40 / CHRONICLESnnot more than 12 or 15 homes, thentypical village presents an eye-catchingnvariety of Chinese roofs, each made ofngreen tiles or blue, yellow or black, rednor brown, adding color patches to thengreen of the paddies. Work on thenfields continues until 9:00 or 10:00nbut—this too is typically Chinese-Japanese-Korean—thenmen andnwomen always seem to be taking itneasy, and work seems a form of enthusiasticninvolvement. (Speak of underdevelopment:nThere is no comparisonnbetween steamy, ever-decaying Indianand sturdy, hardworking Korea or Taiwan.)nSouth Korea is a man’s society. Thencountry is industrialized, yet (at leastnin this Mediterranean-like South) industrynhas not corroded the country’snsocial and family structure. The Koreansnlive in a temporarily happy halfwaynhouse between tradition and modernity.nWhile my interpreter finishedndiscoursing to our public, I often waitednfor him in an adjoined tea house,nnot the one from the operetta TeanHouse of the August Moon, but a realnone. Since I was condemned tonsilence—absolutely nobody spoke Englishnand even my translator, a professor,ndid not know that in South Americanthey speak Spanish andnPortuguese — I just looked and ob­nPlutarch LivesnA generation ago, a man of lettersnknew more than one alphabet.nEven a Bohemian radical could benexpected to know a little Greek andnenough Chinese to spot the errorsnin Ezra Pound. Kenneth Rexrothnknew that much and more. Annoften readable poet and a passablenamateur as a scholar, Rexroth tookngood books seriously and in a seriesnof Saturday Review essays, republishednas Classics Revisited (NewnYork: New Directions, 1965, republishednwith an afterword by BradfordnMorrow, 1986), he shared hisngenial erudition with grateful readersnin a more literate age.nSome critics are valuable for thenstern justice they mete out even tonthe greatest writers. Rexroth, asnserved. The guests in the tea housenwere men only, since the tearoom isnalso a face-saving variety of a bordello.nThe head girl—geisha? madame?—nwears an awfully gaudy dress, withnjewels, from, 1 guess, a five-and-dimenstore. She and the other girls serve teanand beer, while the men show noninhibition in expressing their interestsnin feminine charm. Things can benarranged, but usually with discretion.nThe girl is invited to a hotel room ton”serve tea,” and indeed she will carrynwith her the tray, the samovar-likencan, and the cups. The “arrangement”nmay or may not take its expectedncourse. At any rate, no protesters havenshown up here demanding equal rightsnfor women or decrying the subjugationnof women as “sex objects.”nTraveling around south of Seoul,nnever far from the sea (studded withnlovely islands, causeways, hills, gazebos,nfish restaurants), I had all sorts ofnoccasions to inquire about what occupiesnthe South Korean mind. Numbernone is fear of a new attack from thenNorth. People have not forgotten thenhorror of the invasion 36 years ago,nnor MacArthur’s brilliant counterstrategy.nPreoccupation number two isnKorea’s backseat role not only in itsnrelationship with America but alsonwith Japan. Their admiration for, andnREVISIONSnBradford Morrow observes, “venerates”neven writers he didn’t particularlyncare for, like Joyce. This traitnis especially useful in essays onnwriters like Plutarch, whose greatnqualities he could admire withoutnat all sympathizing with Plutarch’snpolitical views. In fact, Rexroth isnremarkably sound on a host of ancientnwriters. Of Caesar: “His syntaxnon the page looks like speech;nbut like Ernest Hemingway’s, it isnnot talk that can be uttered”; of thensimplicity of the Greek anthologynand its influence: “The greatest poetrynstill speaks Greek—in the simplestntragic language, the plain confrontationnof beauty and love withnTime, and nothing complex aboutnit”; of Marcus Aurelius: “Proustnwithout the narrative”; of Thucydides:n”the inventor of the anti­nnnapprehension of, the Japanese remindednme of East European attitudes towardnGermany as a kind of eldernbrother who is often tough to live withnbut whose past offenses are now pushednfar into the background by hatred ofnthe Soviet Union. The Japanese seemnnumerous in Korea, just as they arenincreasingly visible almost everywherenon the planet—while U.S. troops andntheir families remain practically invisible.nYet America is problem numbernthree, as is always the case betweennprotector and client. The big worry:nhow to continue the country’s industrialngrowth by selling more merchandise,nincluding military equipmentnand car tires, on the American market.nIt is also the U.S. which relentiesslynpushes democratization. This does notnfit Korean mentality and tradition, as itnis also unfit for the Philippines, Iran,nNicaragua, or South Africa. However,nthe leaders in Seoul wish to avoid anWashington-engineered change ofngovernment (as in Manila or Tehran)nand, like typical Orientals who adjustnrather than resist (resistance comesnlater and it is slow), they want to bengood pupils of the Big White Democrat.nThe upshot will be a new constitutionnprepared by politicians and professors,nthe unholiest of combinations.nThe opposition parties will provide anndemocratic style.”nRexroth wasn’t always that goodnand more than once gave way to thenfashionable gauchisme that infectednnearly everyone at the SaturdaynReview. The Persian wars were notna “successful defense of a democratic,nrational, secular society.” ThenSpartans, who did as much as anyncity to win the war, were profoundlynantidemocratic and deeply religious.nThe Athenians were evennmore superstitious than when St.nPaul twitted them for worshiping annunknown god. In the main, however,nRexroth rises above his prejudicenwith better grace than anyncritic who comes to mind, andnwhile this suggests a certain shallownessnof commitment to standards,nhis literary application of thenGolden Rule is refreshing.n