•^ MnThis joLiriKil oi opinidiinis bciny Firniiiiht to younin- ‘V\c RivicfcirJ insiiiuu-.nII you arc jlrcady u suliscrihcr,nyou arc aware ihal uv slaiiti loursquarenaijainsi [ojay’.s IJberal Cullurcnaiul lliL’ passive publishint; cull ol inelooisin.nir this is ynur llrsi issue ol Chronicles afnCuhiiiv (or you’ve been liorrovviiis: a *–op’nand yearn lor your own), and you are iniriiruednby what...

and his history, and the reader and hisnhistory back into the picture. One criticnwho particularly concentrates on thenwriter and his time is Gerald L. Bruns.nHe boldly states: “For me, the history ofninterpretation is the history of writing,ntextuality, and understanding, which Intake to be practices that make their appearancenwithin traditions, not mentalnacts or constructions to be...

even fellow semioticists incur his wrath:n”No study of literature can be purely formal,nand all attempts to reduce literarynstudy to this level are misguided, if notnpernicious. To the extent that semioticnstudies insist that communication is anmatter of purely formal systems, theyntoo may be misguided if not pernicious.”nScholes is perceptive, but he pushesntoo hard. He puts culture...

Movements of the Southern TidenLarry McMurtry: Cadillac Jack;nSimon & Schuster; New York.nMary Lee Settle: The Billing Ground;nFarrar, Straus & Giroux; New York.nAlice Walker: The Color Purple;nHarcourt Brace Jovanovich; NewnYork.nChris Segura: Marshland Brace;nLouisiana State University Press;nBaton Rouge.nby David A. HallmannSouthern writers must grow tired ofnhearing about the good old days when anrace of giants stalked Dixie,...

don, and so on—^it seems clear that wencannot. Faulkner aside, something uniquenwas happening in the South during thenfirst half of this century, and a remarkablennumber of literary sensibilities respondednto the challenge with an equallynremarkable literature. Recent historynmakes it equally apparent that the Southernnsensibility has been altered, that thenmagic moment of regional imaginationnhas passed. The best...

Mary Lee Settle’s latest novel poses andifferent problem. Instead of flight, itndescribes a return. Like the first fournnovels in her tortured exploration of anfamily history, The Killing Groundnexamines a mysterious death in the family’snpast Hannah McKarUe has returnednto her West Virginia hometown to try tondiscover the truth about her brother’sn•’iMarv U-c- Si-tllcl i^ ii nuKlt-rn...

then I have sold out. If I write booksnthat whites feel comfortable with,nthen I have sold out.nAs a reader who is neither black nornfeminist, and certainly not lesbian, I cannattest that Walker has not “sold out” innthis novel. The most controversial of hernthemes develops as Celie begins to discovernher lesbian liberation. In answernto Freud’s question...

tween Mozart and the reader. On thencontrary, the intention of this study is tonmake the distance between both sidesneven greater between Mozart’s innernlife and our inadequate conception of itsnnature.”nWho was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?nTo his contemporaries, Mozart wasnmany men: the “little man with wig andnsword” according to Goethe; the childnwho dazzled court audiences with hisnneat suites...

what Mozart thought and felt. But theneflfort is for naught. Mozart never madenpublic his true feelings. So ultimately,nhis chroniclers can teU us nothing of hisnreal values; they can only hold a mirrornup to themselves, creating in Mozart anportrait of their own experience.nUnfortunately, Hildesheimer cannotnresist the temptation to add a few brushnstrokes of his own. He...

faith gives to ordinary life, but he decidesnagainst it, choosing instead thenrealm of “freedom” and “reaEty.” White’sncritique is cheap and evasive: he showsnthe Scotts to be hypocritical, governednby the same Hobbesian passions as everyonenelse in this melange.nThe conclusion of A Boy’s Oiim Storynmakes explicit the disturbing logic underlyingnthe novel’s action. The heron(he never gets a...

becomes forced and unreal when it hasnto symbolize an abstraction called “bluecollarnblood.” Elkin has presumably felt anneed to illustrate some aspect of “class” innsociety, as if he could touch on somentruth about the way the world works.nThe composite George Mills is a fescinat-n’](iii)i;f>c Mills i”<| 11(1 k-ss tliiin l-‘jiilkiu’rijii.’ning character, but he reveals little aboutnthe...

tations makes a useful comparison innthis respect: When he sets out to prove anliraud or conspiracy, as in his shreddingnof Jim Garrison’s indictments of ClaynShaw for a “conspiracy” to assassinatenPresident John Kennedy that existednonly in Garrison’s imagination, Phelannputs individual items of evidence togethernand defines the missing piecesnwith precision. Zion is replete withn•I’lL-iLliiiii 1)1 llli- |)iv.ss...

“real” events rather than artifectsnprompted by the presence of the camera.nThe aroma of the buffalo was notntransmitted over the satellites, but thenscent of shoddy thinking pervades thenbook. One wishes that such segmentednthinking were only the accident of onenproducer’s memoirs. Westin, however,nis rated as one of the best in the businessnby his peers, and I have...

brilliantly traced how the grandson ofnfamed preacher Jonathan Edwards andnthe son of the second president of thenCollege of New Jersey (later Princeton)nwas orphaned early, excelled in hisnshidies, became a precocious ofl&cer innthe War of Independence, made a successfulnmarriage, became a successfiilnlawyer, successfally competed againstnAlexander Hamilton, and soared politicallynto become Vice President of thenUnited States. In...

ing some of her money (Burr was nevernable to handle money), and the final decreenof that divorce—on grounds ofnadultery—^arrived on September I4th,n1836, the day of Burr’s death.nThat Burr’s real life was never put onnthe stage or written in a proper novel remainsnone of the many disappointmentsnof American theater and letters. Thenstereotypes that continue to befiiddlenour...

eral Robert E. Lee, who wore a spotless,ngray, gold-braided Confederate uniform.nGrant did not look like a victor, but life isnseldom as appropriate as the theater innits figures of destiny.nThe man who emerges from thenwords of Grant’s memoirs is far morenimpressive than his later reputation. Thenworld in which he lived is far removednfrom ours. His was...

a Doubt and Sophocles when reading AnMoving Target, a volume of WilliamnGolding’s articles and talks from then1960’s and 1970’s. His most famousnnovel, Lord of the Flies, was read bynprobably every college student in then1950’s and remains a powerful book,none that struck with violence and insightnat the heart of liberalism’s pet notions:nthe natural goodness of children,nthe...

in an orphanage. He discovers at age 50nand under Pam’s influence diat he wasnthe son of a promiscuous and self-destructivenmiddle-class English girl and annitinerant Jew^ish sea cook. Since hisngrandmother was a Jewish convert tonChristianity who reverted to Judaismnafter the death of her son in World WarnI, he figures that he is Jewish. So he eventuallynleaves...

tormented by the ease with which henbroke into the inner circle of the whitenelite—parties at LiUian Hellman’s and atnLeonard Bernstein’s digs—and by thendistance this put between him and hisnrace. Roger Wilkins’s life appears, tonhave been one long ingratiating, integratednsoiree, with him as the only iQtegrator.nHe recounts this nightmare overnand over: at the Gridiron Club watchingnRichard...

on America—^he just feils to identifynwhich bad things are his fault and whichnaren’t. He decries the wrecking beingndone in Washington, but he doesn’t indicatenthat there are plenty of people besidesnPresident Reagan who have disbelievednin the “Great Society.” He doesn’tndeal intelligently with the Moynihannhypothesis, but merely attacks that blockbusternwith an ad hominem about thenSenator’s behavior at...

war was a continuation of the viciousnessnof the Indian-fighting army are alsondubious; such views smack of the fashionablenmyths of the Indian wars rathernthan reality. “Virtually every member ofnthe high command had spent most of hisncareer terrorizing Apaches, Comanches,nKiowas, and the Sioux. Some had takennpart in the massacre of Wounded Knee.”n(Unlike some Indians, the tribes mentionednwere...

COMMENDABLESnCelestial Science & TerrestrialnTroublesnAbraham Pais: Subtle is thenLord…: The Science and thenLife of Albert Einstein; OxfordnUniversity Press; New Yorlc.n”It would surely be better if 1ndid not live at all,” wrote a disheartenednyoung Albert Einstein,nbut in this unscientific pronounceinent,nas in many others,nthe wisdom of the 20th century’sngreatest physicist is questionable.nIndeed, as the masterful portraitnoffered by Abraham...

about the short run? Is an exterminationncamp fertile ground for the practice ofnpassive resistance? Does one quote Gandhinin the gulag? Is the pressure appliednon the British government in the form ofnsymbolic acts and demonstrations maneuversnthat can be successfully adoptednby Solidarity? What concerns me aboutnthis film is that it provides ammunitionnfor the antinuke, propacifist adherentsnand, significantiy,...

fects, in a gifted politician’s spiritualnequipment are nothing new: history isnreplete with impressive leaders whonhad to be forgiven for various moral feiluresnin order to accomplish their missions:nwe aU know, after St. Augustinenand Shakespeare, that there is anothernperson within a person, one who oftennmerits another hearing. However, thenconflict between a political double standardnand the democratic ethos...

siders the PLO better than Begin, andnvenerates Studs Terkel as a social sage.nWell, in the end, it may turn out to benpropitious for us that the media madenthemselves so conspicuously brazen: allnover America, hatred of the media is onnthe rise, and the Chicago episode wiUnhelp. Sooner or later, the trees in LincolnnPark will be ornamented...

When William Faulkner addressed the Delta Council, annorganization of feirmers, at Cleveland, Mississippi in 1952, henspoke about the Declaration of Independence.* The noblenAmerican postulate of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuitnof happiness, Faulkner observed, seemed to have devolvedninto little more than a shorthand for material security. Hisninsight was confirmed a few years later...

Faulkner was not optimistic. “We knew it once, had it oncenOnly, something happened to us.” The farmers who could notncomprehend accepting a payment from the government notnto grow cotton were anachronistic, even in the 1930’s, even innMississippi. We no longer “believed in liberty and freedomnand independence, as the old fathers in the old strong, dangerousntimes...

()iMK).s & Vii;\^rnnLiterature & Ur-RealitynGeorge Konrad: The Loser; HarcourtnBrace Jovanovich; New York.nMilan Kxindera: The Joke; Harper &nRow; New York.nby Gary Vasilashnvine of the ways that man knowsnhimself is through writing. Writing ofnany type—^from the driest technical reportnto the most flamboyant fantasynstory—is a fiction. That is, it is beyondnveracity. To call all written works fictionsnis not...

regimes, that dour tribe in control,npoints to the fact that Kundera knewnthat he would, if he wanted to remain anwriter of literature, leave the country.nTruth is the most potent enemy of thenvicious and the humorless. Konrad isnmore specific about his awareness of thenpotency of literature, especially with regardnto his novel’s reception in thenWest. He recognizes...

Smoke Gets in Their EyesnWmiam L. O’Neill: A Better World:nThe Great Schism: Stalinism andnthe American Intellectuals; Simonn& Schuster; New York.nIrving Howe: A Margin of Hope: AnnIntellectual Autobiography; HarcourtnBrace Jovanovich; New York.nby Lee CongdonnA specter is haunting the Americannleft—the specter of conservatism. Onnevery front—political, social, cultural—nleft-liberals are in retreat, shaken by anseries of reverses and embittered...

betrays O’Neill’s vulnerability to revolutionarynromanticism. Gathered aroundnforums such as theNewLeaderandPolitics,nthe ri^teous continued to reprobatenStalinism without making any unseemlynconcessions to conservatism. Theirsnwas a pure radicalism, uncontaminatednby compromise, au-dessus de la melee.nAs O’Neill sees it, the primary task of thenmoment is to increase the size of thisnprincipled, if unworldly, left, for “thenMichael Harringtons and Irving Howesnare so...

conservatism. Stung by attacks on theirnintegrity, the neoconservatives wouldnlike to be regarded as the legitimatenintellectual and moral heirs of GeorgenOrwell, the self-styled democraticnsocialist most famous for his scathingndenunciations of the political left. Indeed,nin a recent article in Harper’s, NormannPodhoretz claimed Orwell for neoconservatism,nciting above all Orwell’s criticismnof the left-wing literary intelligentsianof his day. Not to...

Ms. Schwartz-Nobel writes, “is a part ofnour total culture. It cannot be dealt withnin isolation.” The root cause of America’snfood problems, she accurately observes,nis the moral and spiritual malaise producednwhen “a number of the simplentraditional values that had boundnAmerican people and families togethernwere destroyed.” Consequently, only as,nAmerica “reestablishes a sense of communitynand a sense of...

should an economist excludenman’s theological concerns from hisnstudy of disappointment, no one couldnseriously object: it was alter all Caesar’snimage embossed on the coin Christ heldnup. But Hirschman does not. Repeatedlynhe raises the issue of the human impulsento devotion and every time he discreditsnthe validity of belief in the transcendent.nHe thus truncates the meaning of thenquotes...

the nobility embrace revolution? Werenthey perhaps assured of both adventurenand minimal risk? Did they perhapsnassume that the new order that wouldnsucceed the destruction of the oldnwould defer to their leadership? Werenthey masochistically attempting to compensatenfor the sins of their fathers? Whyndid Dennis Sweeney, a youth with anbright future, pander to the regimented,npuritanical, statist society of...

ord of accomplishment. Image, publicnrelations, and enthusiasm, linked withnthe luck of being at the right place at thenright time, seem to be the essence ofnthat transformation. What, if anything,ndoes this leadership recruitment patternntell us about our society? Were thenyouth leaders of the 60’s-70’s perhaps ancopy—or, more accurately, an exaggeration—ofnthe larger leadership elite? Isnthere something defective...

Tliis JDuriiji ol opiiimiin1″^ boiiiy hnniyhi lo voun1\- ‘I’liu Rockfbrd liiMimic.nII ycHi .-irc iilrciiJy ;i siihscrilvr,nynii ua’ jw”ia ihjl wo MaiiJ luiirscjiuircn.i_o;,insi loJay’s Lihcial C’liliiircn’iiid Iho p;tssivc piililisliirii. cult cl niclooisiti.n”^ il’i>! is our lir.M issue ol Chronicler ofnC (//ftHv (or you’w htvu horrou-iiii: ;i cop-n.iiid yuirii lor your own), :iiiJ voi’i jrc iiiinuiicJnIn- whai...

live, and therefore knows nothing aboutnthem. Many of the poems in True Stories,npublished simultaneously with DancingnGirls, are rife with references to womennbeing tortured: “They sewed her face/nshut, closed her mouth/ to a hole thensize of a straw,…” There are referencesnin both the stories and the poems tonmen tying together the legs of women innlabor, as...

number of nice touches in Walser’snwork. But this is not English 101. Readersnexpect fineness consistently throughoutna professional’s offerings.nKecause of Walser’s psychologicalnproblems, there is a tendency to bencharitable about the author’s talent,nhowever undeveloped. We love storiesnabout the toiling faUure who dies poornand in disgrace, only to be awardednSchool DazenRockne M. McCarthy, James W. Skillen,nWilliam A. Harper:...

students in private schools have parentsncommitted to paying for their children’sneducation, parents who are likely to supportnthe demands of the schools on thenstudents, and who take education seriously.nThus, the process is one of selfselection.nFurther, Coleman concludesnthat the kinds of students, buildings,nequipment, or programs do not causenthe difference in achievement levels;nthe internal processes of the schools—ncourse...

newly arrived from Ireland, Germany,nItaly, and Poland. Just as Catholics sawnthe Protestant content of public educationnin the 19th century as a threat tontheir religion, the authors of Disestablishmentna Second Time see the secularncontent of public education in the 20thncentury as a threat to all religions. Indeed,nthey claim that the values implicitnin American public education constitutena...

Coordinates Through the VoidnEllas Canettl: The Torch in My Ear;nFarrar, Straus & Glroux; New York.nAndrei Amalrik: Notes of a Revolutionary;nAlfred A. Knopf; New York.nby Curtis K. Stadtfeldn1 he tragic failure of public educationnin contemporary America is thendeliberate exclusion of the two elementsnessential to individual learningnand social community. The first is ansense of shock; the second...

on to other things.nIronic as it is, much of human progressncomes from the ultimate social shock—nwar. Every war has accelerated scientificndiscovery, advanced medical knowledge,nbroadened social awareness of geography.nBy contrast, as someone oncensaid, the Swiss have had peace andndemocracy for generations, and out ofnthat era has come their major contributionnto civilization—chocolate candy.n1 he terrible pain that...

The Public PursenYale Brozen: Concentration, Mergers,nand Public Policy; Macmillan;nNew York.nJoel Seligman: The Transformationnof Wall Street: A History of the Securitiesnand Exchange Commissionnand Modem Corporate Finance;nHoughton MifQin; Boston.nby Gavin D. Arbucklenr*ifty years ago Berle and Meansnpublished The Modem Corporation, anwork that developed and justified manynof the grounds for the public suspicionnand fear of large corporations whichncharacterized...

popularity of his approach in thenacademic journals must be due to fectorsnother than the overwhelmingnweight of evidence behind it.nOn the most mundane level, one suspectsnthat most economics professorsnand graduate students were becomingnintolerably bored with profits-concentrationnstudies. Every university librarynin the country must have several unreadntheses studying profits and industrialnconcentration interred in a remote andnunfrequented section of...

The Poetic PracticenJohn Haffenden: The Life of JohnnBerryman; Routledge & KegannPaul; Boston.nWorking Papers: Selected Essaysnand Reviews by Hayden Carrutij;nEdited by Judith Weissnian; Universitynof Georgia Press; Athens.nby Thomas H. LandessnIt is tempting to say that everynfamous man ends up with the biographernhe deserves. At first glance such angeneralization seems true: good mennlead lives that appeal to...

And on such subjects Carruth isngenerally very sound. In feet, his newncollection of criticism goes fer to provenwhat many people have long suspected:nthat he is perhaps one of our best contemporaryncritics of poetry. Carruth’snreviews are—with one or two exceptions—genuinenessays which say somethingnsignificant about some of the mostnimportant poets of our time. Moreover,nin many instances he...

porcine discontinuity of most Americanndiscourse.” Yet he also shows a measurednsympathy for Karl Shapiro’s attack onnthe moderns, despite his rejection ofnShapiro’s idea that poetry (and poets)nshould be antirational. And in a fine tributento Conrad Aiken he joins the attacknon the sterile and loveless verse of thenlatter-day modernists, while commendingnthose who are seeking a newer andnmore...

[ LiKKRAL ClITl Ri: ]nThe ISottom LinenriiuriiiiTs ;IIKI their liki’ luw ;ilv;iysnIx-i-ii |T)|iiil;irl pi-ivi-ivcil U”- :i loklhloodal.nthk’k-skiniH’d j^roiip: lliitik ol’n>hl()ik. AtLoriliiij; lo ;i rt-ccnt iii-ws ivporl.n.1 J’J i-;ii-()klMi»ikhrr.Siicci:’!s. Mu’ };;iini.’d Mniiv (h:inn””IJ.OOO. Diirini;;! New ^ork pivr<> ion-nU-ri-ntf Mi”M. tTulii rcpiwlfill)’siiiil. •rninin I IK- piihlic oi- IIDW . . . Iiiil I pri-li-r tonh;iiik on inv...

Evidently, life owes its sordidness, sadness,nand impossibility to the rarity ofnconcurring love, liberty, and sexuality.nLiberty in particular causes the young tonbe “confused and afraid, as they shouldnbe.” “To avoid the terrifying solitude ofnliberty,” they “search to find a realm ofnlife in which they can immediately belong.”nGrau sou^t love and friendshipnamong the poor, sharing their “angernand...