plays, a huge body of short stories, manynof them first-rate. Yet rejection of ailnhe achieved, the basic meaninglessnessnof worldly success and recognition, isnnot so puzzling when one realizes thatnescape from the world is a motive appearingnfrequently in his work. An artistnescapes to the South Seas (The Moonnand Sixpence), a young man escapesnthe world, via Eastern mysticism I ThenRazor’s Edge), and Maugham himselfnmade repeated attempts at escape. Hisnextensive worldwide travels to the mostnexotic places, and his intelligence servicenduring the First World War—experiencesnskillfully transformed intonart —were means to escape a rigid andnauthoritarian middle-class background.nHis disastrous marriage was an attemptnto escape his homosexuality. RobinnMaugham even suggests that SomersetnMaugham’s becoming a writer wasnan escape from his stammer, an impedimentnwhich caused him enormous hu­nWaste of MoneynIn and Out of Bed and WarnPamela Sanders: Miranda; Little.nBrown: Boston.nOh no. not again! Not another femininennovel, clearly auto- or at leastnsemi-autobiographical in which the authornevades potential accusations ofnnarcissism by claiming the storynfictitious.nThe book jacket blurb tells you everythingnyou might learn from the novel:n”Miranda Pickering is charming, urbanenand beautiful—a jet-hoppingnjournalist of the mid-1960s callingnon heads of state in Southeast Asia,naccompanying combat missions acrossnLaos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, cajolingnTime magazine bureau chiefsnfrom Saigon to New York, and attractingnmen in droves …”nExcept that Miranda has a prob­nmiliation, rendering him inarticulatenand forcing him to transform the spokennword into the written one. Maughamnwrites of his uncle: “But the most importantninfluence on Willie’s life wasnhis stammer … It is almost certainnthat without his stammer Willie wouldnnot have been a writer: he would probablynhave become a lawyer—like hisnbrothers. Willie’s stammer made himnreserved, it forced him to remain annonlooker, it made him into a detachednobserver of life who became the firstnperson singular of his writing. Hisnstammer made his prose pithy, crisp,nand succinct. His stammer made thendialogue of his plays neatly turned andnwell-balanced. Perhaps his impedimentnmade his fame.”nBut all these attempts to escape himselfnultimately prove futile and RobinnMaugham, simply and effectively presentsna portrait of the artist as an oldnman, and an unhappy one. (MEF) Dnlem: her heart belongs to Daddy, andnit is his elusive approval she searchesnfor as she compulsively jumps from bednto bed. Until she finally realizes thatnDaddy loves her—and in a way a littlenless than kin and more than kind—shencan never be a genuinely liberatednwoman.nThis banal psychologizing of an utterlyntrite character is silhouetted againstna changing landscape reminiscent of allnthose travelogs where the sun sinksnslowly into the west; the reader is givenn'”Saaders is a fine and funnjrwriier.” ‘n’.’:’- ••’.’• ‘-Ji^’.’—“librtayJtmmtU “nguided tours of the Philippines, Hawaii,nHong Kong, Indonesia, Cambodia. Laos,nVietnam. Only scenes presenting Philippinenterrain and moeurs command someninterest, while an extended affair Mi­nnnranda has with President Sukarno is sonexcruciating it becomes camp. Journalisticnportraits of thinly disguised Westernnnewsmen, and a not at all disguisednMadame Nhu are supposed to lend annair of sober credibility to a flabby narrative.nIt is all embarrassingly inappropriate,nas if a Barbara Cartland or anRosemary Rogers heroine, suddenlyncognizant of her flippancy, would beginnto immerse herself in the philosophynof Schopenhauer or the abortion issue.n(MEF) DnScreennHydrolyzed HorrornInvasion of the Body Snatchers; Directednby Philip Kaufman; Writtennby W. D. Richter; United Artists.nby Eric ShapearonA good scare as art and entertainment,nfrom Eurypides to Hitchcock,nhas always been induced by its relationnto realities—either human or existential.nThe departures from realities intonfantasy, cruelty or dramatic suspensenmust never lose their link to factualitiesnbv flouting logic—which is a part ofnreality—lest shoddiness overcomes thensupernatural, and a horror tale simplynbecomes idiotic. When it happens. Yiddishnslang has an expression for it; itncan be translated into something liken”stupid old woman’s stories,” which mayncarry a horrible antifeminist calumny.nbut is not fully devoid of accuracy.nThe producers who cranked out thisnmovie departed from the surrealisticnpremise of an extraterrestrial invasionnof a feebly defined species which, oncenon earth, turn humans into nonhumansnby means of repulsive biological tricks.nThey (the producers, of course) locatenthe action in San Francisco and pretendnthat everything is as in real life. Butnwhat’s repugnant is not necessarilynscary, and there’s a distinction betweennnausea and horror which seems to eludeni23nChronicles of Culturen