amateurish and generally atrocious thennovel is, the truer it is to life, or atnleast to the literary stereotype of annAmerican salesman.nI have no alternative, therefore, exceptnto refer to the author of the booknunder review as Price-Becker. Obviously,nit is unfair even to single out Price-nBecker’s book for a separate review.nThe narrative is a microscopic dot innthe...

The owner of a New York stationerynstore I know scrimped and saved all hisnlife to give his children a liberal artsneducation. His children hate and despisentheir father’s work, for they are surenthey are destined to be Mozarts. Thenfact is that they have no more abilitynto be Mozarts than their father, theirneducated airs and graces notwithstanding.nThe...

Culture Parasitesn(and Others Who Still Try to Ask Questions)nTheodore Roszak: Person/Planet;nAnchor Press, Doubleday & Co.;nGarden City, New York.nRobert Jastrow: Godandthe Astronomers;nW. W. Norton & Co.; NewnYork.nby Thomas MolnarnIs Theodore Roszak a critic of culture.”nIt is like asking whether Jim Jonesnwas a “reverend” and his sect in Guyanana religion. My question and my parallelnare not out...

that a whole is only the sum of its partsn(a nation: juxtaposed individuals; man:na combination of physico-chemical elements).nIn other words, he pointed tonthe danger of scientism as an ideology.nHowever, in other books, and in hisnnew Janus: A Summing Up, he tacklesnthe next favorite theme, the alleged disharmonynbetween our “old” and “new”nbrain, and the alarming result,...

walking as a spontaneous self-expression,nshe decided to put certain constraintsnon her bodily and leg movements.nIt also does not occur to him thatnan eventual return to the good savagenis now blocked by ethnography whichnshows that primitives, too, play rolesnand put on masks (and tribe-imposednbehavior) in all of life’s important situations:ninitiation rites, worship, hunting,nmarriage. Do the women’s...

since Einstein (don’t go back further,nwe don’t want a history); I shall supplynthe photographs, of nebulae and men,nand the print will be large, with widenspace between chapters. We shall callnit a book and price it accordingly!nSo the ambiguous project to whichnJastrow has now contributed, continues:nproving God’s existence throughnscience. But since science, in the lastntwo, three,...

surprising comfort. Low-ranking policenare heroes, but those.in charge are jerks.nAnyone who watches a considerablenamount of television can confirm thesengeneralizations. In his interviews, Steinnfound that the great majority of thosenresponsible for putting these views onnthe air genuinely believed them. Thoughnquite rich themselves, they did not perceiventhemselves as wealthy, and werendecidedly hostile to those who were.nThey were...

same forces exist, and are in fact lessnrestrained, in other branches of the entertainmentnindustry, and in fact in ournwhole culture. This problem cannot benattributed just to the characteristics ofna small clique, as Stein argues.niN evertheless, Stein’s book certainlynprovides food for thought about somenaspects of television, though his attemptnto explain everything on the basis ofnthe characteristics...

dike’s African novel. But bad ideas haventurned into great novels. In subjectnmatter and treatment The Coup parallelsnEvelyn Waugh’s African novels,nBlack Mischief And Scoop. Waugh evenndisplays less knowledge of the regionnthan Updike and seems more preoccupiednwith home subjects—EmperornSeth’s “Oxford progressive” side is hisnmost ludicrous —yet his African novelsnare masterpieces.nWaugh’s satire has the great advantagenof being funny....

essentially it is a self-indulgent exercise:ntrivial in conception and a glitterynmess in execution. But, as with manyncontemporary novels, beneath ThenCoup’s surface badness, there is a profoundnbadness.nJ: aul Elmer More’s image of “an explosionnin a cesspool” is an effective onenfor the state of literary fiction in thenperiod since Lady Chatterley’s Lovernhas been legal merchandise and a...

Washington and Albany, more dollarsnto be put in the reach of outright crooksnand incompetents.nIncompetents, the very word to describenJohn Vliet Lindsay and AbrahamnD. Beame, the two mayors who presidednover New York’s demise. Lindsay, thenbright hope of 1960s liberalism, wasnaptly described by Robert Moses when hensaid: “If you elect a matinee idol mayor,nyou’re going to get...

Anticolonialism of a Liberated LeftistnJames Morris: Farewell the Trumpets:nAn Imperial Retreat; HarcourtnBrace Jovanovich; New York.nby Paul GottfriednAn Imperial Retreat is the third andnlast part of James Morris’ widely praisedntrilogy on the British Empire, Farewellnthe Trumpets. While the earlier volumesndescribed the process of imperialnconsolidation, the final book focusesnon the end of the Pax Britannica. Althoughnthe author...

promised interest of expropriated CanalnCompany stockholders and the alreadynviolated right of all vessels to passnthrough the Suez, Morris scorns, withoutnconsidering, these arguments. Theninvasion is judged to have been no morenthan “the last display of imperialistnmachismo.”nIt may, perhaps, be a sign of the timesnthat members of Eden’s own Tory partynmade even shriller attacks on his SueznA...

been there a generation longer, and thenestablished society whose roots werenover 200 years old.nBen Sakmar, the fictional minernwhose steps we follow around the peripherynof the tragedy, bears the sobriquetnof Professor Novak’s maternal grandfather;nand throughout the book we seenthe escalating series of events throughnthe eyes of the miners, the sheriff, andnthe townspeople, some of whom wouldnlater...

the foes of American capitalism, then”new class” of intellectuals whose expertisenis control, not production, andnwhose sympathies lie with the statistnmentality, prevail upon officials to removenfirst one, then another, freedomnfrom the realm of individual action tonthe realm of government control.nEspecially by means of the communicationsnmedia and the “knowledge industry,”nAmericans are encouraged to allowntheir acquisitive passions—the easiestnto...

In FocusnA Fashionable Steel-and-Glass Jacobin ClubnDaniel Patrick Moynihan with SuzannenWeaver: A Dangerous Place;nAtlantic-Little, Brown Books; Boston.nby Kenneth KolsonnWe all know what Senator DanielnPatrick Moynihan has to say. And wenknow to expect him to say it in hisninimitable way. Like Lyndon Johnson’sn”Treatment A,” which rarely failed himnin one-on-one arm-twisting situations,nthe Moynihan Treatment, which is performednonly in...

accomplishes is to reduce them to a fewnsentences. These lives seem not so muchnlittle as small. Of one woman, for instance,nwe are told that the only notablenthing she ever did was to go for Koshernmeat every Friday. Whether she lovednher husband, if she had children, wasna good cook, whether she was talentednin any way—all that...

nist henchman in a Vietcong uniformntosses a grenade into a primitive groundnshelter full of screaming Vietnamesenpeasants, a new perspective opens. ThenVietnamese ordeal of communist makingnsuddenly becomes a reality, no lessncompelling than My Lai. The linkagenwith the current suffering of the boatnpeople immediately becomes obvious,nregardless of the manipulations ofnAmerican TV, an antiwar medium. Andnin one’s post-show...

MusicnThe Delicate Giant of the ClarinetnTom Bethell: George Lewis: A Jazzmannfrom New Orleans; Universitynof California Press; Berkeley, California,nNew York, London.nby Craig WyattnThis is not the first biography ofnNew Orleans clarinetist George Lewisn(1900-68), surpassed perhaps only bynLouis Armstrong in prominence as anfocus of interest in the great endemicnmusic which evolved in New Orleans.nAuthor Bethell defers to...

came to be built upon improvisation,nnot because of a “primitive” ideal, butnbecause the players could not read musicnand had no formal training. Lewis nevernlearned to read a score, although interestinglynin some of the quoted materialnhe uses such expressions as “playing innthe staff.” And the “liberation” idea isnrevealingly borne out by the musicians’nconscious and unconscious aversion...

perhaps even Soviet agents—came tonthe ingenious conclusion that insteadnof penetrating the agency to render itnineffectual and transfer its secrets tonMoscow, it would be more useful tondestroy it in full public view throughnlies, fashionable accusations, fantasmagoricnvilification, in other words, bynlaunching an anti-CIA witch-huntnwhich would destroy the very idea ofnintelligence and counterespionage innAmerica. Both ilks have succeeded...

horror and suffering, vows to eradicatenthe very notion of progress from thenhuman soul. This forefather has children,ngrandchildren and great-grandchildren,nand when he is about to expire,nhis most beloved offspring—annexceptionally bright lad—sketches fornhim, with a stick in the sand, an ideanof a wheel. The patriarch tries to singlehandedlynstrangle his bewildered descendant,nbut is too old and weak fornany...

cans is no match for the tragedy of thensnail darter.nWhat’s most ominous is the behaviornof the Institutionahzed Hyenas—thenAmerican media. Immediately afternProfessor George Wald pronounced thenThree Mile Island accident a holocaust,nWalter Cronkite, on the six o’clocknnews, embraced the superannuated hippiesnin their musty gear fetched fromnthe attic, and the Vietnam-style dansenmacabre avec le.s placards had begun.nThiisotto voce...

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Editor’s Commentn”It’s most frequently in thenname of man’s natural goodnessnthat people have been slaughtered.”n—Anatole FrancenThe oldest conflict never abates. It never gets better ornworse, only more bizarre with each passing decade. It isnupdated in form and sound, never in essence. The AmericannCivil Liberties Union, a noble institution in name and intention,nthese days defends the Nazis’...

ian, while the conflict is old and will last long. They can callnus names; invectives cannot dissipate the smell ofntotalitarianism.nIn fact, what most trenchantly divides us from tbem todaynis their bigotry. We believe, with the Founding Fathers, thatncourteous pluralism graces society and remains our mostncherished tradition, that there’s valor and common good innrespect for the...

Opimons & ViewsnDispersing the FognGuenter Lewy: America in Vietnam;nOxford University Press; NewnYork.nby Alan J. Levinen1 his is an inspiring book, evennthough it deals with a very gloomy subject.nFor Guenter Lewy has shown thatnit is possible to uncover essential truthsnabout an event of recent history thatnhas been obscured by more controversy,nconfusion and deliberate lies, thannalmost any...

by men like Father Drinan turn out tonbe without substance. So does the somewhatncontradictory charge that thenPhoenix program, actually an intelligencenoperation, existed to summarilyndispose of the South Vietnamese government’snopponents. As Lewy observes,nmany opponents of the war were readynto believe the wildest allegations againstnthe Americans and South Vietnamese,nbut swallowed the worst sort of liesnfrom the Vietnamese...

Why Did They Die in Vietnam?nJames Webb: fie Wi of Fire; Prentice-nHall; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.nby Joseph Schwartznrields of Fire offers the reader andifferent perspective on the Vietnamnwar than most other fiction dealing withnthat war. The distinctive tension of thisnnovel is generated by the contrast betweennwhat the narrative directs thenreader to and the response one...

policies they make. Like it or lump it.”nMitsuko, knowing better, would smilenat such naive pragmatism. Surely thencommon good is defined by somethingnmore than the counting of heads. Thenargument is a serious flaw caused, Inbelieve, by angry impatience, which lednto the special pleading that urged Webbnto include this weak idea as evidencenfor his case.nJames Webb makes...

on the level of: “Near the end of hisnlife he will be able to do whatever henwants with his time, civilization andnnature having lost interest in him.”nThese we are expected to swallow as thenwisdom of a man who has led a rich,nfull life. But Simmons’ character leadsna life utterly banal and unoriginal, andnhis trite soliloquies...

ride to critical success.nThe acclaim has been his, the formulanstill works. It calls for explicit agnosticism,nin varying doses, or at least anfastidious distaste for organized religion,nespecially Catholicism. Adventures withnhomosexuals are also necessary, andnthey must be genteel and educationalnexperiences, since homosexuals arendeemed tolerant and enlightened beings.nSimmons cites a telling example: hisnprotagonist’s doctor, a homosexual, informsnhim that...

It was fast, easy reading; the dialoguenwas realistic but not coarse, it containednhumor and built toward an agonizingnclimax in the form of a court-martialnfor the mutineers. At the very end ofnthe novel the author turned the tables,nin a nearly O. Henry manner, by havingna genuinely mature officer tell the youthfulnmutineers what they—and their liken—had been...

comprises only ten percent of their newntitles. A smaller number of fiction writersnmake larger amounts of money thannever before, however, so the situationnbedazzles even as it contracts the numbersnof those who furnish the nationalnchambers of imagination. The freedomsnof fictions have been dissected into categories:ngothic, mystery, spy, historical,nscience-fiction and general.nThis bureaucratic regimentation, stiflingnthe freedom of creativity...

and a physical cessation, is a large swatchnto select. World War II, with its global,nmulti-ringed circuses of struggle andndeath, was so sprawling and kaleidoscopicnthat few writers have dared tondepict more than one sector, one aspect,nor one arena of its activity. Wouk hasntaken the entire spectacle and it isnastonishing that he uses only a barendozen of...

arms of young Byron Henry, then sendsnhim away while she is menaced by thenNazis in Italy and her uncle Aaronnblandly refuses to worry over such civilizednpeople. Meanwhile Pamela Tudsbury,nthe uninhibited English daughternof the famous correspondent, falls innlove with hero Victor Henry, whosenwife mistreats him. The reader is introducednto Berel Jastrow, a Polish Jewnwho is able...

of decent men in the arts, and HermannWouk is among the more honorablenand admirable of our native writers.nBut the world has well rewarded Mr.nWouk for his efforts, and althoughnthese are decent and readable and evennvirtuous, they do not stir the depthsnthat are needed in art, to aerate ournsouls and to lift our hearts. In the...

ily] occupied in the Karshorst residentialnarea [the ‘East Zone’] wasnanything but palatial, but the rentnwas cheap.”nHow can one flee to freedom if thenrent is cheaper in a Soviet colony? True,nin the Soviet colony an apartment rentnis no rent. No one can rent a dwelling.nA dwelling is “issued” to one, as innmedieval serfdom, one sticks to...

The Noble DestitutenGeorge Gilder: Visible Man; BasicnBooks; New York.nby Kenneth KolsonnWhen my generation was in collegen—back in the days before America wasn”greened”—one of the “in” writers wasnOscar Lewis, author of, most notably.nThe Children of Sanchez (New York:nRandom House, 1961), as well as annumber of celebrated articles about povertynthat appeared in Harper’s duringnthe early- and mid-1960s....

gation case turned not so much on thenquestion of whether blacks had beenndenied the equal protection of the lawsnas on the “fact”—presumed to be empiricallyndemonstrable—that segregationnresulted in irreparable psychologicalndamage for black children (a holdingnthat created untold mischief for AllennBakke’s attorneys: Bakke, after all, hadnnever claimed that his right to equalneducational opportunity depended uponnthe condition of...

shows how ‘these people’ think inndifferent forms, act in different patterns,ncling to different values, seekndifferent goals, and learn differentntruths. Which is to say that they arenstrangers, barbarians, savages.”nBecause of his audacity Ryan was ablento transcend the cant of both left andnright and to announce boldly the hypocrisynof the culture-of-poverty writersnwho “dismiss with self-righteous contemptnany claims...

The Drooling Darling of the NYC CognoscentinJerome Charyn: Secret Isaac; ArbornHouse; New York.nby Louis EhrenkrantznR ichard Kostelanetz wrote thatnJerome Charyn’s fiction “. . . has establishedna solidly developing body ofnachievement.” Saul Maloff has decreednthat Charyn is “a greatly gifted writer.”nThe New York Times promulgated thatn”Charyn’s gifts are the important ones.”nStripped of all extraneous theorizing,none evaluates...

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...

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...

Mr. Heller, whatever his achievements,nis a sort of unfinished writer:nmuch of his glory is well-earned, hisnlasting contribution to colloquial English,nfor example; there is detectable,nenduring finesse in his prose; but there’snalso a lack of a larger moral or cognitivenpurpose in his work, which is an ingredientnthat can make writers of even lessntalented people. Good Soldier Svejk,nthe...

the delinquent juvenile civilization andnaesthetics. The alleged humans whichnpopulate the screen have the intelligencenof a protozoan, a two-dimensionalncreature. They do not sense danger;ndanger is detected by their cognitivenapparatus only when the shot is firednat them, or when the club makes contactnwith the skull. Even the dumbest Hollywoodnmovies of the ’30s, when picturingna group fighting for...

tone-poem saga of the Republic fromnits earliest years to the present and invokingnthe spirit (as it was dedicated tonthe memory) of Walt Whitman andnAbraham Lincoln, “America” is an unapologeticallynemotional tribute to what,nfor Bloch, was the essential greatnessnof a democratic nation. It closes withnan anthem, the theme of which is progressivelyndeveloped throughout thencourse of the work,...

composer want? Not the sterile professional/musicologicalningrainment thatncan only be creative incest; not acceptancensolely by a sequestered elitistncoterie. He wants to be heard and respondednto by an enlightened public;nto be recognized as a viable, creativenforce; to be a communicative voice. Towardnthis end he is urged to give thenmost serious consideration to the following:n(1) A thoughtful reading...

refused to meet Mr. Solzhenitsyn, butnhobnobbed with Andy Warhol and MicknJagger’s wife—eminent representativesnof Manhattan’s jet-set dregs. Thisnplayed a role in his rejection by thenAmerican people. Tolerance, even thenliberal insouciance of companionship,nis one thing, but chumminess withncanaille is another. One may discussnworldviews with a communist in Russia,nbut one does not fraternize with thenGulag henchmen. The High...

Half-Truths and Social ConsciencenThe Nation has published an excerptnfrom a book by a certain Nora Sayrenentitled Cold-War Cinema. In it, thenauthoress derides the grotesque crudenness and vulgarity of the Hollywoodnanticommunist movies of the ’50s.nNow, everybody knows that most ofnthose movies were hopelessly simplisticnand trivial, often to the point of idiocy.nThe question is, however—taking intonaccount our...