Ultimately, there is neither straightnline or circle. But to understand hownthings are, one must advance beyondnthe present childlike phases of humannexistence. Gods and devils must benabandoned along with those notionsnof good and evil which have relevancento day-to-day life but mean nothing tonthat material unity which contains allnthings and makes them one. Matter isnall. All is matter.nThe tone is that of a 20th-centurynspeaker addressing a 20th-centurynaudience.nIt is Democritus, not Cyrus, who discoversnthe cause of the coming into beingnof all things, the trick of a tired ornbaffled writer. The reader has everynright to cry “Foul” since the wholenthing is neatly packaged into twonspeeches. Democritus is no characternat all, only the pen that puts Cyrus’snvoice to paper. He has acquired no fictionalnauthority for such a role. Yet thenconclusion of the lengthy quest is putnin his voice. Creation is caused by thenceaseless whirl he names necessity.n”Everything happens according to necessityn. . . creation is constantly creatednand recreated.” Materialism and necessitynare not only congenial partners,nthey also make cynicism feel at home.nDemocritus as deus ex machina stops,nnot ends, the novel. There is no organicnclose as when something that we startednreaches an ending through its ownnnatural finality.nDemocritus’s final comment explainingnhis failure to show how he reachednhis conclusion invites speculation. “Inhave written on these matters elsenwhere.” Vidal has. in fact, written ofnthese matters elsewhere. “I suffer fromnthe disease of visionaries without, sadnto say, the compensating vision.” Hisnsecular romanticism has always beennevident. Near the beginning of his careernit began to turn itself inside-out,nhiding its tender skin with the roughnprotection of cynicism. At the very least,nthis explains the severe disappointmentnhis characters experience while watchingnSome Remarks on Equalitynof World ViewsnIn an otherwise fair article on thennever-ending saga of our origins on thisnplanet, we can read the following opinion,nfeatured in Future Life Magazine,nabout the creationists’ postulates:nThere is also a real danger whennthey attempt to indoctrinate othernpeople’s children in that belief asnwell under the label of equal timenfor an alternate theory—and, semanticsnaside, any theory which has as itsnbottom line the supposition that thenworld was created by an unexplainable,nunexplorable ‘supernaturalnforce’ is religious.nThe strife between creationists andnevolutionists is, in its essence, a conflictnof two world views: the spiritual andnthe materialistic. Why teaching one ofnthese Weltanschauungs in public schoolsnis proper, while the teaching of the othernis called “indoctrination,” is a puzzlenof logic, and it is never explained bynFuture Life Magazine. Going to church,nthe thirsty evil drink up the riches ofncreation. Giving evil credit for morenpower than it has by making it a positiventhing is a too-easy rationalization fornlife having gone sour, for sexual anxietynand disappointment, for the failure ofna hoped-for social order, for anarchy, fornbrutality and for what might have been.nNecessity and materialism, dark romanticism,nmake apology irrelevant andnfree conduct from the anxiety causednby volition. Freedom to choose placesntoo great a burden on inadequate man.nLike Cyrus, he finds the quest a failure,nwrong from the start. While beingnmakes demands on mind and will, thenflurry of atoms is mindless. Perhaps itnis that the consequences of choice are,nin this view of things, unbearable. Materialismnreduces the number of choicesnnnLIBERAL CULTUREnwhere a child may hear something aboutncreation, is in our society a voluntarynactivity, while sending children to schoolnwhere evolution is taught, even as theory,nis legally necessary. Thus, a certainnwarping of evenhandedness becomes obvious.nSome world views are obviouslynmore equal than others, and all the evolutionists’nrecitations about democracy,nprogress and enlightenment seem tonshelter some purely coercive factors. Dnso drastically that the field of experiencenis limited to varying degrees of sensualnsatisfaction. For a time that appearsnto make things easier, but when thenfragile body wears down, necessity isnthe saving explanation. One of the darkernpassages from Measure for Measurenselected by Vidal as an epigraph for ancollection of short stories provides annaccurate insight into his sense of man.nOur natures do pursue.nLike rats that ravin down theirnproper bane,nA thirsty evil, and when we drink,nwe die.nIf Creation is, as I suspect, a report onnthe way things are by a contemporarynto his contemporaries, it is a case ofnthe blind leading the blind. •nXovembcr/Decembcr 1981n