new suspense thriller, Hitchcock rotatesna few degrees in his grave as his name isncited; by now, he’s completed a circuit.nTyro director Michael Cimino is hailednfor his work on The Deer Hunter, sonhe’s given Carte Blanche, AmericannExpress and Diners’ Club on Heaven’snGate, amasses a tremendous debt, andncreates a film that is pulled from distributionnthe day after its premiere.nCritical acuity is atrophied. Its replacement,npseudocriticism, is an appealnto authority that’s quickly reformed intonan ad populum dictate. People, RollingnStone, Time, etc. say something is good;nthey should know, so before you can saynFarrah Fawcett, the entire world seemsnto be in agreement. Fiction becomes fact.nIn the area of literature, a prime examplenof an object of pneumatic praisenis Jerome Charyn. Looking at the blurbsnon the dust jacket of Darlin’ Bill, onenswoons from all the printed hot air.nConsider this: “Charyn is a comic genius.n… This is Kafka turned Americannpicaro . . .”—Library Journal Kafka!nCharyn is no more Kafka than JudithnKrantz is Jane Austin. The St. LouisnPost Dispatch feels that Charyn will benread by our “children and grandchildrennalong with the Bellows and the Updikesnand the Faulkners and the Hemingways.”nNote how this august journalnimplies a) that Bellow, Updike, Faulknernand Hemingway have been cloned andnb) that future pathetic but darling hacksncan join the crowd. An easy way to seenthe Brobdignagian nature of this emptynpraise is to perform an act of reversal:nimagine on the back cover of The Trial,n”This is Charyn turned Czechoslovakiannpicaro . . .”or “Will be read alongnwith the Charyns, Coovers, Robbinses,n8nChronicles of Culturenand Vonneguts” on the cover of ThenSound and the Fury.nDarlin’ Bill is Charyn’s fifteenthnnovel. What is most striking is that,nafter so much printed paper, Charyn isnstill so puerile. So much for the ideannovels. Fiction and reality are interfused;nno parting line is discernible. Henseems to ask: “How do you know whatnyou know or believe what you believe.”nAren’t the possibilities presented withinnmy pages as plausible as what youn”. . . sliri’wd. touuh. liiniiv and triuiupliaiilly ilciailiHl- a thoroiij;hly ri-markabli;nimasinalivt-adiifvcmiTit.'”n— ‘eii’ York Tiwes Hook Ri’vieirnthat man is constantly improving.nDarlin’ Bill should be execrated, notnpraised. It has nothing to recommendnit. It is, in a word, trash. Not becausenit gives excess attention to sex—althoughnit does have more than its sharenof extramarital pulsations—but becausenit fails no matter how it is viewed. Insuppose that Charyn is attempting whatncan be referred to, for the sake of convenience,nas a “new novel.” Althoughnprose works falling under that headingnare variform, a basic underlying characteristicnis that they work to bring thenreader’s attention to the fact that he ornshe is reading a novel. Surprise! Butngood authors build an edifice upon thatnfoundation; they address the elementsnof fiction and reality. Thomas Pynchonn(his apparent case of paranoia notwithstanding)nis one of the better ones. He,nin his novels, attempts to show thatnthere are alternate realities, i.e. thenobvious or accepted cause or causes ofnan event are not necessarily the ultimatenor only ones; Something Else may benat the bottom, yet what It is or wherenthe bottom is remain to be discovered.nPynchon writes his own—maddening—nhistory. Cabals and international conspiracies,nforces beyond the pale and thenSecond Law of Thermodynamics allncontribute to events in Pynchon’snnnaccept.””nAlthough this vision may seem absurdn(as in ridiculous, not Theatre of), wenhave seen examples of it: empty praise.nA listener who once knew what goodnmusic sounds like is confronted with anbarrage from those hailing the latenLennon: radio, TV, magazines, newspapers,ninstant books. Soon he beginsnto wonder about what he once knew. Ifna sufficient number of people includenCharyn in a listing of first-rate novelists,nthen the thing which is not becomes thenthing that is. Reality is remade.nJtllements of fact are required in thennew novel (or “fabulation,” as RobertnScholes terms it). Real charactersnabound, particularly those about whichnlegends have grown (vide E.L. Doctorow’snRagtime, which includes HarrynHoudini, J.P. Morgan, Emma Goldmannany many more). The author (fabulator)nuses these people to his own ends; theynoften interact with or at least in somenway have an impact on the fictionalncharacters.nCharyn uses Wild Bill Hickok. Angood choice. While it is well-known thatnfigures from the Old West have been,nthrough folk tales, made bigger thannlife (Kit Carson, Deadwood Dick,nCalamity Jane, etc. all evoke fantasticnimages), James Butler Hickok did cutna figure in reality that was out of thenordinary. Two historians, Joe B. Frantznand Julian Ernest Choate, Jr., describenHickok thusly: “Six feet tall, 175npounds, sinuous, graceful, cool, longnwavy brown hair worn shoulder-length,nflowing moustache, delicate hands, almostnfeminine feet, low voiced, impec-n