Being There wishes to be a metaphor,nbut it slips into caricature. The assertionnthat stupidity rules the worldnis not without merit, but as both an historicalnand social force, stupidity canncome to prominence only through thenexistence of an antithetical force thatnis capable of taking advantage of stupidnpeople who create doltish situations.nDon Quixote’s lack of a sense of...

rail workers discuss Hegel between onenun blanc and another, shop girls speaknendlessly about biology, and sub-teennboys ponder womanhood and the rapturesnof carnality. And everything makesnsome sense—more or less. Handkerchiefsnis a fugue on modern French permissiveness:nin fact, nothing much hasnchanged with the French in the realmnof erotica and its complexity; there arenjust more four-letter words than...

than the Bard. How many are going tonsee Much Ado About Nothing at thenFestival Theatre because Shakespearenwrote it? How many filled the house becausenMaggie Smith portrayed Beatrice?nMoreover, in Much Ado, Hero “dies”nbecause her virtue is besmirched by hernbetrothed. None of the characters thinknthe cause of death odd. Who can imaginena young woman dying of a...

Editor’s CommeiitnFour years of mindless Reagan? Is this reallynwhat the great republic has wrought in thenfirst election of its third century?n— Professor Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.nin the Wall Street JournalnCountless words, phrases, sentences, invectives, insults,nsneers and epithets could be quoted, but, for some reason,nthis contumely from a learned, civilized, sophisticated deannof liberal sentiments struck me as...

defenders of consensus political ethics as the supremenwisdom and virtue to do but call him mindless and wicked,nwhile they seethe with hatred.nIn fact, it was the Democratic Party which first oversteppednthe conditioning of the three C’s—hesitantly under Roosevelt,nTruman and Johnson, and at full speed when theynnamed Senator McGovern and Mr. Carter as standard-bearers.nThe current ideology...

Qpinions & ViewsnThe Beauty of Order & the Charisma of MessnSidney Hook: Philosophy and Pub lienPolicy; Southern Illinois UniversitynPress; Carbondale and Edwardsville,nIllinois.nJeremy Rifkin with Ted Howard:nThe Emerging Order: God in thenAge of Scarcity; G. P. Putnam’s Sons;nNew York.nby James J. Thompson, Jr.nfrustration and sadness swept overnme as I finished reading these two books,nfor I realized...

Rifkin’s fancy for the Charismatics:n”For the New Left and its cogeners,”nHook writes, ” ‘science’ and ‘reason’ arensuspect tools of the Establishment usednto fashion rationalizations in behalf ofnthe status quo.” There is indeed anmethod to Jeremy Rifkin’s madness.nlo dismiss Rif kin as nothing morenthan a cynical exploiter of Charismaticnantirationalism will not suffice, though.nRif kin states flatly:...

into such causes as radical feminism,nhomosexual rights and abortion on demand.nThey have sought in every waynto foment a social and moral revolution.nWe have justifiably come to associatenthe left with moral decay and social upheaval.nBut something is stirring in thenranks. Witness Christopher Lasch’s defensenof the family in Haven in a HeartlessnWorld, and Dale Vree’s denunciationsnof social...

of Women’s Wear Daily, making thentriumph of style-cum-idea complete.nBuckley’s persona had finally begun tonconnote his life accomplishments. Henthen started to write spy fiction. He engenderedna hero (in whose image.-‘) whon(all indications are there) was an attemptnat reification a la mode. Fightingnevil alone—even the evil of communistnpower which is so much ampler than angang in a...

seem to serve Buckley best, and henshould stay closer to his own semiologynof that particular participle, or noun.nIt’s easy to see that Buckley has followednin the footsteps of Ian Fleming,nboth in his clear-cut ideological positionnand in his creation of an irresistiblynattractive hero. Blackford Oakes is thenobvious antithesis of le Carre’s grubbynlittle bureaucrats or Greene’s venal...

Sex Almanac for ProtozoansnGay Talese: Thy Neighbor’s Wife;nDoubleday & Co.; New York.nby Herbert I. Londonn1 o the publishing world—where thenbottom line is seemingly all that countsn—the arrival of Gay Talese’s Thy Neighbor’snWife is described as a major event.nThat this book has received so much attentionnis more of a commentary on thisnnation’s values than on Mr....

standards which presumably causednshame, guilt, anxiety and neurosis. Inwon’t attempt to explain to Mr. Talesenthe societal need for guilt; but what Infind baffling is his seemingly total insensitivitynto the conformist demandsnof the contemporary liberationists who,nlike Rousseau, argue that people “shouldnbe forced to be free.”nFor John BuUaro—one of the centralnactors in Thy Neighbor’s Wife—tin investigationninto the...

Those Tedious Extremist VictoriesnMargaret Atwood: Life Before Man;nSimon & Schuster; New York.nby Stephen L. TannernWhat is literary art supposed to donfor us? For a long time people thoughtnit was supposed to help us better understandnlife and consequently live morensuccessfully. According to this oldfashionednnotion, the artist shouldnstruggle toward a vision of how thingsnought to be. This...

quainted with the notion of sacrifice.n”As long as Nate does his share withnthe house and children, or what they’venwearily agreed is his share, he can helpnhimself to any diversion he chooses.nBowling, building nnodel airplanes, fornication,nit’s all the same to her.”nNothing is theirs in this marriage, butnalways his or hers, even the children.nElizabeth seems convinced “she...

Thanatos for TwonJohn Hawkes: The Passion Artist;nHarper & Row; New York.nRalph de Toledano: Devil TakenHim; G. P. Putnam’s Sons; NewnYork.nby Joseph SchwartznThe fictional world of John Hawkesnis absurd for two reasons, each affectingnhis perception of reality. First,nit contains no pattern of cause and effect.nWhat one gets instead is the flow of sensationsnand eccentric spatial juxtapositions,nestablishing...

ing.” At the end of the novel, thenmeaning of his real and (perhaps) imaginednlife is realized in a final irony. Shotnas he is leaving the prison, he makesnone last effort to assert his identity.n”I am who I am,” he cries; the ironicnBiblical echo is intentional. His deathnis the “final irony,” because he discoversnfor himself what...

tional freedom and vivacity, a lessonnvifomen have generally taught men innHawkes’s fiction.nThe Passion Artist presents a terriblenand terrifying vision: antilife, anti-intellectual,nantihistory. It is, hovi^ever, anlogical result of the inverted premisesnupon which Hav?kes rests his case. It is anvision of primal horror, this lust forndeath as mankind waits in the gardennpassing the time with sexual gymnasticsnthat...

Peter Minot.” There are serious theologicalnimplications in all this which denToledano has chosen not to face, dependingninstead upon instinct whichncomes pretty close to superstition.nJ. he design for the novel is clever;nthe structure provides appropriate opportunitiesnfor Peter Minot to recreatenthe past of the protagonist, de Toledano’snessential problem as a novelist isnthat he is self-conscious as the...

camera and the assemblyline silkscreen,nto cast the shadows of his plastic, repeatablenimages over the whole fagade ofnthe spineless art world. The icons thatnhe has produced, from “money” to “MarilynnMonroe,” have indeed proved to bensignificant commentaries on our presentnage, yet the direction toward which thesenicons point is a nihilistic, disposable lifestyle,none which undercuts any sense ofndeliberate...

of their relationship is formed: theirnsex life is great, their ideologies arenpoles apart.nDolores Durer is the original bleedingnheart of the title: her heart bleeds fornthe unfortunates of the world as wellnas for herself. She worries about pollution,nwomen, crime, women, drugs,nwomen, capitalist corruption and women.nThe subject of her sabbatical researchnis the suffering of women. FornDolores, reality...

but she offers no real alternative. Hernonly notion of what to do is a vague convictionnthat women ought to run thenworld. She will not concede that women,ntoo, are subject to human emotions likengreed or envy; there is, in her eyes, nonwickedness in womankind. Whatevernevidence there may be of such transgressionsnFrench blames on the malenpower structure...

authoritarianism and class distortion.”nThis suggests a rather bizarre view ofnthe Victorian Age—the freest era in thenhistory of the world—and confuses thenaims of Victorian gentlemen likenTheodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilsonnand Robert LaFollette with the position,nor rather the pose, of the new left ofnthe 1960’s.nIhe worst muddles in FitzGerald’snwork appear in her treatment of thenalleged shifts in viewpoint...

Squanto was considered a fishy character,nif not a traitor: “true NativenAmerican heroes are those who foughtnto preserve and protect their people’snfreedom and land.” Although PitzGeraldnfails to notice the erroneous assumptionnthat Indians constituted a singlennation or people, she has sense enoughnto see that American history cannot bentaught by attempting to Show the viewpointnof every real of...

is. Make your way across the syntaxnwithout becoming too distracted bynthe short circuits of modifiers and takenaccount of the interesting color changesnof Griselda Graves’s “holy face.” Theynplay a key role in this novel.nAnother important character is MarynDee Adkins, a beautiful 23-year old.nA typical scene illustrates how adorablenshe is and how atrociously thingsnare described: Ms. Adkins...

in Black Cargoes—A History of thenAtlantic Slave Trade by Mannix andnCowley, just as Mr. Colter did. Andnsimilar well-written works provide factual,nbiographical details on the othernhistorical events Mr. Colter covers.nWhen the near-contemporary situationnis dealt with, things are quitenvague: the flashbacks are based on ansort of history, but Mr. Colter doesn’tnseem to know what direction to take...

tions. Those problems arose becausenfew people in government offices—nelected, appointed or hired—saw anythingnin the civil-rights movementnwhich would be of advantage to theirncareers, should they become involved.nThe first crack in the hear-nothing-donothingnshell of Washington came fromnan election campaign rather than fromnsomeone enforcing existing laws regardingncivil rights. Only when votesncounted could the civil-rights and warprotestnmovements get the...

Explorations in Materialist MetaphysicsnVladislav Krasnov: Solzhenitsynnand Dostoevsky: A Study in thenPolyphonic Novel; University ofnGeorgia Press; Athens, Georgia.nby Juliana Geran PilonnTo call a work of fiction a symphonynin prose is to risk pathos. Unless, perhaps,none happens to be referring tonDostoyevsky and Solzhenitsyn, twongiants of Russian literature whose sensitivitynto human suffering is equalednonly by their astute knowledge...

equally concerned with presenting anvariety of viewpoints as compassionatelynas possible, thus repudiating the stiflingndogmatism of “socialist realism” whosenpalette contains no colors other thanncrimson.nThis thesis is especially important innlight of the Western liberal impressionnthat Solzhenitsyn is “authoritarian” andnunable to appreciate “democracy” withnits disagreements and conflicts, an impressionnapparently reinforced by Solzhenitsyn’snspeech delivered in Junen1976 at Harvard —...

polemic aspects of Cancer Ward andnAugust 1914, more briefly but just asnconvincingly. The reader leaves thenbook with a sense of having appreciatednSolzhenitsyn anew, of having come anlittle closer to sharing his complex universe.nIn the final chapter, Krasnov capturesnSolzhenitsyn’s style in one morenparadox by calling it a kind of “spiritualnrealism.” Realism, surely: for if this benfiction...

Cutler brings all of the appropriatenjargon to the campaign. Strategy shiftsnfrom “retail” to “wholesale”—charterednjet-hopping around the state’s majornmedia markets. Lo and behold, the trendnindicated by the leading poll reverses itselfnalmost immediately (primarily becausenCutler uses a media fee to bribe thenpolitical scientist running the poll).nHeller’s media campaign is successful asnAndrews is unable to raise the money...

were able to establish a placid conservatismnby blacklisting the sensitive andncreative talents of the day. In the 1970’s,nusing a more sophisticated understandingnof their creation, they hope to returnnAmerica to an artificial conservatismnin the interest of augmented profits.nThis fictive conspiracy is mastermindednby the Phaethon Society, undernthe direction of network president ColonelnEddie Donovan and a few friends.nThe...

versities’ enthusiasm for the equal-sexnmovement has diminished somewhat, asnthe shortage of tenured females makesnthe pro-ERA protestations of the malenfaculty sound hollow. But the educationalnsector is only one facet of a largenrevolutionary scene. Another equallynsignificant facet linked to the women’sliberationnmovement is the mandatednchanges in our language. Our governmentnhas never before gone quite sondeeply into thought control,...

but a faintly ominous one. It assumesnthat the sexual revolution, mandated bynan elite, has propelled men in the UnitednStates beyond their predecessors intonsome strange new world. But that note,nburied in the introduction of the professor’snbook, is submerged for somentime, while he meditates unchronologicallynabout being or becoming a man.n^nce he has chosen to be intenselynpersonal, there...

folktale, from the simple man’snmythology. That mythology isnprimitive only in the sense ofnbeing primordial and ubiquitous,nand it is pagan only in being uncodifiednas rigid ritual. But itsningredients are part of the chemistrynof dream whatever its placenon the ladder of civilization,nwhatever its dialectical stage—nideologues and bureaucrats notwithstanding.n(JGP) DnSeriouslynSpeakingnRend A. Wormser: ConservativelynSpeaking; Wayne E. DorlandnCo.; Mendham, New...

ScreennStylish VoidnThe Long Riders; Written by BillnBryden; Directed by Walter Hill;nUnited Artists.nby Eric ShapearonThe Western is epic literature,nwhichever its dimension—trash or art.nEpic means dramatic growth—charactersnmust change, or “develop” as thentrade term goes. When they renouncenthe dynamics of personal drama—shallow,nschmaltzy, melodramatic, whichever—therenis no epic matter on thenpages or the screen, and no Western.nAt the beginning of...

him and Benny Carter into a photonsession.nThey made us perform a bebop greetingnfor them. ‘Hi-ya, man!’ ‘Bellsnman, where you been.” giving thensign of the flatted fifth, a raised opennhand.n’Eel-ya-da!’ We gave a three-fingerednsign that we were playing triplets, endingnwith an elaborate handshake. Thatnwas supposed to be the bebopper’sngreeting, but there was no such thingnin real...

from swing to bop. He attributes greatntalent to largely forgotten musiciansnlike trumpeters Bobby Moore and WillienNelson.nIn a recent issue, Down Beat magazinencarried an interview with a prominentnjazz artist and repertoire directornwho expounded on the need for musiciansnto accommodate the requirementsnand compromises of business if they arento succeed. Gillespie, whose lack of artisticncompromise is legendary, has...

nated from the Republican contest, hendeclared himself to be an independentncandidate for the presidency. At thatnmoment, he became the polls’ pol: sympatheticnpollsters working for televisionnand giant liberal press outfits began tonconstruct questions like: “Would younvote for John Anderson on a crisp, sunnynNovember day, when you had nothingnbetter to do and knew nothing aboutnhim?” Whatever percentage...

attract the Village Voice, even if henterms himself a pious Christian. Hennever came up with a rebuttal to thenadulation of Playboy’s readers; he doesnnot have the ideological equipment tondeal with this kind of problem. “I believenin the power of ideas,” he keepsnrepeating. So does everybody else, butnthe corollary question must be: Whichnideas.” Here the paucity...

Anderson and his wife] concluded thatnhe had neither the wealth nor the connectionsnto rise very far very fast, theyncame home to try a different route tontheir dreams.” This route was to travelnas an archconservative from Rockfordnto Washington, D.C. Once there, Mr.nAnderson discovered, in the mid-60’s,nthat occasionally bending his course tonthe left could mean a voyage...

and deeply dismayed about their lethalness,ntheir threat to society, their distribution,nand—last but not least —nagainst the permissiveness, even malfeasance,nof those who are insensitivento the drug problem and its many dimensions.nHad it been a gathering of academiciansnwishing to encourage the drugnsubculture, praise the innocence andnminimize the medically proven perniciousnessnof mind-altering drugs, bothnbroadcast and print media would...

Liberal CensorshipnEarly in April the famousnmovie director, King Vidor, wasna guest on the late-night talknshow Tomorrow. Few peoplencan combine insomnia with annability to tolerate Tom Snyder,nbut those who can witnessed anninteresting and revealingnincident.nA short scene from Vidor’sn1934 movie. Our Daily Bread,nwas shown. In this scene thenhero urges a crowd of fellownvictims of the depression to...

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Editor’s Commentn1.nA couple of distinguished gentlemen recently indulged innan exchange on patriotism. Their polemics were conductednin the letters-to-the-editor section of the New York Times—nan organ of distinction. Ambrose Bierce was invoked, asnwas Dr. Johnson and his old dictum about scoundrels andnpatriotic sentiments. Reading all that, it occurred to me thatnemotions which spring from one’s rapport...

Thus, if no Spaniard would voluntarily agree to a non-nSpanish toreador, no feeling of impropriety would ever crossnan American’s mind when hearing about a Bulgarian trapper.nWhich leads us back to the very core of wholeheartednAmerican acceptance of daily syncretism, so incompatiblenwith the Euro-Asian sense of an established order of nationalnvalues, peculiarities, vanities and stigmas. Everywhere...

opinions &. ViewsnMorals & MannersnNorman Podhoretz: BreakingnRanks; Harper & Row; New York.nby Paul GottfriednJL he New York intellectual establishmentnhas long left its mark bothnupon American journalism and academicnopinion, yet few have thus farndiscussed it with as much knowledgenand critical insight as Norman Podhoretz.nAs editor in chief of Commentarynsince 1960, he was at first decisive innpushing...

that he has always been at the center ofnsomething important, that he has a mission.nThe angelic intermediaries tellnhim to throw away his Bible becausenthey themselves will show him the greatnbook clearly and interpret its meaningnfor him. “I said I am willing, where amnI to go?” He is ready. “Your tongue wasnbound so that in the...

en’s Seventh (naturally), he dances HkenDavid before the Ark, because likenDavid he is man and still the anointednof the Lord. “What good is not directlynbreathed into the world by the holynspirit must come down by and throughnthe nature of men.” This, then, isnMatty’s incarnational view of Christiannrealism.nFinally, back to Mr. Pedigree, thenonly person with whom...

but dictated his daily observations andnhis activities, with suitable citations andnquotes, at the end of his working daynfor inclusion in his Alpha File. Personsnapt to meander intellectually would soonnfind the disparity between their assumptionsnand the evidence of reality too embarrassingnto examine, but the senatornfrom Arizona is what Francis W. Newmanncalled a “once-born.” He is one...

ited the mantle and would be invulnerable.nThere were other reasons. Goldwater’snlifestyle was private; the exposurenand the pomp of the Americannpresidency today, so dear to the heartsnof Johnson and Kennedy, did not appealnto the Arizonian. Another reason wasnthat he appreciated as did few others thenimmense entrenched power of a bureaucracynthat had defeated Eisenhower,nKennedy, and would certainly...