metaphors of growth and fertility buihninto the story (and heavy-handedly correspondingnto Caroline’s finally achievingnfeminine maturity, at age thirty),nCaroline still casts about for an imagento better describe her lover. She finallynfinds it: “soft spring rain.” Incidentally,nin order that outward events chime wellnwith what is, after all, a mawkishlynpraise-filled account, Anna is a devoutnCatholic, trudging off to...

tively, to its feminine, and political,nmode. Thus, Robert’s homosexuality isnfurtive, introverted, tasted but once, asnif out of profound guilt, and paid for forna lifetime, in the suffering his wife experiencesnat neglect, sexually and emotionally,nand in the literal symbol ofnthe burden of wrong, the disease whichnreduces him to the most pathetic ofnphysical specimens before killing him.nIn...

attempts to reform basic doctrine. Evennbefore the Council had ended, then, then”spirit of Vatican 11″ was manufacturednby the partisans of reform and radicalnchange in the Church. In the followingnyears, this “spirit” was much more operativenin many quarters than the actualnCouncil documents, whose careful andnmeasured formulations were oftenneschewed by those with a preference fornmore innovative pronouncements.nHitchcock...

than in the response to the visits of PopenJohn Paul II to Mexico and the UnitednStates this past year. At Puebla, JohnnPaul forcefully rejected the notion thatnman could be reduced to the Marxistncategories of “liberation theology,” andnoffered instead the teachings of thenChurch, which proclaim the liberationnof man’s spirit from the wages of sin. Nonsooner had...

Church by having the theological articlenwritten by a psychologist) in termsnwhich celebrated the rise of “liberationntheology,” relied on John Updike for thendefinition of theology, and attributed thenacclaim with which the faithful havenreceived the forthright teachings of thenPontiff to his “winning instincts fornpublic relations.” (Time magazine alsoninsisfted on reducing him to a mediasizednphenomenon, “John Paul Super­nBetween...

“novel.” It is filler, padding, waste paper.nWhat is it about.” Nothing. Or perhapsnit’s about certain irrelevant,ndesultory episodes in a country whichnwe may call Phony land.nIn Russia many writers draw theirnpropaganda novels not from life, butnfrom previous propaganda novels. Notnunsimilarly, Irwin Shaw draws thesen340 pages from mass culture—bad Hollywoodnmovies, pulp novels, sugarynmagazine stories.nIn Soviet Phonyland a...

and-“African passions” Phonyland isnnaturally peopled by handsome heroesnand beautiful heroines.nMike’s wife (Tracy) is a beauty. Asnhe leaves her and has never-ending lovenaffairs (of course) amid magazine-gourmet-columnnfood (to be sure) and drinksn(how else?), every mistress of his is asnbeautiful as he is handsome: “He paidnthe bill and they got up and walked towardnthe door, the other...

possible uses of only one resource,nchanging tastes, preferences, and technologynwould all work to make our listnobsolete in short order.nHow, then, does an economy run? Itnruns—and runs efficiently—only to thenextent that a market system is used tonallocate resources. No government official,nregardless of position or power,ncould efficiently allocate just one resource.nNo single businessman couldnmake all the decisions...

favor of increased government involvementnin the energy field, even suggestingnthat energy prices be kept low asnpart of our national energy policy. Thatnis analogous to a prescription for a pintnof arsenic if a cupful didn’t do the job.nIt will undoubtedly take more than Dr.nReisman s work to eliminate the ignorancenwhich must be at the base of...

studies of Dylan Thomas. Like Kerouac,nThomas killed himself with the bottlenbecause he was unable to resolve thenhurts and conflicts of his youth. In Onnthe Road, Kerouac unwittingly revealsnthis dilemma, “The one thing that wenyearn for in our living days, that makesnus sigh and groan and undergo sweetnnauseas of all kinds, is the remembrancenof some lost...

represent the mad dash for inner truthnas a know-nothing attack on conventionnand rationaHty. Thus the Beats werenheld up to ridicule while at the samentime their plastic image was safely beingnembraced in the slogans printed onnendless T-shirts. In sterilizing the Beatnprotest, liberal culture once again establishednits inaccessibility, its imperviousnessnto intellectual dialogue fromnoutside itself.nMcNally’ ‘s service is...

beautiful and sexually kinky than thennext. Schultz might well have been subtitled,n”Suffocated by Sperm.” On thenother hand, that gesture toward ribaldrynis taken care of in the name of the companynSchultz hopes will bankroll him—nSperm Productions. The odd thing isnthat all these sexual hijinks are neithernfunny nor witty nor farcical nor angry,nbut instead dully pornographic andnwearisome....

ComtnendablesnA ConvincingnReglementndes ComptesnPhilip Roth: The Ghost Writer;nFarrar, Straus & Giroux; New York.nThis is a novel (actually a novella)nabout dilemmas. Big dilemmas, smallndilemmas, and those peculiar dilemmasnthat fit neither category. It’s about thenimpossibility of choices, which arenneither small nor big but inexpressiblenand unsolvable to the extent that it’sneven impossible to form a judgmentnabout them.nWith this novel,...

ScreennA Big Bang and Small ChangenApocalypse Now; Directed by FrancisnCoppola; Written by John Milius;nUnited Artists.nStarting Ofer; An Alan J. PakulanFilm; Paramount Pictures.n10; Written and Directed by BlakenEdwards; An OrionPictures Release.nYanks; A John Schlesinger Film;nUniversal.nLe Cage aux Folles; A Film by EdouardnMolinaro; United Artists.nby Eric ShapearonIn the end, Coppola’s ApocalypsenNow makes an impression of mythologynby computerization....

Conrad’s Kurtz is a man who failed in anmysterious way: we cannot penetrate thenprofundity of his defeat for we are notnsubjected to his fate. Coppola’s Kurtz is ansort of habitue of horror, and the wordndoes not sound altogether inscrutablenwhen he finally pronounces it. It soundsnmerely pompous and pathetic.n* * *nWith that typical, darling, feministninsouciance for...

Cops running around in the buff. As thenhero is an “elevator music” composer,nthe score has been duly provided by Mr.nHenry Mancini, the ultimate giant in thenMuzak department.nYanks is an aborted exercise in sentimentalitynon a singularly attractive andnprolific theme: American troops in England,nduring World War II, preparing fornD-day. One would assume that one of thenmost selfless...

There is almost no evidence in thisnbook that he is able to step back andnenjoy the musical architecture. Possiblynhe can, but if so he can’t write about it.nHe devotes a few pages to performancesnof Bach’s Goldberg Variations andnBeethoven’s Missa Solemnis, two of thengreatest works of Western music. Then,nabout Bach: “What can still be saidnabout the...

Underwriters was holding its annualnnational seminar. The concert was repletenwith ironies and coincidences.nHere in New Orleans, possibly thenbirthplace of jazz, a band of New Yorknmusicians had been imported to payntribute to America s Mozart, the NewnOrleanian who virtually created jazznas a soloist’s art. Why bring a crew ofnNew Yorkers, none of them from NewnOrleans, here...

precedented for a septuagenarian in jazz.nEven Armstrong had stopped developingnlong before he reached his seventies.nBut Hines shows no sign of diminishingnCorrespondencenLetter from London: Theatrenby Francis DonahuenAs for theater, London remains thenimperial city. Nowhere else is therensuch a concentration of playhouses offeringna continuous banquet of theaternfare. Nowhere else is there such a distinguishednstable of playwrights activelynsupplying...

own definition of a free press: “One thatnis edited by one of my relatives.” WhennWagner hints at another one-nightnstand, Ruth replies:n”A lady, if surprised by melancholy,nmight go to bed with a chap, once;nor a thousand times if consumed bynpassion. But twice, twice … a ladynmight think she’d been taken for antart.”nThe mood turns somber when...

again, calling him a coward, “the quarrelnis now fair,” for there is legitimatencause for a duel. Serving as a counterfoilnto such honor in high places is ansubplot involving two plebeian characters,na hulking Cornish wrestler and hisnservant, who, in imitation of their superiors,nstrive to learn a type of “roaring”n(fanciful insulting) in order to pick theirnown quarrels...

ifiers, like Time, declared that thensounds they made were music, poetry,nart, rebellion, expressions of trammeled,ninvaluable instincts. The corpses ofnthose who were trampled to death,nknifed, shot, or who just O.D.’ed onndrugs began to mark this trail of culturaln”progress.” And nothing indicatesnthat it s ending.nFinally, this last episode shows thatnthe word “expiation” should be deletednfrom the English...

of the black community in the U.S.”nWith a new and growing conservativenintellectual movement in the blackncommunity, the monolithic stereotypesnof the past have become irrelevant as,nin reality, they always were. Subscriptionsnto the Lincoln Review are $12.00nannually. The address is: 1735 De SalesnStreet, N.W., Washington, D.C.n20036. DnAntitoxinnAccuracy In Media, Inc. is a socialnbody of whose existence most...

proposed “march” was intended to protestna Skokie Park District permit ordinancenrequiring $350,000 in liabilitynand damage insurance, and was to include—notnspeeches or handbills—butnthe display of placards bearing suchnslogans as “Free Speech for the WhitenMan” and “Free Speech for WhitenAmericans.” The Village was advisednthat the demonstration would take placenon a Sunday, would include less thann50 people and...

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Editor’s CommentnI am occasionally reminded (some would say warned), bynpeople whom I respect, that the Chronicles’ polemical tonencarries a seed of zealotry. This may result, say those whonremind me, in unreflective rejections. If this is the case,nwe must have misguided some messages, as narrow partisanshipnwas never our ambition. We do not want to become ancause...

These are difficult questions, devoid of any common denominator.nGulf & Western is a mammoth corporation whichnshould stand for capitalism, profits and a free market. Yetnits subsidiaries—publishing houses, record companies. ParamountnPictures—publish books, sell albums and make moviesnwhich present capitalism as Satan’s invention and openlyndesire its instant demise. This is nothing extraordinary, asnGulf & Western is also...

logical, clear-thinking, and persuasive publicists in America,nor Arnold Beichman—one of the most captivating ones?nHas any reader of Esquire or Nation ever heard anythingnabout the distinguished American philosophers Albert JaynNock or Frederick Wilhelmsen? Why is it that the onlynopinion on hard-working small businessmen comes fromnBurbank, or Manhattan, where smart alecks are making fortunesnby turning the moral...

ruling set of values which upholds its unassailability by administrativenand bureaucratic means begins to rot first innarts and letters—precisely because they are privileged andnprotected. The liberals in America have not yet attained thenSoviet style of protectionism, but a special tariff for thenliberal twaddle became a rule of cultural life in America innthe ’60s and 70s....

opinions & ViewsnMoujik ‘n’ Pulp SandwichnWilliam Styron: Sophie’s Choice;nRandom House; New York.nby Lev NavrozovnMr . William Styron was born in Virginia,nserved in the Marine Corps, studiednat Duke University. The narrator ofnSophie’s Choice was born in Virginia,nserved in the Marine Corps, studied atnDuke University. He is also a novelist.nHe is introduced to us by his schoolnnickname...

norm for the New York literary andnintellectual establishment, it is silly fornme to condemn it. It is the same as goingnto an operetta and then announcing thatnthe content is both trite and haphazard,nthe scenery gaudy, the costumes garish,nthe music atrocious, and the singersncannot sing. After all, this is what thenaudience paid for.nAs is typical in...

duce his perverse sister-in-law, who alsondisappears after the perverse sex story.nStingo revels in stereotypes and platitudes.nBut those are functional stereotypesnor platitudes; they can be pluggednin or out at will, exchanged, recombined,nthrown out, or replaced, with thenrecurrent hope that the book will benless unoriginal, if more far-fetched andnphony.n1 he first 20th-century Western pulpnnovel I read had...

over into a cultural or educational layer,nhe forgets what he wrote on the previousnpage and becomes a fastidious esthete,nNew Yorker style.nA Nazi says to Sophie, for example:n”Ich mochte mit Dir schlafen.” Thisnmeans, explains Stingo, “I’d like to getnyou into bed with me.” “Dreary loutishnwords,” fumes Stingo, forgetting thatnfor the other layers of his novel, thesenwould...

party and cannot recall the word “schizophrenia.”nThe more cultured Nazinprompts him: “Schizophrenia.”n” ‘Yes, that’s the word,’ HOss replied.n’That mind doctor in Vienna, hisnname escapes—‘n’Sigmund Freud.'”nActually, this cute conversation couldntake place between, say, two New Yorkers.nFreud contended that his psychoanalysisnshould be applied only to mildnneuroses—never to schizophrenia. Angroup of Americans calling themselvesnpsychiatrists is the only large...

at school; he liked mathematics; henlacked ambition in the civil service;nhe had a thick neck, and his legs weren”not long enough”; he suffered fromnunrequited love; he was devoted to hisnmother; he was “far from impotent”;nand so on, and so on. Perhaps such detailsnmight be shown to possess a significancenbeyond themselves; Lord Snownseems to love them...

lack of interest in sex, an interest previouslyncentral to his life. Comfort andnpleasure are the twin rulers of his world.nThere surely must be, he concludes,nsomething very seriously wrong with anman whose appetite is not markedly,nconstantly, and earnestly stimulated bynthe sexual banquet promised by his culturenthrough television, radio, magazines,nbooks, advertising, film, andnalmost everything else. Referred to...

ual pabulum.” She tells him bluntlynthat “You’ve got to find out whethernyou feel any affection for me or whethernyou’re the sort of man who can only feelnaffection for women he wants to go tonbed with …” Eve, a one-time convenientnbed-partner, agrees with Brenda;nJake is a man who sees nothing more innwomen than creatures to go...

” ‘Darling, you are a silly old Oxfordndon, it is only a word.’n’Only a word?~s,otry. No, this wholenthing is all about language.’ “nIn this terrible qtaagmire of abused andnbloodied language, there seems to benno way out. Jake has no “strong barriersnof moral conviction [that] can be raisednagainst mischief.” Like Alice, he isntrapped by the magisterial...

is a reference to Peter Braestrup’s massivenbook, Big Story, which argued inneffect that the media turned a Viet Congndefeat into a victory. Gans simply repeatsnthe old cliches about the editorsnin New York being unwilling to believenthe bad news being reported from thenfield. He does not refute Braestrup’sncontentions; he simply pretends thatnthey had never been made....

Kuralt’s On the Road program is contemptuouslyndismissed as merely concernednwith “harmless eccentrics,” whongive the false impression that ruggednindividualism is still possible innAmerica. Gans echoes the resentmentnof local journalists that the networksngave favorable coverage to the IowanAmish trying to prevent their childrennfrom being herded into public schools.nIn case you hadn’t noticed, Gans reportsnthat the media are...

from recording anything that the SecretnPolice might be able to trace to a specificnperson.” But how can it be? Doesn’t thenSoviet-bloc reflect the dictatorship ofnthe proletariat? Isn’t it a socialist Utopia?nWe were taught that the only problemsnin communist countries consisted ofnminor material shortages caused by subversivenelements. How can we understandna world turned upside-down,nwhere visiting grandmas...

Remarque’s All Quiet on the WesternnFront, and today, most of the deluge ofnVietnam novels. Michael Herr’s Dispatchesnwas an anti-American diatribenset in the war zone; Phillip Caputo’snA Rumor of War a well-crafted memoirnthat will probably not be improved on.nEven so, Caputo’s book is weak when itnfixes on the larger questions: in wonderingnwhy we were in Vietnam,...

tain them, they dreamed of Paris.nL he virtue of O’Brien’s novel is thatnit shuns polemics. He writes intenselynof combat: the anticipation, mindlessnfiring, counting bodies, and numbednrecovery; it is enough to evokeneither admiration of such succinctnprose, or the fatuous assumption thatnthe explicit horror of it all means thatnO’Brien is shocked at the very idea ofnAmericans fighting...

together reviews and papers into a singlenvolume is, of course, no easy task;nand Mansfield tries to accomplish thisnby weaving a central theme into bothnthe introductory and closing chapters.nExamining the problematic nature ofnliberal democracy, he focuses upon thenconflicts between liberals and liberalsnand between liberals and democrats. Accordingnto his thesis, the Americannregime, in some ways, resembles thenmixed...

tion of a dissident Marxist, MilovannDjilas, who in the 1950s criticized thencommunist functionaries and technocratsnin his native Yugoslavia. Djilasndesignated them as the true beneficiariesnof modern communist revolutions,nrather than the proletariat.nLater Irving Kristol apphed the samenterm to America’s anticapitahst educators,njournalists, and social engineersnwho were forming a common frontnagainst the mercantile community. Onnthe basis of surveys and...

I cannot prove: namely, that it’s a put-onnfrom beginning to end. His definitionnof the new class is so laudatory as tonbe absurd. It includes all those with annalleged monopoly on culture, rationality,nand universal compassion. But is itnreally a class he describes, or attributesnof an imaginary perfect being? The newnclass is further made to resemble divinitynin...

origins and the nature of its essentialnsupports; intellectuals will carp, thenpeople will decline to defend and thenhouse will fall.nDr. Rogge began by saying he did notnagree with this, and then proceeded tonaccept—and repeat—some of the basicnelements of the Schumpeter argument.nMost significantly, he agreed that mostnpeople cannot see the connectionnbetween their own lives and the futurenof...

does not want the state to subsume whatnshould be social—and private. That isnvery human and not very clear—Nocknnotwithstanding.nThe fact is that when Dr. Rogge deliverednthat speech he was in the gripnof libertarianism in its fashionable earlynphase, before it dithered into its presentnmindless anarchism. Speaking as onenwho considered himself a libertarian,nDr. Rogge scorns liberals who believenin...

much of Germany and the Netherlands.nThanks to theprewar build-up, the Alliesnjust barely manage to hold the Sovietsnback from the Rhine long enough fornreinforcements to fight their way acrossnthe Atlantic. Trouble develops in thenSoviet rear, and their efforts outsidenEurope are defeated by South Africa.nHere the story becomes both improbablenand contradictory. Halted, the Sovietsndecide to pull out...

in crossing the Atlantic.) The authorsnthink that the high rates of consumptionnof supplies and of destruction of materialnwould enforce a short war. But whilenthat may mean that campaigns wouldnbe short, it does not guarantee thatnwars will be. Third, the Soviets mightnintroduce tactical nuclear weapons, calculatingnthat a surprise attack wouldngive them victory, and that the Westnwould...