entrapment sap the human spirit. Perhapsna sign of the hunger for truth, peoplenavidly buy and carry the newspaper, yetnnobody reads the Trybuna Ludu, thenofficial Party organ and a conduit of programmaticnunreality. More serious is thengnawing sense of futility surroundingnopposition to the regime. Such resistance,na moral necessity, enjoys some obscurendegree of toleration; indeed, an oppositionnof some sort appears desired by thenstate, perhaps to demonstrate some ofnthe “liberalization” Western observersnso much want to find. In this atmospherenself-doubt and sdf-hatred fester. Thoughtsnof biological determinism, suggestingnthat anything one does is part of somensystem beyond one’s control, haunt thennarrator. Indeed, part of the regime’snterrible, inert strength lies in the verynbankruptcy of the Marxist dogmas it officiallynand fulsomely propounds as itsnjustification. For where even the statenofficials know the charade of state socialism,nwhat point is there to protest? Publicnprotest, as we understand it, rests on thenassumption that the sight of superiorndedication and sacrffice either can demoralizenif not convert the oppressor orncan move some compassionate thirdnparty to intervention. But where ruthlessnsuperior force blocks both outsidenintervention and internal rebeUion andnwhere the proxy government is alreadyndemoralized, what can sacrificial gesturesnaccomplish? On this dilemma turns muchnof the novel’s severe comedy. Thus whenna remorseful party hack begins to turnnhis televised speech into a denunciationnof the party, nobody can hear him, fornpeople routinely watch these prop^andanspectacles with the sound turned down.nHis speech—planned and memorized fiarnyears in secret—^has less impact than hisncrazed attempt to undress before thencameras—itself “proof of his need forninstitutional confinement on psychiatricngrounds. Even more bizarre are the rationalizationsnof a government censornwho maintains that in supporting thenMarxism that stultifies Russia he isncovertly keeping Poland firom being engulfednaltogether by its more powerfuln12inChronicles of Culturenneighbor whose dynamism is negatednby stale 19th-century ideas. In thenOrwellian doublespeak of a governmentninterrogator comes an analogous point:n”We are free because we have imposednour own slavery.”n1 he disturbing qualities of A MinornApocalypse are not, however, limited tonits depiction of a tyranny at once bereftnof legitimacy yet mindlessly strong. Thenbook also disorients some of our usualnexpectations of “the novel.” Americannreaders are likely to have accustomednthemselves either to the extreme demandsnof technique in the “serious” noveln(the hyperallusiveness of Pynchon, forninstance) or to the easy conventionalitynof popular thriUers, potboilers, and thenlike. Konwicki’s novel is different in waysnfitting neither category. Where we havencome to be alert for ironical distancesnbetween the author and characters, herenthe author, narrator, and hero merge.n(The translator sees this as an avant-gardentouch, but it may strike many as oldfashioned,nbarkening back to the fictionnof earlier centuries in which authorsnfreely addressed their readers.) Herenthe narrator frequently engages in moralnand metaphysical speculations partakingnmore of what we may think belongsnin the essay or diary than the novel untilnwe recall that the novel has always beennsomething of a catchall form, easily incorporatingnelements of these and otherntypes of writing.nA more serious problem than ournoverly neat notions of novelistlc puritynis the matter of particularity or topicality.nMost readers know next to nothing aboutnthe specifics of life in Poland; thus, considerablenportions of Konwicki’s novelnwill remain armoyingly opaque. Readersncan tell, even without the introduction’snguidance, that certain characters thenIn the forthcoming issue of Chronicles of CulturenLeaves of Grassn’All o cr the wt)iid. Leaves ofdniss hasnunderstood. ‘Hie cs.scntial ckic is to be tt)und in the secondninscri|5tion. As 1 Pondcr’d in Silence.’ A phantom. ‘Terrible innbeant, age, and power,’ rises before the poet and tells himnthat there is but one theme tor poetr’; w ar. llie poet an,sversnthat he also sings war, ‘ii longer and,iireciter/ one than any,’nand that he also promotes bra’e soldiers. Hie phantom, ofncourse, stands for epic poetr; Vi’hitman is telling us that thenwhole book should be read as a single epic: ‘I’he epic ofndemocracy. ob’iously. X’e tend to read it as a series ofnindividual poems; the tact is that the writer went on enlargingnit. from edition to edition, under the same all-inclusive title.”n—from “Leaves of Grass”nby Jorge Luis BorgesnOpinions & Views—Comniendables—In Focus—PerceptiblesnWaste of Money—The American Proscenium—Stage—ScreennArt—Music—Correspondence—Liberal Culture—JoumaUsmnnn