28 / CHRONICLESnlustrative of something or other, theynare reluctant to identify any one ofnthem as great. Brodsky’s poems do notnappear in anthologies of American poetry,nnot even Helen Vendler’s Harvardn(1985), which strives to be ancompendium of received opinion.nI know of only one American poetncolleague who reads his work withnpleasure and have thus concluded thatnit ultimately is no more written for usnthan for the common reader. Emigrenliterati I know tell me that his reputationnhere is based upon tokenism, ournpublicity machinery rewarding onenand only one member of every identifiablenminority (e.g., black, Midwestern,netc.); and if Solzhenitsyn is to benAmerica’s favorite emigre novelist, sonBrodsky has become our token Russiannpoet, even though other emigres arenequally consequential.nThe occasional essays collected innthis new book are no more substantial.nThey range from perfunctory backslappingnappreciations of older poetsn(Derek Walcott, Eugenio Montale) tonextended analyses of two poems (onenBuckeye PhilosophernPhilosophy in the Ivy League has,nby and large, been reduced to bickeringsnover words and pretextsnfor treason. However, AndrewnOldenquist—perhaps because hengrew up and stayed in thenMidwest—has retained a firm graspnon the facts of common experiencenwhile establishing himself in a discipline.nOldenquist shares his mid-nAmerican sanity with his studentsnat Ohio State University and withnthe readers of books like The Non-nSuicidal Society (Bloomington: IndiananUniversity Press; $19.95). Intelligentnlaymen baffled by thenethical abstractions of John Rawlsnor Robert Nozick will be pleasantlynsurprised that they cannot only understandnwhat Oldenquist has to tellnthem in his new book but that theyncan also usually agree.nOldenquist has strayed so farnfrom the academic mainstream thatnhe dares to say the obvious: thatnman is a tribal creature by nature.nREVISIONSnin Russian by Tsvetaeva, the other bynW.H. Auden). There is one memoirnof his native city, Leningrad, and anothernof an awful trip to Constantino^npie. There are brushes at politicalncommentary, but nothing like the politicalnprose of another emigre poet—nCzeslaw Milosz’s The Captive Mindn(1953). If Brodsky has read any Americannpoets younger than Robert Lowell,nhe does not say; it is probably safer fornhis self-myth (and specialized position)nnot to. In the end, Less Than One hasnno cohesive subject, other than hisnown celebrity.nMost of these essays were originallynwritten in English. Those initially innRussian were put into English by BarrynRubin, an otherwise unidentified figurenwhom Brodsky credits with “editorialncounsel” in his last poetry collection,nA Part of Speech (1980). Thenprincipal distinguishing mark of Brodsky’snprose is a grandiosity that comesnlargely from exaggeration and fromntaking poetry, and language, too seriously.nIt is a kind of “grand manner” Inassociate first with poets generationsnthat moral order depends irrevocablynupon primary commitments tonfamily and local community, andnthat the modern cult of individualismnhas wrought havoc everywhere.nDrawing upon the work of leadingnethnologists and sociobiologists, hentraces the global uniformity of ethicalnprinciples (even within tribes ofnheadhunters) to mankind’s “secretnPleistocene Inheritance,” the geneticnlegacy of millennia of evolutionnduring which only fierce groupnloyalty made human survival possible.nThe evidence overwhelminglynrefutes the notion — prevalentnamong egalitarians and libertarians—thatnman behaves egotisticallynin a primal “state of nature.”nOnly determined ideologues, socialnworkers, public schoolteachers, andnFederal judges could break downnthe natural patterns of domesticnorder and neighborhood cooperationnand so create the war of “allnagainst all” now seen in our innerncities, courts, and schools. (BC)nnnolder than himself, especially in Europen(and perhaps accounts for thenpublicist’s image of Brodsky as “cosmopolitan”)nand then with the illusionnthat from a grand style necessarilynfollow great ideas. Consider the book’snopening paragraph:nAs failures go, attempting tonrecall the past is like trying tongrasp the meaning of existence.nBoth make one feel like a babynclutching at a basketball: one’snpalms keep sliding off.nThis last metaphor is a confectionninconceivable to me, who has nevernseen (and cannot imagine) infants evernhaving the opportunity to clutch inflatednbaskethalh. (A baseball wouldnbe more appropriate.) Now, of course,nto impressionable minds, what seemsnan unnecessary affectation can becomenmore acceptable in those whonalso can say “I keek it, I vin it.”nHowever, in English, such inflatednphrasing is indicative of the limitednspecialist; and within the world ofnAmerican poetry, Brodsky has nevernbeen more than a placekicker, a sideshownimport whose praise-winningnbooks appeal particularly to those inclined,nalas, to appreciate flashinessnover substance.nRichard Kostelanetz is a poet andncritic living in New York. His essaysnon poetry were collected in The OldnPoets and the New (University ofnMichigan). He is currently completingna critique of literary granting innAmerica.nBack to Barbarismnby Allan C. CarlsonnDwellers in the Land: The BioregionalnVision by Kirkpatrick Sale,nSan Francisco: Sierra Club Books;n$14.95.nMuch of the bioregional vision shouldnappeal to conservative sentiments. Asnthe pitiful remnant of America’s agrariannculture again falls victim tondrought and depression, the bioregionalistsncafl for a return to the land, anreconstruction of self-sufficient farmnlife, and a reverence toward the soil asnthe organic bond of human genera-n