ism,” so they deem it ideologically necessarynto whitewash the vilest regime innthe world. In reality, of course, manynhave managed to shift part of the blamenfor the Cambodian horrors onto thenUnited States. In claiming thatnCambodia was forced into the war bynAmerican actions in its border region—nrather than because of the stationingnof North Vietnamese troops there—nChomsky and Herman merely repeat anpopular myth. And not even the crustiestnreactionaries in the West havennoted the fact that Cambodia was betternoff under the rule of France (the harshestnEuropean imperial power in Asia)nthan during its brief existence as an independentnstate.nOince 1977 it has generally been acceptednthat well over a million peoplenwere butchered by the Khmer Rougenafter their victory in 1975. The testimonynof the refugees from Cambodianis quite consistent in its portrait of thenregime—one that made nazi Germanynlook like a republic of free men. WhilenHitler, Stalin and Mao murdered morenpeople, Pol Pot and his followers undoubtedlynwent farther than anyonenOf Morals & MannersnIan Watt: Conrad in the NineteenthnCentury; University of CalifornianPress; Berkeley, California.nMillicent Bell: Marquand: AnnAmerican Life; Little, Brow^n & Co.;nBoston.nby Stephen L. TannernV>onrad and Marquand present anninteresting study in contrasts. Bothnwere successful writers, but in quitendifferent ways. Marquand was the middlebrownmaster. During the first decadenDr. Tanner teaches English at BrighamnYoung University.n^^^ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _nChronicles of Culturenelse in their attempt to reahze the totalitariannideal. They mashed the Cambodiannpeople into an undifferentiatednpulp and regimented the survivors intonan utterly joyless existence. The factsnhave been well documented by FrancoisnPonchaud, John Barron and AnthonynPaul. But Chomsky and Herman prefernto portray the Khmer Rouge as generallynhumanistic chaps, economic rationalizersnwho admittedly committed somenexcesses in understandable revenge, butnwho saved the Cambodian people fromnstarving. They consume 160 pages innquibbling, devious reasoning and hastynaccusations of fabrication of evidence.nThey think it unreasonable to put faithnin the reports of refugees, but acceptnthe testimony of those who have beennon guided tours provided by the KhmernRouge regime.nIt may be recalled that Western reportersnvisiting the Ukraine in then1930’s on similar guided tours werentotally unaware that the area was sufferingnfrom an artificial famine causednby Stalin’s collectivization program.nTheir ignorance may have been excusable;nthe willful blindness and dishonestynof Chomsky and Herman is not. Dnof his career, between 1921 and 1931,nhe published five serials and 59 shortnstories in the Saturday Evening Post,nthe Ladies’ Home Journal and Collier’s.nThe Post paid him $500 to 13,000 fornstories and $30,000 to $40,000 for serials.nHe went on to become the mostnwidely read and financially successfulnnovelist of his time—the professionalnof professionals.nConrad, on the other hand, the darlingnof the intelligentsia, spent the firstndecade of his career, and then some,nplagued with money worries and burdenednwith debt. He later achievednsome measure of financial security, butnhis success is more aptly measured bynthe fame and respect he earned as annnserious literary artist.nBoth writers confronted the dilemmanposed by the deepening chasm betweennthe highbrow and the mass audience,nbut they responded in opposite ways.nMarquand fretted about the way hisnwriting for the popular audience interferednwith his development as a seriousnartist, but he never wholeheartedlynturned away from the desire for commercialnsuccess. He was “violently anxious”n(his words) to prove that widelyncirculating magazine fiction could benboth popular and serious. He insistednon several occasions that he was proudnof what he had accomplished in writingnfor the Post. His literary agent encouragednhim to produce popular and remunerativenfiction.nConrad also began with writing magazinenstories and serials, but his agentnencouraged him in his belief that anwriter must follow his own path andndisregard the public taste. Accordingnto Ian Watt, Conrad’s “fierce independencenand ferocious contempt for commercialnactivities made every concessionnto the taste of the public stick innhis throat.”nWriting came easily to Marquand,nand he prided himself on his fluentncraftsmanship. Conrad speaks of sittingneight hours, writing three sentences,nand then erasing them, using allnof his self-control to refrain from bangingnhis head on the wall: “I want tonhowl and foam at the mouth but daren’tndo it for fear of waking the baby andnalarming my wife.”nMaxwell Geismar once said, “Mr.nMarquand knows all the little answers.nHe avoids the larger questions.” Conrad,nof course, attempted the largernquestions, and consequently exhibitedngreater intellectual boldness, moralntoughness and depth of insight. Thenactual society he knew was Marquand’snsubject, and he valued it for itself, notnas a symbol or metaphor for the largenhuman issues. Conrad, on the othernhand, could not treat quotidian concretenessnwithout including timelessnimplications about the fundamentaln