polished Southerners most conspicuousnin American history — Washington,nJefferson, Lee—constituted, in truth, annanomaly in the social structure of thenSouth. The few thousand wealthy landownersnwho in 1860 actually ownednthose stately mansions and more thannone hundred slaves apiece were more innthe mold of Andrew Jackson: shrewd,ntough businessmen, who saw the awesomenfertility of the inland pine forestnsoil, and plowed it for cotton, and morencotton. They were not exactly RhettnButler types, but a few of their sons, sentnto Europe for their education and returningnhome to serve the South in Congressnand the courts, were. Thus the pervasivenand likeable Southern myth, that downplaysnthe hardbitten agricultural roots ofnSouthern life, and focuses on the numericallyninconsequential gentlemenaristocrats,npromoted a generation agonby Margaret Mitchell. Percy is acutelynaware of the myth; his narrator Lancelotndiscovers it midway through his chronicle.nHis life has been consummately onenof conformity to the circumstances ofnhis birth: moderate civil rights lawyer,ngentleman planter (without a plantation),n”a composite,” he remarks, “of AshleynWilkes, Leslie Howard, Jeff Davis homenfrom the war, Gregory Peck, plus a bit ofnClark Gable as Rhett.”nThis is, perhaps, why Percy has writtenntwo novels actually: one, of the “horriblenbanality of the past,” and another, of whatnhe calls the “pure future.”nThe novel of the pure future beginsnearly in Percy’s tale, with Lancelot’snrealization that he is cuckolded, but hisnfuture, described as the reestablishmentnof medieval chivalry and general allaroundnvirtue, is less interesting thannhis man Friday with the M.LT. scholarship,na black former servant turned electronicsngenius. The point is Percy’s disgustnwith what he calls the “modern age,”nwhich is full of fags, including his son,nnymphomaniacs, crooked politicians,nphony evangelists, pornography, the CIA,nthe FBI, muggers, buggers, pornographynagain, and so on. Lancelot, so long ancitizen of it all, will climb out of thensewer of the modern world and go off.nthe New Pioneer, to recolonize America,nstarting with Virginia’s Shenandoah Valleyn(Virginia, cradle of the Southernnmyth), where all will be noble and pure,nwhere men will be men, and women willnbe saved from the whoredom they’venchosen.nThen, trying to uplift us readers as wengrovel in the dirt of modernism, Percynsinks back into it himself. His themensuggests at a glance the tragedy andnredemption of Dostoevski’s Raskolnikov,nwho, like Lancelot, offended society withna heinous crime. However Raskolnikovnis touched at the end by love and faith,nLancelot Lamar raves on in his cell, then,nat the height of his madness, is—released!nThe idea being, of course, that going offnto pursue his stoic fantasy of the purenfuture is the mentally healthy thing tondo, while the priest, his patient auditor,ntaking a small parish in Alabama, remainsnimmersed in the muck of modernity. He,nand we, are supposed to learn the truthnfrom Percy’s hero, who leaves us tonwallow with the fags and the smut peddlersnand the boredom of it all. Havingnhimself slaughtered a half-dozen peoplenin his arson of the ancestral manse, he isnfull of caustic opinions about life—butnremorse, none. A line of consistencynmight have been preserved if he hadnrotted in the nuthouse, but he goes off,ncured, full of hate, and lust, and hot air.nThe failure of Lancelot is not Percy’snanalysis of the modern world. We don’tnneed him to remind us of the decay ofntrue morality, of the popular adulationnof sick behavior and all its manifestationsnon the newsstands, in the theatres, innthe public restrooms. Exposes of the CIAnand lying Presidents are old hat, andnpoking fun at Billy Graham for befriendingnRichard Nixon doesn’t start the juicesnof popular outrage flowing. Lancelot’sndesire to run off to a scenic Shenandoahnfarmhouse and not be bothered is certainlynone any normal ten-year old cannsympathize with.nIt’s the way Percy tells his tale thatnruins his novel. While Lancelot, a murderernfor the sake of adultery, bitchesnincessantly at immorality we wondernwhat it is he’s selling. There’s a hard.ncynical edge to his stance, a cold indifferencento human dignity, which is hardnto swallow in a book about moral indignationnand intellectual distastes. If anythingnmarked the Southern novel, it wasnnot loveable characters, but their intricatenexpiations for their flesh-and-blood failings,na sense of place, and, again, thenimpact of time, for better or worse.nPercy’s characters, his dialogue, and hisnpretensions lack all three, and his novelnrings hollow, in the South, in the North,nanywhere. DnStagennnContinued from page 21nence of a major aesthetic discovery.nMamet’s associations are loaded with allnkinds of explosives, but their main thrustncomes from an integrity of vision. Atntimes, he manages to achieve an almostnpoetic quality through a precise use ofnformal language, devoid of contractions.nHe seems, however unaware of the delusivenimpact of profanities which, althoughnproperly inherent in the phraseologynof the situation, very quickly losentheir effect through repetition.nMa Lamet is one of those playwrights whongives actors the tools to work with andnexcite an audience. These tools includennot only a dynamic and versatile language,nbut a score of physical actions farnmore extensive than might be expectednfrom the plot synopsis. The economynof some sequences, such as the unconsummatednrape of the second act, is notnapparent at first, but on reflection becomesnanother clue to what people onnstage essentially want, pursue and do toneach other. “The Woods” is an indicationnthat Mamet is concerned with more thannmerely filling the external forms of modernndrama. His concerns are old. Hentackles problems which have no solutions,nwhich do not change with thenfashions though the fashions pretend tonchange them. He seems to develop intona playwright worth the time and effortnneeded to understand his work. Dn125nChronicles of Culturen