might as well be a discreditednformer politician.nThe true contemporary touch is thatnafter having put together’ a “highly commercial”nnovel, and after having begunnto benefit from his publisher’s highlyncommercial promotion techniques, JohnnIrving went before Radcliffe PublishingnProcedures course as himself, not simplynas T.S. Garp, and attacked the “Hollywoodization”nof book publishing. ThatnMan’s Real ThingnJames Jones: Whistle; DelacortenPress; New York.nby Otto J. Scottniiarly in Whistle a hospital shipncarrying the central characters —allnwounded—enters San Francisco.n”… Behind them the sun was loweringnin the west. It turned everything innfront of them a reddish gold. The greatnr^d bridge with its great bellying bightnof cable and flimsy-looking roadbed wasnsuspended under it, visible from milesnaway out at sea, was golden in the sun.nSo were the hills at both ends of it. Itnwas indeed a golden gateway intonAmerica, its twin supports toweringnup. Time seemed to hang as the shipnslid along, homing to it. Facing it,ntough, grizzled old troopers with yearsnof service broke down. Restrictionsnlimiting the upper decks to officers hadnbeen removed and everyone who couldnhobble or crawl was up there on them.nIn the channel, the great stately bridgenmoved slowly, majestically towardnthem. As the ship passed under it,nhooting its arrival blasts on the ship’snhorn, the heads of the men craned backnto look straight up at it and a raggedncheer went up. Inside the bridge wasnhome ground, and they had finallynMr. Scott, a writer and critic, is wellknownnto the readers of the Chronicles.nhe should test the limits of narcissism,nbe uninhibitedly mawkish and melodramatic,nflirt with pornography, giventhe whole concoction in an overlay ofnhilarity and poor taste is somehow notnenough. From this pulpit he must finallynattack vulgarity and commercialismnin an uncompromising manner. That’snthe modern touch and what makes JohnnIrving one of the great novelistsnof today. Dnreached it. Inside the channel, firstnAlcatraz and then beyond it AngelnIsland and Fort McDowell, the placenwhere most of them had started theirnPacific voyaging, separated themselvesnfrom the bay coast behind. Along thenstarboard the Embarcadero glittered.nThe ship curved, then turned in slowlynbehind it. Behind the docks TelegraphnHill and Nob Hill made rising curves.nHungry eyes studied every detail. Thisnscene was about all of San Francisconand the bay area that any of them,nalmost without exception, would getnto see. . .At the dock Army and civiliannambulances were waiting for them, andncontinued to roll in a long line. As thenship nosed in, ship’s medical personnelnbegan to move through the crowds ofnbathrobed men in open upper decks,ntelling them to get below.nThe main impression they got wasnone of enormous growth. Urban, industrial,nmaritime, civic. Even men whonhad only been gone six months, likenLanders, thought they could see a difference.nWhole new forests of smokestacksnseemed to have sprouted. Industrialnsmoke seemed to have doubled.nShipping had tripled. Truck traffic hadnat least doubled. There were many moreninstallations, and many more people,neverywhere. To men who had been awaynone year, or two, or more, like Strange,nit did not even seem the same city. . .”nThat was exactly how it was. As I readnthese passages the years rolled back, andnnnI recalled just such an arrival, on a troopnship. When a wave lifted us up as wenpassed beneath the bridge, I recall thenafmbulatory wounded on the deck let outnan inarticulate sound that was not sonmuch a cheer as an extraordinarily movingnsigh. But I had forgotten how thencity had changed—and James Jonesndid not.nFirst Sergeant Winch, in his lost-man’snsurvey of the wartime Mark Hopkins,nfound the Top O’ The Mark dominatednby beribboned flyboys in crushed caps.nHe served for thousands of enlisted mennas he slowly retreated down Nob Hillntoward North Beach jukeboxes andnhomelier but more easily-approachednwomen. The one the Sergeant found wasnnearly thirty, wore slacks, an open-neckednshirt and a bandana: the uniform of anwartime working woman. She was anwelder. Some writers would have chosennsome other job, but Rosie the Riveternwas real in World War II, and allnJones’ people are just as real though,nthroughout his career, he tended to putnthem into situations that show signs ofncommercial strain.nIn some hands this grates, but Jonesnwas a writer whose tastes were formednby movies and commercial fiction: henbelieved in action and results. Men metnwomen in bars in order to go to bed withnthem, and the women were on the samenhunt. It is a relief to go vicariously onn”Jones, the dedicated realLst, the exfiert innthe way things work, wrote nothing evennremotely convincing about women, but henwrote a great deal about them, nonetheless.”n— Newsweeknsuch a hunt with Sergeant Winch in SannFrancisco, circa 1943, and find it fulfillednwith a woman who seems real and believable.nShe was not indifferent to thenSergeant’s troubles, as they emerged—nbut she was not spooked by them either.nShe was able to deliver him back to thenhospital and forget him—as he forgotnher. In Jones’ hands this slice of life isnnot cynical: he did not twist his charactersninto symbols; he was a powerful andn13nChronicles of Culturen