis almost eight years since I retired fromnthe waterfront, but in my dreams I stillnload and unload ships. I sometimes wakenup in the morning aching from a night’snhard work. One might maintain that anpension is pay for the work we keep onndoing in our dreams after we retire.”nHe worries about slowing down: “Balletndancers are the only creative peoplenwho accept retirement,” he explains,nMr. Pietrusza, an historian and freelancencritic, has recently written a booknon Senator Joseph McCarthy.n”It occurs to me that if thinking is anballet of ideas, the thinking mind shouldnaccept the fact that age makes dancingndifficult.”nBefore the Sabbath is roughly contemporarynwith the writing of Hoffer’snprevious volume of essays. In Our Time.nIn one of those essays he dissected thenmotivations and actions of the neWlynemerging Islamic nations. In his diarynthe subject recurs: he expresses doubtsnabout the Moslem world’s ability tonfully mesh modern ideas and technologynwith its millennium-old heritage, andnforecasts that Islamic oil money wouldnbe used not to modernize in the Westernnsense but to continue the centuriesnstalled push of the Mohammedan creed.nMusing on Kemal Ataturk’s efforts tonforce Turkey into the twentieth century,nhe doubts the success of any such effort.n”It is apparently easier to de-Christianizenthan to delslamize. Islam’s rapidnand total de-Christianization of thenMiddle East and North Africa contrastsnwith the ineffectuality of Christiannproselytizing in Islamic lands. Islamncaters to basic human needs and isnwithout inner contradictions and tensions.nIt legitimizes an easygoing, evennindolent life. I doubt whether any Islamicncountry can be durably modernized.”nThe erosion of the Occidental worknethic is one of Hoffer’s prime concerns.nThe tendency of once-energetic racesnof workers and entrepreneurs to becomen”labor fakers” portends to him theneradication of the differences betweennthe progressive West and the lethargicnand archaic East—“the fateful event ofnour times is not the advancement ofnbackward countries but the levelingndown of advanced countries.”nThe spectre of an impotent and decliningnUnited Kingdom serves up tonHoffer in microcosm the problems ofnthe Occident as a whole. There a oncengrand empire has settled peacefully intonan atmosphere of economic ruin andnthe status of a third-rate power. “InnBritain,” writes Hoffer, “workers arenimmune to the blandishments of annnhigher living standard, and this attitudenis spreading to other democracies,nparticularly among the young. I suspectnthat the present chatter about the qualitynof life is an attempt to mask the factnthat to the new generation the good lifenis a life of little effort.”nIt is more than mere material largessnthat flows from human labor, he notes.nThe mundane work of earning one’snbread, of keeping body and soul together,nhas served as a regulator and governornof human actions. “Our materialistncivilization,” he observes, “is edgingntoward tyranny because the eliminationnof scarcity also eliminates the hiddennhand of circumstances that kept thenwheels turning. The coming of abundancenhas weakened social automatismnand discipline. Societies now need forcefulnauthority in order to function reasonablynwell.”nHoffer does not look forward to thendisciplined, authoritarian regimes thatnhe feels are inexorably advancing onnus, for he feels they are captained by arrogant,nsmall-minded and small-heartednintellectuals—a new breed of pridefulntyrants with a deep-down hatred forncommon humanity.nBefore the Sabbath, in fact, presentsna passionate challenge to this would-benruling class. Such freshness of intellectualnemotions at 72 makes Hoffer annever-aging value in America’s contemporarynletters. DnIn FocusnHeller’s GoldnJoseph Heller: Good As Gold; Simonn& Schuster; New York.nBy his own admission (to reportersnand interviewers), Mr. Heller conceivednBruce Gold, his protagonist, to makenmoney. It’s an honorable motivation forna writer, one that has prompted masterpiecesnin the past. It didn’t work thisntime.niS3nChronicles of Culturen