himself is a chilling, even dangerousnfigure.” Confucius comes closest tonmaking a convert of him; “of all thenmen I have known, he was the wisest.”nUnlike Socrates he answered questions,nspeaking of what was and of what shouldnbe, offering “a very clear idea of whatnconstitutes goodness in the humannscale.”nI think that for all practical purposes,nthe Confucians are atheists. They donnot believe in an afterlife or a day ofnjudgment. They are not interested innhow this world was created or fornwhat purpose. Instead, they act as ifnthis life is all there is and to conductnit properly is all that matters. Fornthem, heaven is simply a word to describencorrect behaviour.nThe paradox that alerts the reader tonVidal’s view is that the most imposingnof the religious thinkers is the leastnreligious. Concerned only with morality,nhe is a man “entirely of this world.”nCyrus becomes convinced that everynRed HerringnThose Americans schooled in the liberalnculture’s horror chambers know thatnnowadays the woods are teeming withnhot-eyed book burners intent on destroyingnall books save the Bible and perhaps^na hymnal or two. No surprise then that,’nwhen recently polled, a group of nearlyntwo thousand school librarians, principalsnand superintendents warned of annimpending holocaust of censorship. Theneducators solemnly intoned that rednecknzealots had ruthlessly assailed over twonhundred individual titles in 1980 alone.nNaturally, these censors went after suchnvolumes as J. D. Salinger’s Catcher innthe Rye and The American HeritagenDictionary. But hold on a minute! Thatnlist of two hundred books contains somenintriguing titles: Shakespeare’s ThenMerchant of Venice, Orwell’s 1984 andnSolzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life ofnIvan Denisovich. Are these also on thenS2inChronicles of Culturenreligion is confused in its attempt tonexplain reality—Creation. In addition,nhe becomes the complete cynic. “Wherevernone goes on this earth, all thingsnare spoiled by men” because they “looknentirely to their own interest.” The failurenof religion to come to understandablenand decent terms with evil and theninherent brutishness of men combinento give the novel its tone of secularndespair.nUp to this point it has been difficultnto understand why Vidal makes Cyrusnthe grandson of Zoroaster, the foundernof the chief religion of ancient Persia.nOne must be a bit quick-footed here tondetect the third ideological strand ofnthe novel. It is a commonplace view inncultural history that of all the ancientnreligions Zoroastrianism was most likenChristianity, which became historicallynthe religion of the West. Zoroaster opposednpolytheism by proclaiming AhuranMazda, the “Wise Lord,” as the one, truenGod. At the end of life, he taught, thengood are rewarded and the wicked pun-nLIBERAL CULTURE |nhit lists of the right-wingers? WouldnOrwell’s and Solzhenitsyn’s condemnationsnof Soviet rule cause unease amongnthose who have displayed the Americannflag in their lapels and adorned their carsnwith “Love it or Leave it!” bumper stickers?nIs The Merchant of Venice the victimnof that Southern Baptist who recentlynasserted that God does not listen to thenprayers of the Jews? Is the liberal leftnimmune to all censorial temptation? Dnnnished. The dualism he preached wasnradically at odds with the this-worldlinessnof Confucius and the Buddha’snNirvana. In these respects and only innthe broadest possible sense, it sharednsome of the major ideas of Christianity.nBy being a Zoroastrian Cyrus, who isnhalf Greek, is turned around, as it were,nand serves a dual function by becomingnan unexpected representative of Westernnthought. The buried scenario ofnthe novel, now coming to light, is annattack on Christianity, because it, alongnwith Greek thought, is at the base ofnWestern culture. Two birds are beingnkilled with one stone. In economicalnfashion the noetic illumination of thenGreeks and the pneumatic illuminationnof the Jews, the two most profoundnmoments in the history of the ancientnworld, are dealt with as the reasons fornthe failure of the West.nThis implied critique and its paradigmnare made clearer as we see Cyrus at thenend of his life through the eyes of hisnnephew, Democritus. On only two occasionsnis he allowed to speak, and bothntimes it is to act as the reader’s guide innarriving at a final view. Although it isna clumsy and intrusive device, the intentnis clear. Democritus tells us that whilenCyrus had been agood Zoroastrian thinkingnthat the essential questions had beennanswered, “he was too intelligent, finally,nto ignore contrary evidence.” Cyrus wasn”beginning to suspect, if not believe,nthere is neither a beginning nor an endnto a creation which exists in a state ofnflux in a time that is truly infinite.”nBy his own admission Cyrus’s quest hadnfailed. “There is something missing.nSomething I could not find anywherenon this earth in the course of a long life.”nIn contrast to Thornton Wilder’s Idesnof March and The Woman of Androsnwhere the something missing will bensupplied by Incarnation, in Creationnit is an ignis fatuus that Cyrus has beennmistakenly seeking. Yet, Cyrus’s otherwisenfailed quest is made meaningfulnin that it becomes the beginning ofnthe quest of Democritus who discoversnthat:n