l£& 7tt.<&41iL?>.-$£,$irK T$t&wEB?gyr-0&'' **•■ &, ' it^ipigimSmm. BBBrkv»>:% _ nosic-nosic* nusic^ THE DEPARTMENT OF MUSICfi presents:DSaturday, June 7 • UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAEUROPEAN TOUR KICK-OFF CONCERT8:00 p.mM Mandel Hall (57th & University)Barbara Schubert, conductorCopland: El Salon Mexico; Barber: Second Essay for Orchestra;Ruggles: Organum; and Schuman: New England Triptych,fickets: $8 general; $25 patrons. Available at the Departmentof Music Concert Office, Goodspeed Hall 310,962-8068.1986-87 CHAMBER MUSIC SERIESOctober 24 • I Solisti ItalianiDecember 5 - Mendelssohn String Quartet toJanuary 16 - Muir String Quartet with guest cellist Jerry Grossman mFebruary 27 ■ Anthony and Joseph Paratore, Duo-PianistsMay 1 - Juilliard String Quartet ^1986-87 EARLY MUSIC FESTIVALOctober 30 - Les Arts FlorissantsNovember 11 - Trevor Pinnock and The English ConsortNovember 21 - Kuijken QuartetTickets and information for both series available at the Department of MusicConcert Office, 5845 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, 60637; Goodspeed 310,962-8068 2CCDIBnosionosionusiciSl A* JAN EQKEQT 0 DANCER6^AEROBICS AND DANCE CLASSES.INTERNATIONAL HOUSEASSEMBLY HALL1414 E. 59th St.753-2274 SUMMER WORKSHOPBEGINNING MODERN ,MODERN II, PerformanceWorkshopJAZZ,BALLET II,AEROBICS.JUNE 23 - AUGUST 110% DISCOUNT FORPRE-REGISTRATION PAYMENTPRIOR TO JUNE/3. 1986.FOR FULL INFORMATION ON SCHEDULES AND FEES, CALL 753-2274 OR944-4208The Division of the Humanities and the ARTFL ProjectAre Happy to Announce the Opening of theARTFL TEXT SCANNING SERVICE• We can convert your typewritten or printed material -dissertations, manuscripts, books, statistical data -into machine-readable form, at prices scholars canafford.• Our KURZWEIL Optical Character Reader can beadapted for a variety of typestyles, in Roman, Greekand Cyrillic alphabets.• Converted material can be used with the UniversityComputing system: for text editing, for use withanalytic programs (including the ARTFL textual analysissystem), or for transfer to floppy disk for use with yourP.C.For more information, contact ARTFL TextScanning, in Classics 45F, Ph: 965-2163 Rockefeller Memorial Chapel5850 S. Woodlawn962-7000Sunday, dune 8th9:00 a.m. Ecumenical Serviceof Holy Communionwith Sermon.11:00 a.m. Convocation Sunday.Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf,K.A.M. Isaiah IsraelCongregation, Chicago,preacher12:15 p.m. Carillon recitaland tower tour->w TVCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 19862The Malqdy of Death,The Ravishing of Lol Stein,The Sailor From Gibraltar,The Warby Marguerite DurasTypically Marguerite Duras’ novels proclaim on theirback covers that they are “erotic adventures;” booksabout desire, obsession, and sex. Duras writes aboutpeople making love, but to think that Duras' novels areworth reading only because they talk about passion isincomplete and inaccurate. The books are sensual becausethey present a connection between living and loving. ForDuras, questions of existence ultimately stem fromproblems with loving and not being able to love, or lovingin atypical ways. What are the ramifications of passionateobsession with places and people? We never really know,because while her style is straightforward, the authorialvoice is detached, and her intent is ambiguous; we can’timagine the characters living different lives, and we can’timagine them being any happier. Two of her novels. TheSailor From Gibraltar, and The Ravishing of Lol Stein,and a short novella, The Malady of Death, have beenrereleased in the United States accompanying the pub¬lication of her partly autobiographical, partly fictionalThe War. Each of the books fascinates the reader becausethe world Duras creates is almost too strange to bebelieved. Each of the books typifies Duras’ ambivalence;cool, direct, opaque, and obtuse. Love is seen to operateon the quality’ and content of existence, but beyond thatsimple conclusions become more difficult. Perhaps shewants people never to be sure of her implications.The War is ideal as a first subject for a discussion ofDuras because its inconsistencies reflect her ambivalentresponses to her own life. Duras’ experiences duringWorld War II evidence her belief that living consists of aseries of confused reactions. In the preface she establishesa tome of uncertain purpose, “The War is one of themost important things in my life. It can’t really be called‘writing’...I found myself confronted with a tremendouschaos of thought and feeling that I couldn’t bring myselfto tamper with, and beside which literature was somethingof which I felt ashamed...I found this diary ina couple ofexercise books in the blue cupboards at Neauphle-le-Chateau. I have no recollection of having written it.” Itbecomes evident that war and Duras’ experiences in theFrench resistance greatly influenced the rest of her life,and yet her record of her feelings was buried, uncoveredas a response to a magazine desiring something she hadwritten when she was younger. Duras’ disclaimer rendersthe intent in publication ambiguous. Was The Warpublished in order to force the world to encounter thehorror of World War II from a novel perspective, providea view of younger version of a popular author, or simplyto make money? It’s not clear why Duras chose to publishthe book, and it’s not clear why this underwritten book as“A memoir” has been transformed into an anthology.The end of the book contains two of her early shortstories, The Crushed Nettle and Aurelia Paris. These areslow, and not good quality Duras. Ter of the Militia, afictionalized account of her sexual desire and affection fora German soldier, is uninspired in its depiction of desire,and confusing, filled with obscure references to Frenchmilitary and political organizations. The only connectionbetween these stories and the earlier, more honest parts ofthe book is Duras herself, and her presence is not enoughto sustain their appeal.The first section of the book details Duras' reaction tonot knowing whether her husband will come home alivefrom Dachau. Everyday she imagines that he has beenshot or starved to death in a ditch, and in his death sheinfers her own. “Nothing belongs to me now except thatcorpse in a ditch. It’s a real evening. The end of theworld. My death's not directed against anyone. Just asimple death. I shall merely have died.” This theme ofliving death appears in Lol Stein, and The Sailor, and isthe focus of The Malady of Death. It is not as simple assaying, “something has died inside,” but more is a sensethat an individual lacks a certain attraction. This could bebravery, ability to love, or desire to consummate physicalattraction. Anger coexists with resignation in the livingdeath of Duras, “Therese (Duras) said she wished they’dkill German prisoners... Du ring the Insurrection shespared no effort—she wasn’t unkind, but she wasn’twarm...She’s waiting for a man who may have beenshot.”Duras relays her opinions about the war in conjunctionwith her feelings about her husband, Robert L. The Naziatrocities are not variations on a theme of an eternallyrecurring history, but uniquely horrific events for whicheveryone has some responsibility, “You look for parallelselsewhere and in other times, but there aren’t any...Theonly possible answer to this crime is to turn it into a crimecommitted by every one... Just like the idea of equality andfraternity." In Duras. words signify what everyone thinksthey mean and yet are also hollow. Equality, fraternity,dedication and bravery have weight for a member of theFrench Resistence, but Duras reframes them so that theirnoble veneer is seen as being only gloss, veiling anemotional content that she cannot pin down, “Not for asecond do I see the need to be brave. Perhaps being braveis my form of cowardice.” The declarative sentencesseem transparent and yet they almost eclipse the meaning.This is Duras’ style—time is never confused, speakers arenever confused, but conclusions arc not secured easily.From The Mar readers can know something of Mar¬guerite Duras’ life, but they will not know conclusivelywhat she thinks.The connection between The War and the other works become apparent if her reaction to Robert L.’s return isexamined in the context of an essay of hers which recentlyappeared in Harpers (April ’86). Duras becomes illwaiting for Robert L., cries everytime she hears his nameafter his return, and yet, “I said that...I wouldn’t havelived with him again,” not because he’s changed somuch, not because the war transformed her, but becauseshe wants to have a child by another man. The distinctionis between concern and affection, and love. “Fidelity,”she writes in Harper, “enforced and unto death is theprice you pay for the kind of love you never want to giveup, for someone you want to hold forever...whether he’sclose or far away, someone who becomes dearer to youthe more you’ve sacrificed for his sake.” Love andemotional obsession are antithetical reactions to a place oran individual. Sex is not love but sex can be a means to adiscovery of love or a manifestation of love. Love ismarked by faithfulness, not intercourse, “For makinglove, really making love, isn’t something you repeat. Youdiscover love once.” Duras is obsessed with purpose inThe War, and the characters in the other works areobsessed with desire to find something that will not existfor them. People cannot love if they are obsessed withdesire, and people cannot live if they do not love.Love is Duras’ problematic. This is difficult to see inThe War, but is clearer in the novels. The Ravishing ofLol Stein, The Sailor From Gibraltar, and The Maladyof Death all involve men and women seeking lovethrough obsession. Lol Stein was jilted by her fianceduring a dance held near her home town. She maintains arigidly structured marriage and household, restraining thepassion she still feels for Michael Richardson, the manwho left her at Town Beach, the site of the dance. Lol andMichael were not lovers and she finds in the affairbetween Jack Hold, a man who reminds her of Michael,and Tatiana Karl, a friend from high school, a means ofcapturing her chaste, aborted relationship with Michael.Lol loves Jack, but her obsession with the memory ofMichael keeps her from experiencing the love she feelsfor Jack. Impelled by a need to continually relive hernever consummated desire for Michael, she convincesJack that he must allow her to watch him and Tatiana Karlmake love. At the end of the novel. Jack and Lol addresseach other with each of the four names: Lol, Tatiana andJack have become variations of Lol’s image of Michael.Desire is too strong for love; the reader knows thatneither Lol nor Jack can relinguish her obsession.With Lol, knowing is distancing, and living is a meansto dying. Jack speaks of the trip they make to TownBeach, “...she was beside me and separated from me by agreat distance, abyss and sister...I can never really knowher...she who so constantly takes wing away from herlife.” Jack knows Lol’s story, but his knowledge does notinform him, he knows only that loving Lol means neverhaving her and that between them there will always be anexistential gap.That gap becomes the locus of conflict in The SailorFrom Gibraltar Ann seeks a sailor with whom she had abrief love affair. For three years she has been touring theEuropean coastline in a large yacht searching for him. Shedoes not know his name. Periodically she takes lovers onboard. The male narrator of the novel is one of thosemen. He extracts from Anna the story of the sailor of Gibraltar, but beyond that frequently imagines that theyhave nothing to say to each other. Both men know a lotabout Anna, while she knows little about them, but theirknowledge has no value because in Duras love occupies aspace. Love has the form you always believed it had, thepotential to really last forever, but not the content; it doesnot mean that you and your lover have completeunderstanding, that you always find each other interestingor that you always desire the other sexually. Peoplecannot fill the space of love with information or withphysical acts, “Likewise the wish for tenderness—I’venever really understood what place it could possibly havein love,” (Harpers). Anna can love and be happy aftershe has relinguished her obsession and understood what itmeans to know that, “You know...there’s a greatdifference between saying things and not saying them,” tounderstand that that gap is silence. Silence frequentlyoccupies the same space that love does. Real love existsbeyond the gap between desire and reality, and manifestsitself in relations between those who cross the abyss onthe bridge of obsession. But how real is this? Whathappens to all the people who get caught within theirdesires?In The Malady of Death Duras presents the pen¬ultimate example of obsessive desire. An unnamed manemploys a prostitute with whom he is going to, “try it,try to know, to get used to that body, those breasts, thatscent. To beauty... to the identity between that skin andthe life it contains. You want to try Loving.” The manwants to know completely the space occupied by femalesexuality; the paradox inherent in being female anddisarming him with a strength which originates from aperceived female lack, “I want to penetrate there too, andwith my usual force. They say it offers more resistance,it’s smooth but it offers more resistance than emptinessdoes.” The woman tells him that he is afflicted with themalady of death and thus will never be able to love.Again there is a gap, this time between desire to love andability to love. Again also there is a sense of life unlived,or already concluded, “She smiles, says this is the firsttime, that until she met you she didn’t know death couldbe lived.” The message is simple: one cannot live withoutthe ability to love, one will be dead if desire to desireinforms all actions.For Duras love is the hardest thing in the world toachieve, the most worth having, and a thing that cannot behunted in order to be had. The narrator of The Sailorsays, “Sometimes it’s not what you desire the most thatyou want, but the opposite—to be deprived of what youdesire the most.” To have is to have nothing, to desire isto lose oneself, to live is perfect, even if sometimesempty. Gaps are perhaps breaks in communication, butnot gaps in communion of feeling. No one says, “I loveyou” in Duras unless they mean it. Ultimately peoplemust come to know their passion and be dedicated to it.Duras has no tolerance for people who avoid makingchoices. She has no sympathy for people who don’trealize that the apparently normal, a life of love andfidelity, is the most difficult to make happen, the mostsatisfying to endure What happens in the end is whatmatters, but recognition of what matters is what determi¬nes how everything ends.by Theresa Brown3CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 198b Duras:ObsessionIsn’tLoveAnonymousDiners,GiantBillboards,andAmericatoGo The Americansby Robert FrankSomeone once told me that Samuel Beckett livesalternately in French and English. For months on endhe'll speak, read and write only French, then switch. Heclaims each time he returns to a language he finds a newvitality and writes with a new life. It's no doubt true thatliving within a single language can obscure some of itsmost interesting characteristics. Living within a singleculture can have the same effect.So it goes that Americans are not always in the bestposition to see themselves clearly. For a variety ofreasons—maybe ethnocentrism or simply a lack of con¬text—it has remained the sometimes dangerous task ofoutsiders to provide the keenest criticism of our nation.Since Tocqueville, the tradition has produced someunscrupulous observers who, like Beckett, have been ableto spot the idiosyncracies that escape our nationals. It'snot terribly surprising, then, that one of the most incisiveportraits of American culture to date comes from theSwiss-born vision of photographer Robert Frank.The Americans, Frank's classic collection of culturalvignettes has not always enjoyed its current status.Though recognized now as a major influence on postWorld War II photography, the book met with a gooddeal of critical scorn when the first English editionappeared in 1959. The work has since attracted theadmiring attention it deserves and it continues to bereprinted. The latest edition from Random House, one offour books featuring Frank’s work to be released thisyear, reaffirms his power as a master chronicler andexpressionist.Although ail the photographs in The Americans were taken during Frank's Guggenheim-sponsored tour of theUnited States in 1955 and 1956, the images retain astriking currency. One can still find these characterswandering in the cramped offices and crowded streets ofthe major cities, in the small towns and rural outlandsaround the country. One can still find the abject, thesuspect, the helpless, the lonely, the hopeful and thehopeless — the conjurers and partakers of the AmericanDream Frank exposed so starkly three decades ago.Frank wastes no time striking the critical aesthetic thatunifies the collection. The opening photograph, titledParade-Hoboken, New Jersey introduces a cynical dial¬ogue between individual and national identity. The mostprominent figure in the composition, a flag, obscures theface of a casual parade watcher as she stands at herwindow, beheaded by the great symbol of freedom.Another woman peers cautiously from beneath a half-drawn shade, cowering from the furling flag whichthreatens to invade the entire frame. Frank crops theimage tightly around two windows to compound theconfining presence of the flag and to isolate the spectatorsfrom one another and from the real world. TheseAmericans seem imprisoned behind the violent stripes andcold bricks; only the flag waves freely, swirling over theidentities of the faceless spectators.The print is scrupulously balanced, both geometricallyand tonally. The rigid interplay between the horizontaland vertical lines of bricks, windows and flag gilds thewomen in anonymity and distinguishes them only as mutefixtures in the frame. Frank broadens the counterpointbetween the violent superiority of the flag and the stolidfigures by filling the image evenly with whites, blacks,and greys. These fine compositional balances focus theviewer's attention on the usurping role of the flag, aneffect further enhanced by the camera's position. Here, as he often does, Frank chooses to shoot from directly infront of his subject, creating a two-dimensional planeperpendicular to his line of sight. The angle simplifies andflattens the image, adding an undeniable bluntness to thefacts, and at the same time asserting a powerfully distinctpersonal style.Much of Frank’s style revolves around a simpleapproach to his subject. Shooting straight on. pushing intounlikely corners of the country, and photographingeveryday scenes, he creates the illusion of walking acrossthe country at a casual pace but with an acute sensitivityfor the profound in the apparently insignificant. Hephotographs men standing around at a funeral in SouthCarolina with the same spectatorial wonder as he catchesa jewelry-laden woman snatching up her winnings in aNevada casino. Frank rarely touches up his photos, hardlyever dodges or burns, and frequently prints full negatives.The power of his work lies in its gritty authenticity. Thedust on the floor of a Texas bar seems to work its wayinto the processing of the final print. This sort ofroughness characterizes Frank's striving for convincingrealism—not an attempt to render spotless, sharply foc¬used images, but rather to transmit the aura of his subjectby manipulating the physical components of light andchemistry. An exhausted Hollywood actress arriving at apremiere looms in the foreground, a blur over the excitedonlookers gathered on the sidewalk. Simple but hardlysimplistic, Frank draws on his strict technical training andextensive studio work to create a fresh new vision of aconfusing culture.Frank slips into the cracks and crevices where realpeople thrash out a living in some vague application ofnational ideals to their rough cut existence. In his 1954application for the Guggenheim grant he anticipates thenarrative nature of his project: “Work of this kind is. Ibelieve, to be found carrying its own visual impactwithout much work explanation.. .A small catalog comesto the mind's eye: a town at night, a parking lot, asupermarket, a highway, the man who owns three carsand the man who owns none, the farmer and his children,a new house and a warped clapboard, the dictation oftaste, the dream of grandeur, advertising, neon lights, thefaces of the leaders and the faces of the followers, gastanks and postoffices and backyards..." Long before hebegins his travels he knows what he'll find.His mind's eye does not rest on images ot culturalgrowth, or an awakened national consciousness: he seesbroad empty spaces and the faces ot individual men andwomen, boys and girls struggling to assert their allegedright to a slice of the pie. the phantom American Dream.Frank’s Americans are not gregarious, not assertive,not wealthy, and certainly not content. In a society whichbreeds unquenchable thirst and bottomless consumerismhis characters seem battered and bewildered. Abstractideals of social equity and justice are nowhere to be foundin the tired faces that define real life America. Detroitassembly line workers and Texas cowboys stand along thegreat American highway, watching a neon world go by inbrand new cars. They eat in anonymous diners, lift theirheads to giant billboards, stare at flashing jukeboxes.They order ham and cheese and coffee to go.Frank is not so much critical as lamenting. Hisautoholic culture absorbs individuals’ identities but notindividual expression. Mute as they must be. his charac¬ters strive for the hallowed attainment implicit in ournational ideals with a vague yet undeniable determinism.(continued on pag<> 5;Parade — Hoboken, New JerseyCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986. Movie Premier — Hollywood(continued from page 4)The open road represents emptiness, but it leads topossibility as well.The Americans reveals Frank's sad sympathy for thepoor and nameless—the nobodies that comprise the vastmajority of this and every other nation. In his photos therich and powerful become cartoon characters, ornamentsand clowns. At the end of the line of tuxedoed city fathersin Hoboken a man kisses the air. Starlets in Hollywoodfade into the background, painted and propped for massconsumption. Stuffy old ladies and drippy old men top offtheir drinks at a New York banquet, fix their hair, pull uptheir faces. Politicians, sunglasses and cigars lean andmurmur in Chicago. And down on the corner a lonelyman stands waiting for the arrival of the Saviour. Thejukebox plays on.If Frank relates to anyone it's the man on the cornerwaiting and hoping for change. The underpriveleged andoppressed jump from the page. If they appear the mostforlorn in Frank's work they also seem the most real, themost like the artist himself. Behind the image of theconfused motorist, behind the ragged man pausing overhis dinner at the greasy spoon lurks the photographer.Frank is quite aware of his likeness in his photographsand he closes the collection with a series of pictures of hisfamily, his car, and the road.The spirit of mobility and change is what brought Frankto the United States. He crossed the ocean in 1947. Afterabout a year living in New York working in the studio ofHarper's Bazaar, he became digusted with the violenceand greed he saw every day and fled to South America.“I went to Peru to get away from that make-moneycrowd,” he remembers. He returned to New York, thenmoved to Europe, back to New York, and finally to NovaScotia, where he currently lives. Between moves he hastravelled all over.Faithful to his spirit of change he formally abandonedstill photography just after The Americans came out. Hefelt he had exhausted the mode that marks the collectionand was afraid that the style might come to dominate hisvision. Besides, he had developed an interest in motionpictures. With a few notable exceptions he has concen¬trated solely on film since 1959. By 1969 he had producedfive films including Pull My Daisy, one of his first andmost critically acclaimed pieces. The film helped establishthe guidelines of the independent film movement in NewYork at the time. Frank immersed himself in the beatsensibility and became friends with Alan Ginsberg, PeterOrlovsky, Richard Bellamy and Jack Kerouac. who hemet while looking for someone to write the introduction toThe Americans. Kerouac ended up writing it and it isworth reading—an appropriately spontaneous and admir¬ing response to Frank's work.An excellent source of information about Frank is therecently released Robert Frank: New York to NovaScotia. Edited and compiled by Anne Wilkes Tucker thebook provides a casual and somewhat personal insight onthe influences behind Frank's work. Filled with personalcorrespondense. photographs of and by Frank, and criticalarticles ranging throughout his career, the book fleshesout the otherwise elusive photographer. New York toNova Scotia reveals some of Frank's porsonal andprofessional frustration as well as his subtle yet livelysense of humor. Frank writes a letter to fellow photo¬grapher Ed Grazda on an invoice: “Dear Ed. I'm famous,now what?” On the bottom of the invoice the word“total” and an arrow pointing to blank space.The image of Frank that emerges from Tucker's workis one of quiet patience and intense emotion—of boundlesscuriosity and reluctant resignation. Not unlike the count¬less faces that fill his classic book. The Americans is a lonely book. Frank's acute visionsurveys a complex national landscape and focuses on thecommon men and women to convey a sense of in¬stitutionalized alienation. Isolated and tending towardstagnation, his Americans live on a slim diet of home¬grown dream. Ominous jukeboxes and shiny new auto¬mobiles become ironic monuments to a cultural lethargyin a land which boasts of freedom and mobility. Neitherrich noi poor fit comfortably into the dream. The dream exists in the cables and monitors in a Hollywood studio. Itexists in the exhilarated gaze of movie goers. It exists inthe potential of the open road. And as long as it existsFrank's arresting collection of America will live with thefreshness it has held for thirty years.by Dave McNultyVow through June 21 the Edwin Houk Gallery presentsRobert Frank: Vintage Prints. A free exhibit at 200 WSuperior. 943-0698.The Adrian Mole Diariesby Sue TownsendOn her wedding day, a friend of mine wore a corsetedfloor-length gown which cinched her waist down to thesixteen-inch circumference of Scarlett O'Hara on the dayof the barbeque at Twelve Oaks. My friend had readGone with the Wind at age ten, and still, years later,examples like this of its continued influence on her keptcropping up. Louisa May Alcott's Little Women affectedme similarly; with head shorn a la Jo. I imagined myselfincreasing the family income by selling my short stories.The Catcher in the Rye had a less positive effect. Whilenot denying the organic causes of adolescent alienation. Ibelieve my own case was exacerbated by Salinger’sseductive anti-hero. At twelve, the concept of criticalreading was far in my future—I wanted to merge withHolden Caulfield. In this I was only partially successful; 1didn't understand, or perhaps wouldn't admit to myself,the meaning of the book's ending. To realize thatHolden’s problems were grave enough to land him in amental institution would have made it impossible totranspose them onto my own experience, because life in amental institution was impossible for me to glamorize,and therefore undesirable.I he Adrian Mole Diaries are devoid of glamour. Forthis reason. I wonder if they will become, as touted on theback cover, “as much a cult book as The Catcher in theRye.” Perhaps this dates me: the adolescents of theeighties may be more responsive to Adrian's pluck thanHolden’s angst. I enjoyed this book, but 1 wonder if atwelve year-old would; it may be too much a view ofchildhood through an adult's eyes, which is to say,lacking in glamour, tragedy, and romance, to make goodreading for someone still in it. What the book does have isa resourcesful young hero who makes the best of thingsand keeps trying in difficult situations.Adrian Mole is a fourteen year-old English school boywhose life is on the skids. Each of his parents has an extra-marital affair which produces a child; his motherwith “creep Lucas,” and his father with “Stick Insect.”Having been deemed “redundant” in his job as an electricstorage heater salesman. Mr. Mole goes on the dole formany months. He eventually returns to the work force asa supervisor of a gang of punks whose task is to clean upcanal banks. While his parents are embroiled in discuss¬ions of their relationship, Adrian is on housekeepingdetail: “Cleaned toilets, washed basin and bath beforedoing my paper round. Came home, made breakfast, putwashing in machine, went to school...Set table, serveddinner, washed up. Put burnt saucepans in to soak. Gotwashing out of machine, everything blue...Why couldn't Ihave been born Prince Edward and Prince Edward beenborn Adrian Mole? I am treated like a serf." After flirtingwith the possibilities of becoming a Saint, a sponge diver,and a veterinarian. Adrian realizes his true calling. “NowI know I am an intellectual. I saw Malcom Muggeridge onthe television last night, and I understood nearly everyword...(Malcolm Muggeridge: Is an old intellectual whois always on tv. A bit like Gore Vidal, only morewrinkles)...It is a pity there aren't more intellectualsliving round here. Mr Lucas wears corduroy trousers, buthe's an insurance man. Just my luck."In order to get out of Maths on Monday afternoons,Adrian joins a Good Samaritan group and begins visitingBert Baxter, an eighty-nine year old communist and warveteran who chain smokes and speaks fluent Hindi. Bert isthe one person who wants to see Adrian when his parentsare arguing about who has to take custody of him andmaking references to an “idiot boy.” His friendship withBert heralds a brightening on the interpersonal relation¬ship front: Pandora, who has been dating Adrian'swealthy friend Nigel, declares her love for Adrian, andthey become constant companions. When Bert falls ill hestays with Pandora's family for a few weeks, as well aswith Adrian's; he functions as a link between these twofamilies and the Singhs (the Moles’ Indian next-doorneighbors),creating a sense of extended community.One of the most amusing scenes in the book concerns the Royal Wedding:Our house is letting the street down. All myfather has done is pin a Charles and Diana teatowel to the front door. I hope the Prince remem¬bers to take the price ticket off the bottom of hisshoes: my father didn't at his wedding. Everyone inthe church read the ticket. It said ’9Vi reject, 10shillings.'ROYAL WEDDING DAY!!! How proud I am tobe English. Foreigners must be sick as pigs!!!Grandma and Bert Baxter came to our house towatch the wedding because we have got a twenty-four-inch colour. They got on all right at first butthen Ben remembered he was a communist andstarted saying anti-royalist things like ‘the idle rich'and 'parasites.' so grandma sent him back to theSinghs' colour portable...The prince had remem¬bered to take the price ticket off his shoes. So thatwas one worry off my mind.”Things get wild after the wedding, with Mr. O'Learyteaching Mrs. Singh an Irish jig and getting tangled up inher sari, and Adrian putting his Abba LP on and turningup the volume, “...even the old people over forty weredancing.” But not Adrian. “I was an amused, cynicalobserver. Besides my feet were aching...I have seen theRoyal Wedding repeats seven times on television...Sick todeath of Royal Wedding.”Adrian is expelled once from school, made to feelterrible guilt at neglecting Bert for Pandora, whom hebreaks up with several times; he is malnourished, has atonsilectomy, and lives alternately with “creep Lucas”and his mother, and his father and “Stick Insect!"Eventually his parents get back together, but in theinterim. Adrian has lead an extremely disordered exist¬ence for a fourteen year-old. Imagine how Salinger mighthave treated the same events; irony, tragedy at a slowburn, aloneness. For a teenager actually experiencing asituation like this. Salinger's rendition might ring true, butThe Mole Diaries might make it easier to bear.by Johanna StoyvaCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986 5..MoreNeonFrankDinersBSIflflfLifeofaMolea<DuOu<DC<D<D43 The Creation of PatriarchyGerda LerncrGerder Lerner's most recent book The Creation ofPatriciarchy attempts to show how the phenomenon ofpatriarchy initially occurred due to a biologically deter¬mined situation which later developed into an enforced,cultural creation in which both sexes participated. Lernerbelieves that patriarchy and male dominance are not“natural" or biological, but are instead human construc¬tions and products of historical development. She writes:“I begin with the assumption that men and women arebiologically different, but that the values and implicationsbased on that difference are the result of culture."Male dominance and patriarchy, according to Lerner,arose from a time when by necessity for procreation,women devoted most of their adult lives (which averaged30 years in paleolithic and neolithic societies) to preg¬nancy, child-bearing, and nursing. Under the perilousconditions which primitive humans lived, the survival intoadulthood of two children per couple required far morethan two pregnancies. As culture (which Lerner defines ascontrol over nature) grew stronger, child-bearing andchild-rearing became easier, and, Lerner asserts, maledominance emerged due to reasons distinct from biology:My argument sharply distinguishes between bio¬logical necessity, to which both women submittedand adapted, and culturally constructed customsand institutions, which forced women into subor¬dinate roles.Lerner goes on to explore how and why women came toagree to a sexual division of labour which eventuallydisadvantaged them. She speculates that women wereunable to foresee the consequences of their inadvertentparticipation in the sexual division of labour. While insome ways this seems plausible, Lerner does not go deepenough in her speculations or explore the range of reasonswhy women seemingly agreed to what later became, asLerner calls it, patriarchy. The reasons for the subordina¬tion of women must be so numerous that determiningwhether or not women agreed to roles which later wouldoppress them does not exactly unshackle us from theunknown. Since not all women are the same (as Lernertends to forget), probably some women resisted subordi¬nation and some women didn't. It at least seems clear,that part of the subordination of women stems from men’sphysical superiority. However, Lerner does not believemen are physically superior to women since it has beendetermined that women have better endurance and lowerinfant mortality rates. Still, it would not be off the markto suggest that if a man is hindering a woman's movementwith his superior strength, the woman’s superior en¬durance will not be able to run very far away from hishold on her. Additionally, the fact that the majority ofviolent crimes are committed by men and a large portionof those have female victims further weakens Lerner'sbelief that men and women have different yet equalphysical superiorities. Different, yes, but only superior inselective situations. Another aspect of Lerner's patriarchywhich goes by unmentioned in her book is a discussion ofhow or whether patriarchy or male-dominated societiesare disadvantageous for men as well. A major weaknessof Lerner's book is her tendency to only consider womenas victims in a patriarchal society. I would say that bothsexes are short-changed in a patriarchal society since byliving out socially and symbolically inscribed conceptionsof what a man or a woman is, both sexes are deniedstrengths which the other must necessarily hone.Lerner includes an Appendix of Definitions in order"to redefine and accurately describe what is unique towomen and what distinguishes their expectations andconsciousness from that of other groups of subordinatepeople." Here Lerner begins her definition of patriarchywith a question: Mesopotamian figurines.What word describes the system under whichwomen have lived since the dawn of civilizationand are living now?She continues:The problem with the word patriarchy, which mostfeminists use. is that it has a narrow, traditionalmeaning-not necesarily the one feminists give it. Inits narrow meaning, patriarchy refers to the system,historically derived from Greek and Roman law, inwhich the male head of the household had absolutelegal and economic power over his dependentfemale and male family members...Patriarchy in itswider definition means the manifestation and in¬stitutionalization of male dominance over womenand children in the family and the extension of maledominance over women in society in general.Lerner's definition of patriarchy reduces the multiplecomponents which go into the various relationshipsbetween the sexes, running the gamut from the mostintimate to the most institutional, and which are all subjectto the notions of gender we have acquired through ourtradition, into one word. Loading so many meanings intoone word runs the danger of weakening a feministdiscourse. Other words Lerner defines are women’srights, women's emancipation, feminism, sex, gender,and more. It certainly is helpful to have such an appendixat our disposal, however, Lerner's definitions assume aunity of experience and character that is shared by allwomen. Praise is granted to Lerner for attempting todefine some of the slithery terms used by feminists, yetLerner’s definitsons often pertain to upper-middle classWestern white women, perhaps the least oppressed of allwomen-groups.Despite working with loosely defined terms (patriarchy,for example), several of Lerner’s assertions are insightful.For one, she argues that the contradiction of women'smarginalization mixed with the fact that women make uphalf or more of the population and are central contributors to any society due to their nurturing and child-bearingroles, gives rise to a “dialectic of women’s history"which moves women forward in the historical process bycausing them to struggle against their condition. Comingto grips with one’s past, believes Lerner, is what mostliberates us; thus this book.This book’s framework rests on what Lerner calls“meaning-events," or events which have propelled pat¬riarchy forward in significant ways. Unfortunately, theseevents are only indirectly the history of women. Meaning-events, for the most part, are decisions made by menwithin religious, legal, governmental, or economic in¬stitutions which affected women, but were not actualwomen-centered activities or events. Though Lernercautiously explores theories of prehistoric and universalmatriarchy, she prefers to imagine a time when neithermen nor women were dominant. The Creation ofPatriarchy tries to prove patriarcy to be a human creationrather than a biological given, and Lerner does this bydrawing on examples from predominantly male-run institutions within societies as diverse as the Sumerians,Babylonians, Assyrians, Amorites, Hebrews, and Greeks.By using predominantly male-run institutions as herevidence for patriarchy being a cultural, human construc¬tion, Lerner does not unveil women's history but rathershe continues the tradition of privileging history writtenby and about men, especially notable by her concentrationon patriarchy for a book which claims to be within thegenre of women's history.Despite Lerner's problematic concentration on male-runinstitutions in a book which she claims can help raisewomen’s consciousness about their past, Lerner doesamplify several feminist notions of class and slaverywhich turn out to be the most interesting part of her book.Borrowing from Levi-Strauss’ theory that men's exchangeof women is the principle cause of male dominance andEngels’ theory that the subordination of women resultedfrom the development of private property, Lerner arguesthat the first private property obtained by men waswomen’s reproductive power. Moreover, she believes thatmen got the idea of enslaving other men from theirpractice of controlling, commodifying, and enslavingwomen. And. while men's class is determined by theirrelationship to the means of production, women’s class isdetermined by their sexual ties to men. Thus, marriedwomen gain a respect which single women lack, andcompliance to patriarchy is assured through such acommodification.The big question remains: Why did men decide tocommodify women's sexual and reproductive capabilitiesand why did women agree to it? Since Lerner does notbelieve males are physically stronger than women, theanswer for Lerner cannot be that men literally forced theircontrol over women. Instead, Lerner points to a timewhen a woman’s entire life-span was spent trying toproduce and keep babies alive, and it was during this timein history when woman was most incapacitated that menacquired weapons that enabled him assert domination inall areas of life except child-bearing and nurturing.Lerner s speculative theory makes sense; the problem isthat we can t know how and why men and women endedup with their respective, various roles. 1 am not denoun¬cing theory, I am just suggesting that women will need tofind a way out of oppressive segments of society andlanguage without knowing how the present situationarose. By fixating oneself on figuring out the origin andthe root of systems which pre-date written history, it iseasy to overlook the here and now questions whichinevitably include the there and then questions. Thus,perspective which include reflection of past and presentcircumstances but which do not become obsessed withunknowable and ultimately unimportant origins willhopefully allow for a women’s history that includeswomen rather than looking bitterly for the reason whywomen have not been included in most histories.by Justine Kalas6 CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 19860<00<0<000Justine Kalas:Why do you think women’s history is themost important tool for liberating women:Gerda LernerrBecause people’s sense of identity as agroup gives them the strength to overcome obstacles andto create political movements. Women, unlike any othergroup in the world, have been denied knowledge of theirpast, and have, in fact, lived in a world in which they aretreated as though they had never done anything ofsignificance and had no history. And even as late as thework of the late Simone de Beauvoir in 1956, she says flatout that women have no history. Well, that’s wrong.Women have had a history and we have now uncoveredthat history for the past twenty years, and more and morewomen are learning that now and know it. And that givesus the strength to say, well we are just like other humanbeings, namely men. I distinguish between women’srights and women’s emancipation. Women’s rights aregetting everything that men get in any given society andhaving access to all the resources and to the education,just like men. That we must have. But then we also musthave something that The Creation of Patriarchy is verymuch concerned with, and that is, we must also be able todefine and describe and symbolically control the world,which is something we have not done for 4,000 years.JK: What do you think Simone de Beauvoir meant whenshe said women have no history?GL: She believed that, she had no better knowledge. Atthat time, women’s history had not yet been developed,and she ignored the feminists that had developed it insome countries. She didn’t pay much attention to that.That was the limitation of her thought. She meant it,there’s no question of that. Her entire theory is built onthat and she gives us a very fancy set of explanations ofwhy that is so, bui in fact the explanations are as wrongas the data in this case.JK: How do you respond to your colleagues who claimthat women’s history is a fad which does not have aspecific method or discipline?GL: Well, my first response is to give them thebibliography in the history of American women which 1have compiled which is 150 pages long of single-spacedentries. American women’s history alone has produced somuch work that it’s hard to sav it has no methodology.JK: Do you have a theory of women's history differentfrom other theories of history?GL: Well, 1 think that's what The Creation of Pat¬riarchy is. I have done theoretical work before and youcan find that in my book The Majority Finds ItsPast —there I have collected the theoretical work 1 havedone for twentv-two years.JK: Do you feel that you have clarified concepts andterms that are necessary tools in unveiling women’s past?GL: What we have to remember is that the subordinationof women is older than the civilization in which we live,and since it is built into the entire mental construct ofWestern Civilization in such a way that it is not a questionfor discussion, it's assumed as a given, it means that theterminology that we need in order to discuss women’splace does not exist We have to create that terminology.Just to give you an example, and that is one of theimportant points made by new book, historians have paidattention to class, and we have innumerable definitions ofwhat a class is. We have used these definitions to describemen and women. For men. class has to do with theiraccess (or lack of access) to the means of production, sothey have a direct relationship to the economic resources.For women, access to the resources is through the men towhom they render sexual services or with whom they'resexually related. For women, class subordination alwaysalso means sexual subordination.JK: Do you think that certain feminist scholarship whichcritiques language or notions of femininity throughoutWestern metaphysical discourse is reprehensible due to itsa historicity?GL: 1 don’t deal with femininity at all. so I have nothingto say on that—I don’t know where you got that idea.JK: Let me try to clarify my question. In your book yousay that before women can be fully liberated, they musthave consciousness of their past. There are some feministswho might say that women cannot be fully liberated untilthey create a new language which isn’t androcentric. Howdo you respond to these feminists as one who stresseshistory?GL: You see, women are such a complicated group andso large—half the human race. You can’t expect any onestatement to fit all. For me. history is the key to ourunderstanding. History embraces every' other field: phi¬losophy, science, psychology, art. In order to understandthe past, you have to know all these various things, so ifyou have a good theory and understanding of history, allthe other things fit into it. I’m not saying that it’s the onlyway you can raise your consciousness, but I believe it’sthe best way.JK: How would you respond to a philosopher who saysphilosophy embraces everything?GL: I would respond to the philosopher by saying that infact the philosopher will have a hard time showing me thephilosophical work of women. So therefore, in her work,if she’s a contemporary philosopher, she constantly has tofight the sense that women, persons like her. have not byand large, until the past fifty years, made any majorcontributions to philosophy. And if she wants to answerthat, she has to turn to women's history.JK: Is your conviction that history is what most liberatesin any way influenced by psycholanalysis where it could be said that unearthing one’s own personal history isparallel to the liberation you speak of in relation tounveiling women’s history:GL: No. I think psychoanalysis makes the same claim forthe individual. I am influenced by 25 years’ experienceteaching women’s history and seeing what it does topeople when they’re exposed to it. One after another,people come to me and tell me it changed their life, theiroutlook, their goals.JK: In your book you write: “Women have beensystematically excluded from the enterprise of creatingsymbol systems, philosophies, science, law. . . andtheory—formation.” Do you think women, by theirpresence, contributed to these or do you think womenhave had no part in these institutions?GL: Well, I make that statement because from thebeginning of the invention of writing, which took place inancient Mesopotamia in 3100 B.C., wherever there havebeen educational institutions set-up, they have excludedwomen. Women have been systematically excluded fromeducational opportunity, and the only women that hadaccess to educational opportunity had it because it was aclass privilege. In the middle ages, as long as educationwas church-related, the only educated persons weremembers of the clergy and then the women who enteredcloisters had to stop functioning as women in order tohave access to education, so that statement is wellsubstantiated.JK: Do you think that women need to resist their biologyin order to overcome their subordination or oppression?GL: No. The conditions have changed. If you take theyear 20,000 B.C., men and women were very dependenton their biological equipment. Culture, civilization con¬sists in overcoming nature. Every technological inventionthat humans have made has given them more freedomfrom nature and biology. That freedom has been un¬equally accruing to men and women. Men got moreadvantages out of it than women, so women have laggedbehind, but today women are no longer imprisoned bytheir biology. Today we live in a world where a woman'slife expectancy is 84 years of age. Now let's say that awoman has two children and she even wishes to be a full¬time mother for the entire childhood of two children. Themost time that they could be at home being full-timemothers might be eighteen years or twenty years, right?That’s a quarter of their lifetime, and yet we hold on tovalues and ideas of gender that were appropriate to theneolithic age when woman’s life-expectancy was 28 yearsand they had to have babies all the time that they werecapable. Either they were nursing or they had a baby inthe belly, or both.JK: Why have we held on to these outdated values ofgender?GL: Well, that’s called patriarchy. That’s what I’mexplaining to you.JK: Thank you.GL: Why do I think that it is? It’s because people, menhave derived a very definite advantage from keepingwomen in a subordinate position and not sharing re¬sources equally. They hung onto it, long after it wasnecessary.JK: Do you believe in the physical superiority of men?GL: No I don’t, because it’s not scientifically true. Menare biologically, or some men are physically superior incertain aspects of strength, but women are much moresuperior in endurance than men, and male infants aremuch more subject to dying in the first year of life thanthe female infants, so you can’t make a very strong casefor male superiority and equipment.JK: Why did women, in your opinion, agree to the set-upwithin your definition of patriarchy, and how did men, ifthey are not physically superior, maintain it? GL: I, as you noticed in Chapter Three, develop my owntheory of what might have happened and it’s just aspeculation because every other theory is also a specula¬tion. The so-called traditional view of male superiority isa pure speculation with not a shred of evidence to it. Butthe funny thing is that when a woman or a feminist beginsto make a theory, then everybody asks what’s yourevidence. I have no more evidence than they have. I haveprobably more evidence than they have. Sometimes I getvery tired of the intellectual double-standard. I postulatethat because women had to nurse babies in order forbabies to have a chance at survival, that I’m sure thatthere were many tribes that didn’t nurse their babies well,or perhaps some women were engaged in warfare orheavy labour, and didn’t have as many babies—thosetribes died out. The tribes that survived were the ones inwhich women nursed well, and in which men developedgood defensive or may even aggressive tactics againsttheir neighbors. You see, in the period in which pat¬riarchy begins, that’s the period of the Bronze Age, whenhuman beings have discovered that you can smelt metalsand make tools and weapons. Men appropriate theseweapons and become warriors. Out of being the warriorsthey become the military elite. Women with babies at thebreast and toddlers following from behind probably hadno interest in smelting metals—it was strenuous, messywork that involved heavy hammering and when you havelots of kids to nurse, that's not the best for you. Theydidn’t think it would lead to consequences that nobodycould foresee. So by the time men had weapons, theycould dominate not because they were stronger butbecause they had weapons. I think that’s very importantfor us to understand. It is not the strength of men thatentitles them to it. Not at all.JK: Do you hope for sexual equality in the sense ofsameness, ability to do just as many things as men can, orwould you hope that women’s separate experiences,creations, history, cultures, and thoughts would be moreforcefully conjectured into the mainstream?GL: There is women’s basic struggle for their rights, andthis means getting equality with men in everything thatany given society has to offer, including access to power.Then, women struggle for emancipation. I define that asautonomy and self-definition. That has not been reachedany place in the world. I want for women to have theright to write their own philosophies, to explain the worldthe way they see it, to make the rules of the game,whatever the game is, the same way as men do. That'snot equality because women may want different thingsfrom men, we don’t know. I do not believe we shouldignore the biological difference between men and women:that doesn't mean I think it’s determinant. I say we shouldnot ignore it. We have vulgarized the concept of feminisminto the typical wav that patriarchal thought does anythingby telling you that it's either-or. I think women’s thoughtalways tells you it’s both, or it's something women'sthought always tells you it's both, or it’s something else.See, for example, men can only imagine being dominantor dominated: women know that they can be bothdominant and dominated at the same time. Men can tellyou you're either whole or a part. Women know that ifyou have a baby in your belly, your body experience tellsyou you're one thing and you're two. It’s a different lifeexperience. We just have to learn to say it’s no morevaluable to be male than female.JK: Do you think women went along with patriarchybecause it benefitted them in any way?GL: Well, once the state was organized and classes werethere, patriarchy benefitted the women of the upper-classby giving them class privileges, and so they went alongwith it. That's not the greatest news for some feminists,but I think it's true.Babylonian carving in ivory.CHICAGO I ITFR ARY REVIEW FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986 7InterviewWithGerdaLernerSUPPLEMENTARY STUDENTINSURANCESUMMER 1986OFF-QUARTER COVERAGEJune 13th is the deadline for enrollment!Applications are available in Administration 103.Off-quarter coverage is available to degree students whoare registered and participate in the University Plan thequarter prior to the off-quarter and who expect to beregistered and participate the quarter following the off-quarter. Off-quarter coverage is available to degreestudents for one quarter of non-registration in a 12-monthperiod. Coverage is also available for one quarter im¬mediately following receipt of a degree. Application for off-quarter coverage must be made in the Registrar’s Officeand the fee must be paid upon applying. The University of Chicago Department of Music Presents:University Symphony OrchestraBarbara Schubert, ConductorEUROPEAN TOURKICK-OFF CONCERTSATURDAY, JUNE 7, 19868:00 p.m.Mandel Hall57th Street & University Avenue Copland: El Salon MexicoBarber: Second EssayRuggles: OrganumSchuman: New England TriptychTickets $8 general, $25 patrons*Available at the Department of Music Concert Office,5845 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637The University Symphony Orchestra s two-week European Tour sponsored by Cultural OmnibusInternational and the University of Chicago will include six concerts m Austria Hungaryand Yugoslavia, June 16-30, 1986 All ot the American repertoire on the June 7 Kick-Otf Concertwill be performed on tour, along with music of Dvorak Hindemith and Sibelius•Patrons will be listed in the Tour Program Booklet, and invited to a post-concert reception Donationamount is tax-deductibleHAIR PHD.PRECISION HAIR DESIGNS1315 E. 57th St., CHICAGO 60637PH. 363-0700 mE AT HAIR PHD WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS OUR APPRECIATION ANDANK ALL OF YOU FOR MAKING OUR GRAND OPENING A SUCCESS0 JUST THANK EVERYONE IS NOT ENOUGH. WE HAVE DECIDED TOEEP OUR PRICES BELOW OUR COMPETITION, AND STILL OFFER THEOP NAMES IN THE HAIR INDUSTRY. OUR PERMS WILL INCLUDEIEDKEN, MATRIX, HELENE-CURTIS, LOREAL, ZOTO’S TO NAME JUSV FEW. WE WILL CONTINUE TO OFFER OUR RETAIL PRODUCTS:SEBASTIAN, MATRIX, NEXXUS, AND JAMI AT 20% OFF.mg- Us.NE15TH OUR PRICES WILL BE:HAIR CUTS 0ludes SHAMPOO, CONDITIONER & STYLING TEENSGIRLS $1500BOYS $1000PERMSCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW-FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986 $20 - $40THANK YOUJOHN RUCCOMARY BADZWOMEN $1300MEN8India: The Seige Withinby M.J. AkbarAn Indian Dynasty: The Story of the Nehru - GandhiFamilyby Tariq AliVengeance: India after the Assasination of IndiraGandhiby Pranay GupteIt came as no surprise to the present reviewer that themost perceptive book on India in the last year was writtenby an Indian Muslim battling the increasingly Hindu ethosof the country, while one of the least competent workswas the responsibility of an Americanized Hindu whonormally writes for the New York Times. Both situationswere only to be expected. India’s separatist problems,whether it be in the form of fanatical violence in Punjab,or cynical mistrust and disenchantment in Kashmir, aremainly the result of the oppression of its minorities by itsHindu Hindi-speaking plurality. It is natural, therefore,that soul-searching and sensitive analyses of the country’sproblems should come from members of these minoritycommunities, here represented by M.J. Akbar, an IndianMuslim and Editor of the influential Calcutta daily, theTelegraph. It is equally natural, though unfortunate, thatthe Americanized Hindu in question, Pranay Gupte, failsto probe India’s problems to the same depth. TheAmericanized Hindus are a peculiar kind of Indian.Generally affluent, often trained as professionals, theyhave already achieved a measure of acceptance in whiteAmerican society. Sometimes they have adopted some ofwhite America's worst prejudices. In 1980 most HinduAmericans voted for Reagan. In Chicago in 1982 theysupported Byrne. Almost until the end of 1985 a Hindutelevision program in Chicago carried advertisements forKrugerrands. India has little to offer to these Hindus. IfPranay Gupte is characteristic, they have less to offer toIndia. In between these two extremes comes Tariq Ali,Indian-born British Trotskyist with little sympathy for anyreligion. His role, here, is to offer detached Marxistanalysis.* * *M.J. Akbar’s book, India: the Siege Within, isprimarily a political history and analysis of the variousseparatist movements that have shaped the Indian nations.The book begins with an analysis of the forces that led tothe partition of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947.From Akbar's point of view partition was a mistake:Pakistan was created, not because of any historicalinability of Hindus and Muslims to live together, butbecause of the self-serving ambitions of certain Indianleaders, notably Md. Ali Jinnah. By encouraging andmanipulating these ambitions the British, of course,played the colonialist’s usual sordid role. Akbar doesmuch to debunk the theory of centuries of religiousconflict in India. Regional conflicts were almost neversplit along religious lines between Hindus and Muslims.The famous 1857 war of “Independence,” for instance,found Hindus and Muslims on one side and the Britishand Sikhs on the other. These considerations question thecredibility of much of the Orientalist (Indologist) writingsabout India. That is hardly surprising: only the excep¬tionally naive would expect fairer treatment from mostWestern “experts.” What Akbar reveals, though, is amuch more disturbing trend: that Hindu historians andeducators in independent India have accepted the allegedschism among Indians and have begun to inculcate mythsabout Muslim rapists and hordes into the society through“official'’/textbook histories of the region. In an impec¬cably documented chapter, “Guilty Till Proved In¬nocent,” Akbar lists a wide array of episodes from Indianhistory that have fallen prey to the machinations of Hinducommunalists.Akbar’s analysis of Muslim separatism in colonialIndia, and disenchantment since Independence, is the mostpowerful part of this book. What he records, in sociallife, though not yet in law. is the dismal failure of India'sostensible secularism. Cow slaughter has been bannedthroughout the country for religious reasons except inKerala and Bengal where Communist state governmentshave so far successfully resisted the tide of Hindufundamentalism. The percentage of Muslims in high-paying jobs is pathetically lower than their percentage inthe population. In several areas Muslims are worse offthan India's celebrated untouchables. Most important,though, in Kashmir, the one state with a Muslim majority,the Indian central (that is, Federal) government hassystematically prevented democratically elected Muslimleaders from governing the state. Independent India’srecord with respect to the treatment of Muslims is pitiful.It is perhaps only the even shoddier political history ofPakistan that has prevented an even more completeMuslim disenchantment with the Indian state.Besides Muslim separatism, Akbar attempts a briefanalysis of South Indian secessionism in the late 1950’s(when, actually, it was not illegal to be a secessionist)and. finally, extremist Sikh separatism that is afflictingIndia today. He notes how some decentralization of powerfrom the central to the state government, and a decisionnot to impose the alien Hindi language on the South, ledto a peaceful end to this movement. Akbar calls thisapproach greater democracy, and argues it is exactly whatis lacking in the central government's approach toKashmir. Though he does not state it, one consequence ofthese observations is apparent: the South, though notHindi-speaking is Hindu; Kashmir is Muslim.Akbar's treatment of Punjab is characteristically even-handed. He notes that many of the Sikh grievances arejust and have been around for over two decades. Forexample, in the late )960's Indira Gandhi, then PrimeMinister, had agreed to a Sikh demand that Punjab have astate capital of its own (and not share Corbusier’sChandigarh with adjacent Haryana). The agreement was violated by Gandhi’s government. In 1977, by when theagreement was to have been carried out, Gandhi declaredher misfamous state of Internal Emergency and ruthlesslysuppressed all dissent. Punjab never got its capital. In1980 the Sikhs found themselves making the samedemand once again and Rajiv Gandhi’s great 1985compromise with the Sikhs actually consisted of agreeingto something that had already been agreed to almosttwenty years before. At the same time Akbar did not havemuch sympathy for the Sikh extremist leadership. Inprofessional encounters with them as a journalist he foundthem inarticulate and incoherent. Just as he has no respectfor the Muslim separatism that created Pakistan, or thefundamentalism that now dominates it, he has no sympa¬thy for the antics of the Sikh fundamentalism. He does notendorse their agenda of random political violence in anyway but he is hardly less critical of the Indian state.What Akbar’s book shows, more than anything else, isthat there is a pattern of discontent in contemporary India.All parts of the country outside the Hindu Hindi-speakingenclave in the North feel oppressed. Akbar’s book alsohas a message. If India is to survive (and, as far as thisreviewer is concerned, the question is whether Indiashould survive and not whether it can survive byeliminating its minorities) then its rulers must move awayfrom the Hindu-Hindu Hindustan chauvinism that theycurrently endorse. India must do more than preachsecularism. It must practice it. It must allow, as theexample of the South shows, all regions of the countrymore autonomy and the power to decide their ownfutures. The central government’s role must be limited.Above all India must develop an ethos that reflects itsdiversity. A Muslim or a Sikh is as Indian as a Hindu.Hindi is not the language of most Indians. Akbar’s bookcomes at a critical period of India's history. One hopesthat India's power brokers will bother to read it.* * *Technically Tariq Ali’s book is simply the history of afamily, but since this family has ruled independent Indiafor all but three of its forty years, the book often vergeson becoming a history of the nation. Ali, whose fame as apolitical analyst rests on his prediction of the secession ofEast Pakistan from West, is a well-known Trotskyist whofirst came into prominence as a leader of anti-VietnamWar protests in Britain in the 1960's. Since Ali beginswith the life of Jawaharlal Nehru, his story’ begins at theheight of India’s freedom struggle. True to his Marxistleanings, he offers socio-economic analyses as part of hisstory. This is easily the best section of the book. It is adetailed attempt to understand the background and in¬fluences on the personalities who led India to In¬dependence and set its political agenda for the next twodecades. Included here is a fairly detailed consideration ofMahatma Gandhi. For once, a fairly balanced view,devoid of the usual mysticism, is offered of the man andhis influence. Ali demonstrated quite clearly that thedevelopment of independent India as a capitalist dem¬ocracy is largely a consequence of Gandhi’s quixoticeconomic views and his dependence on the indigenousbusiness community for his support. India's occasionalexperiments with socialism, on the other hand, is partly aconsequence of the early Nehru's flirtations with the left.In the Indian Independence movement both trends, social¬ist and liberal capitalist, were once equally strong andimportant. Gandhi and capitalism eventually won a bitterideological struggle. Unfortunately, Ali does not reallyexplain why. but nevertheless, provides considerableinsight into that struggle. He is particularly interestingbecause he looks at nationalism without nostalgia orundue reverence, the former probably because he (likemost contemporary Indians) is too young to remember thefreedom struggle, and the latter probably because of hisTrotskyist sympathies. As the euphoria of Independencedisappears, and India begins to adjust to its problems,such a balanced look at the past, and especially atnationalism, has become more and more desirable. and finally, Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi, also attempt thesame kind of socio-economic analysis, though with lesssuccess. There is a moving portrait of Feroze Gandhi,Indira’s estranged husband, who was much admired insidethe country for his integrity and wit. Official biographiesof the dynasty downplay Feroze because of his consistentrefusal to become yet another family appendage, or toconceal his humbler social origin than the high-casteNehrus. Yet, Feroze, who remained a Congress Partybackbencher in Parliament until his death, retained aconsiderable following in several parts of the country andoften provided some of the most scathing criticisms of thegovernment’s mistakes. It is not clear why he never leftthe ruling party for the opposition—on this Ali does notspeculate.After Nehru’s death, the Congress Party to whichMahatma Gandhi and he had both belonged, graduallydeclined from its earlier role as the mainstay of thefreedom struggle to what it is today: a fractious Hindi-Hindu communal organization more corrupt than theChicago machine. Part of this is undoubtedly due to IndiraGandhi’s exceptionally unimaginative leadership, as Alinotes But he ignores the point that part of this declinemust also be attributed to the fact that the forces thattraditionally supported the Congress—mainly indigenousbusiness—were themselves now in the way of furthersocial and political progress. Before Independence theirinterests and that of the country had been the same. Nowany change in the status quo would simply remove theirprivilege. An assessment of all these various factors thathave contributed to the decline of the Congress, and of theIndian polity, would have been welcome. It is unfortunatethat Ali does not attempt this task, or analyze theemergence of Hindu communalism in the Congress (onceproudly secular) or even why one family managed toretain complete control of the party. (The introduction bySalman Rushdie hints that the answer to the last questionmight be in the book. It is not.) However, Ali’s work isprimarily a biography, after all, and what is reallyunfortunate, perhaps, is that his talents have been wastedon a single family. He does provide, though, a veryperceptive analysis of the prep-school crowd that domi¬nates the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet, and what its new-foundpower might augur for the country. Ali is currentlyworking on a new book on culture and politics in India,The Rediscovery of India (named after Nehru's classic,The Discovery of India, and one can only await itsappearance.* * *Compared to the previous two volumes, Pranay Gupte'sVengeance: India after the Assassination of IndiraGandhi provides a sorry spectacle. However, new bookson India are few and far between in the US today and.therefore, even Vengeance demands some attention.Moreover, Gupte's book belongs to a certain genre ofjournalistic bookwriting that has become very popular andhas possibly reached its dubious peak in Joseph Lelyveld'sPulitzer Prize-winning Move Your Shadow Much ofwhat can be said in criticism of Vengeance can also besaid of Move Your Shadow . Both books are impression¬istic, lack depth, make facile generalizations, and preferpersonal impressions over social or economic analysis asa key to understand social currents or even to decipher thefuture. Both books are. in the final analysis, and formally,travel accounts though they aspire to be much more. Theyare supposed to provide insight into the troubled societiesthey describe. Move Your Shadow is exquisitely written,at least; one cannot even commend the flaccid prose ofVengeanceThe most important reason for reviewing Vengeance,though, is that Gupte represents and explicitly endorsesthe kind of economic thinking that is embodied in RajivGandhi's new agenda, namely. Reaganomics. WhenGandhi unveiled his 1985-86 budget, the Wall StreetJournal ran a laudatory editorial entitled “RajivReagan.” “The budget amounts,” the editorial noted.The parts of the book that deal with the lives of Indira,1 PON'T CIT ME HOTm* secAuse i wrANV on following page)MD, MARKS SCANDAL N0.RWN.OURMWYISnot sukimwc them« CW&t. wi Sft *******Sen* ofggg^S)CHICAGO 1 ITERARY REVIEW FRIDAY JUNE 6, i98t> HinduandMuslimAnalysesofIndianSeparatism|||||• •U)aW).s;^vV''vvvrV. *vnv'''Mv . . vW*»r .. ■'/;'•* >,v'*'/|v vr 71•a*' Vi* /»— >»V*W . ''/«'W VA''/;p'/,V. '/O''v/0'' /,*• •*,*'"• W■//!»*■ >/!'''V V/|\VV/Iv’ .V,/V V|»'*'/U' ,/,vvAv V/\\> ''7l'*‘ . ''IV71 . n0“ . v/t'“, 7 V* „ •/,.7<l ,7M' M•v,|V If ;/J»* V,vM''. ',l»" 7,,7|**’/'71 O’" -/V7,v w*w This year’s celebration of International Women’s Day, brought also the sad news ofDing Ling’s death on March 4, 1986. Ding Ling was considered the most articulatechampion of women’s rights in China. She was the author of over 300 novels, shortstories, and plays centering around the reality of women’s lives in revolutionary China.Throughout the world the 1942 essay Thoughts on March Eighth gained her muchrecognition as a feminist, long before the birth of the modern-day women’s movement.Bom in 1904 in a wealthy, though relatively obscure rural family in the Hunanprovince. Ding Ling was to become committed to feminism and to revolution at an earlyage. Her mother belonged to that generation of Chinese women who, in the aftermath ofthe Revolution of 1911, unbound their feet and began attending school. Ding Lingherself was to become enthusiastically involved in the student demonstrations during theMay Fourth 1918 Movement. Soon she followed the example of young women who cuttheir hair short, in rejecting centuries old traditions. By the age of 15, Ding Ling hadalready challenged a pre-arranged marriage and was fighting for equal rights for women,including their right to inherit property.It was with the publication of her second story Miss Sophie's Diary in 1928, that DingLing began to gain recognition as a writer. The story created a great sensation for itsfrank portrayal of a young intellectual woman who was confused by her ideals and heremotions, including her sentiments towards love, sexuality, and women’s rights (MissSophie’s Diary and Other Stories, Panda Books, 1985).In 1932 she joined the Communist Party. She was soon arrested and held under housearrest for three years. In 1936 she escaped her house arrest — leaving her two childrenbehind — and joined the revolutionary movement in Yenan.In Yenan, Ding Ling became the editor of the literary pages of the Liberation Dailyand edited the historical records of the Long March. It was during her stay in Yenan,where she lived in close contact with the leadership of the Communist Party, that hercriticism of the subordinate role of women in society extended itself to the Communistmovement as well.In When I was in Xia Village written in 1940, Ding Ling takes up the story of ayoung Chinese woman Zhen Zhen, who becomes a spy among the Japanese Army. Shereturns to her village where everyone is fully aware that she has been repeatedly rapedby the Japanese soldiers and has caught venereal disease. While being aware of herenormous sacrifice, many in the village also despise her. The story of Zhen Zhen, whichhas echoes of Ding Ling’s own life, follows the young woman’s quest for self-determination and autonomy as a woman.Her story In the Hospital, written in 1941, went a step further and portrayed the life ofa young nurse, Lu Ping, who was forced to renounce her dreams of becoming a highofficial and a physician, because of the Party. Lu Ping was asked to end her collegeeducation abruptly so as to become a nurse in the country.Lu Ping argued, saying that she didn't have the right disposition for such workand that she would do anything else, no matter how significant or insignificant.She even dropped a few tears, but these arguments weren’t enough to shake thechiefs determination. She had no choice but to obey... Now that the iron collar ofParty and Needs of the Party was locked about her neck, could she disobey Partyorders? Could she ignore this iron collar which she had cast upon herself? (trans.Jonathan Spence. The Gate of Heavenly Peace. Viking Press, 1981 p. 286)The story was a devastating critique of the Chinese Communist Party and thealienation, bureaucracy and “heartlessness” of its revolutionary centers.In early 1942. Mao’s new campaign in response to the Yenan intellectuals was tobegin. His speech of February 1942 was to set the line against the budding “realism,sentimentalism, and satire” in the cultural world. Ding Ling responded a month laterwith her Thoughts on March Eighth. She had ignored the Party instruction that thecelebration of International Women’s Day be devoted to praising the active roles ofrevolutionary women. Instead Ding Ling spoke of the continued subordinate role ofrevolutionary women and of sexism in Yenan.In referring to Ibsen's A Doll House and its main character Nora, Ding Ling nowlikened the situation of women of Yenan, who had been forced to give up their Partycareers to marry and to bear children, to ‘‘Noras who came home.” These women hadbeen revolutionaries in their own right, yet once married and faced with the numerousburdens of family life they had a difficult time combining political life with family life.They were, therefore, invariably accused of “sliding backward” politically. It was anaccusation which also became the pretext for divorce. However, if they avoidedpregnancy, tried to have an abortion, or searched for nurseries for their children, theywere then accused of being lazy, and not wanting to take responsibility in life.Afraid of being thought “backward,” those who are a bit more daring rusharound begging nurseries to take their children. They ask for abortions, and riskpunishment and even death by secretly swallowing potions to produce abortions.But the answer comes back: Isn’t giving birth to children also work? You’re justafter an easy life, you want to be in the limelight. After all, what indispensablepolitical work have you performed? Since you are so frightened of havingchildren, and are not willing to take responsibility once you have had them, whydid you get married in the first place? No one forced you!She then spoke of her own experience as a woman, and demanded that instead ofholding to abstract notions of what a revolutionary woman “ought to be,” the Party,especially the men in the leadership, begin to pay attention to the concrete reality ofwomen’s lives, and the numerous difficulties they face:I myself am a woman and I therefore understand the failings of women betterthan others. But I also have a deeper understanding of what they suffer. Women(continued from page 9)“to a minor revolution for a country long enamored of thesocialist mirage, and it continues a revolution in economicideas that we have noticed in much of the developingworld.” The Indian business community was euphoric.The asset ceiling for big monopolies had been increasedfive-fold, from Rs. 200 million to Rs. 1000 million.Corporate and personal income taxes had been slashedand even more cuts were promised. Import regulationshad been liberalized. A number of state regulations onindustrial growth had simply been abandoned. Directpoverty reduction schemes had been systematicallydeemphasized. Rapid industrialization was encouraged asnever before. Coming in the wake of the Bhopalcatastrophe in December, 1984, this infatuation withindustrialization seemed grotesque.Yet, with this new budget, Rajiv Gandhi's Cabinetpromised a decline in poverty. The argument was an oldone: the same “trickle-down” theory that is so familiar inthe contemporary US. As the economy grows fast enoughthere will be enough capital generated that some of it willundoubtedly filter down to the poor and underprivileged.The fallacy in the argument is even more glaring in Indiathan in the US. Economic growth, no matter whether inthe public or the private sector, can directly decreasepoverty only if it increases employment. Indian industri¬alization has always been such that it never absorbsenough labor to offset population growth and labordisplacement. What is appropriate is some planning: anencouragement of the growth of labor-intensive (possiblylow profit) industry. And, in the absence of any motivefor the private sector to undertake low profit growth, itbecomes necessary for the state to step in. These are incapable of transcending the age they live in, of being perfect, or of beinghard as steel. They are incapable of resisting the temptations of society or all thesilent oppression they suffer here in Yenan. They each have their own past writtenin blood and tears, they have experienced great emotions, in elation as indepression, whether engaged in the lone battle of life or drawn into the humdrumstream of life. This is even truer of the women comrades who come to Yenan... Itwould be better if there were less empty theorizing and more talk about realproblems, so that theory and practice are not divorced (For the complete essay seethe New Left Review, No. 92, July-August 1975).Ding Ling’s essay was among the series of articles which appeared in the Yenan pressin the spring of 1942 by left wing dissident writers who came to be known as the“literary opposition.”Mao’s views, presented at the Yenan Forum of May 1942, were a severe attack on the“literary opposition.” Literature, Mao argued, was not to expose the dark side, but toreflect the bright side of life and to extoll the masses.” There was a need to develop aliterature “national” in form and “capable of seizing the peasant imagination.” Yetrather than leaving the process to the “free experimentation and choice” of the writer,they were to be “subordinated to a literary board of control. (See the Yenan LiteraryOpposition,” New Left Review, No. 92, July - August 1975).Ding Ling was publically criticized in a 1942 Party rectification campaign. Sherecanted and retained her posts. Other members of the literary opposition however,were no so fortunate. Wang Shih-wei who had gone farthest in his critique was publiclyput on trial, and Ding Ling was asked to join in the call for his denunciation. Severalyears later, during the evacuation of Yenan in 1947 Wang Shih-wei was shot by theorders of Mao. After public attacks on her for several years, Ding Ling kept away fromcreative writing and devoted herself primarily to journalism. She was also asked toundergo a long period of ‘thought reform.’ Her famous novel The Sun Shines Over theSanggan River, published in 1949, also kept within the acceptable boundaries set up bythe Party.After the 1949 Revolution, Ding Ling assumed a number of prestigious positions invarious literary and cultural organizations and became the editor of the literarymagazine. People's Literature. In 1957, however, she became once again the target forthe so-called anti-rightist campaigns of Mao. She was brought under severe attack, thistime for having attempted to “seize the leadership of the literary circles.” A newcampaign against her earlier writings began and she was exiled to a commune.The rise of her enemy Jing Qiang, Mao's wife, as China’s leading CulturalCommissar during the Cultural Revolution worsened life for Ding Ling. She wasattacked physically as well as verbally by the Red Guards and spent several years insolitary confinement, until 1977 — a year after Mao’s death — when she was releasedand later exonerated.In her essay on Ding Ling, Yi Tsi Mui Feurewekker, ultimately blames Ding Ling forhaving raised “the right issues at the wrong time” (See Signs, Autumn 1976 vol 2, Nol1, pp 270-279. See also her Ding Ling's Fiction, Harvard University Press, 1982) Avery different perspective of Ding Ling was offered by Raya Dunayevskaya who praisedher for having “dared to challenge Mao directly both in Yenan and in the 1950s” and asone who “summed up the fate of the leaders’ wives in a single phrase. ‘Noras who camehome.’ ” (See her Sexism, Politics and Revolution in Post-Mao China, Women’sLiberation and the Dialectics of Revolution, Humanities Press. 1985 pp 149-159).Indeed, we can recognize Ding Ling today as the harbinger of that new generation ofWomen Liberationists in the Third World who have combined the fight against sexism ofthe Left with a vision of transforming society. It was because of this affinity of ideas thatthe Japanese feminists translated and published Ding Ling’s Thoughts on March Eighthin the 1970s (See Ding Ling Purged Feminist, Feminitem Press, Tokyo, 1974) whilethe Iranian women translated the same essay, a project in which I was proud to haveplayed a part, during the Iranian Revolution of 1979.by Janet Afarylems. He is supposed to have had major successes inresolving communal problems in Punjab and Assam. Thisreviewer is left wondering what those successes were.Indeed, Gandhi has been somewhat more adept athandling these problems than his late mother but it wouldtake considerable effort not to be so. At least Gandhi talksto the opposition. Whether he is capable of resolvinganything remains doubtful. In Punjab he has offered, ashas already been noted, the same solution as had beenoffered in the late 1960’s. He has been so tardy inimplementing this solution that Punjab is witnessing asmuch random violence today as ever before. Moreover hehas consistently refused to bring to justice those (includingprominent members of his Congress party) who wereresponsible for the massacre of Sikhs after IndiraGandhi's assassination even though an independent com-mision headed by the respected political scientist, RajniKothari, has provided detailed documentation of theirinvolvement. Little wonder, then, that the Sikhs have solittle confidence in his government.In Assam Gandhi produced a solution that is unique forits total incomprehensibility. Gandhi agreed to Assamesedemands that illegal immigrants from neighboring Bang¬ladesh would have to leave. The regime in Bangladesh hasconsistently refused to readmit them perhaps correctlyrealizing that Bangladesh can even less afford an influx ofrefugees than India. Assamese demands will not besatisfied until they leave. Meanwhile they have nowhereto go. It is hard to see why this is called a “solution.”Such is the leader who, according to Gupte, is going tolead India into a new and prosperous age. Perhaps thebest Gupte can hope for is that his book, being sounmemorable, will soon be forgotten.by Sahotra Sarkarconsiderations are old and mundane: one just wishes thatGandhi had taken cognizance of them. Gandhi’s budgetshave also been criticized as being the most inflationarythat India has ever seen—whether that is true only thefuture can tell. It is also probably true that Gandhi’s“Reaganomics” will make India more glittering for therich. Thus India can recover its legendary past, and thepoor will continue to be dispossessed.Even such trivial economic analysis is beyond Gupte.At one point he observes how India’s share of world tradehas decreased and, from this, he concludes that theeconomy must be in decline. Actually, the economy hascontinued to grow and the growth rate, never spectacular,actually increased from 3.9% in 1963 -73 to 4% in 1973 -83. (During the same periods Brazil’s growth ratedeclined from 9.8% to 4.8%, South Korea’s from 10% to7.3%.) Moreover, India’s level of external debt comparesvery well to that of any Third World nation. All thispoints to the overall success of Indian stite policy. Thereal reason for the decrease in India’s share of inter¬national trade is that its growth has been consumedinternally and has provided the impetus for furthergrowth. Gupte would have done well to have studiedIndia’s economic performance in greater detail. It isdoubtful that such a study would have sustained hissweeping negative judgement of India’s half-heartedexperiments with socialism.Gupte notes the cheering crowds that greeted Gandhiafter his electoral success. But he does not note the ralliesand protests that greeted the price increases embodied inthe new budget. Going beyond economics, Gupte. likealmost everyone in the West, showers accolades onGandhi for his handling of the country’s political prob-10 CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986"Chicago's best pizza!" - Chicago Magazine, March 1977"The ultimate in pizza!" - New York Times, January 19805311 S. 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Rush Street, 2nd FloorEvanston, Illinois 60201 Chicago. Illinois 60657 Chicago, Illinois 60611864-4441 880-5400 642-3937 tt|V'iCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986jcci i i—11 j >m jLishandBrodkeyAgainsttheWorld PeruWhat I Know So FarDear Mr. Capoteby Gordon LishFirst Love and Other Sorrowsby Harold BrodkeyThe job remains, to find true fiction, exciting and novelwords, sentences that rethink habitual realities, pages stillclearer than the reader’s experiences which come clickingtogether in print. So why not start at any library, the onethat must be everywhere in the midwest? Go to the recentacquisitions bookshelf, to the left past the drinkingfountains, just before the door with the universal worklesssymbol for the men's room. Peru is cello-wrapped andslid inconspicuously between a murder mystery and alurid fictionalized account of the racy Silicon Valleylifestyle. Forget about anything you've ever seen on thechannels, the news footage from Vietnam and Cambodia,the paper skinnedskulled-heavy throngs of children in theSahel, the PBS specials on the Amazon and the Kurdumountain region. Gordon Lish’s most recent goes beyondall that. So the title refers only peripheral-incidentally, sothe distant country only blips momentarily across thenarrative voice's muted TV screen at the book’s opening,so? It is tempting to say that Gordon Lish has beenallowed to write the children’s story, not a namby pambytale about wild things or little homunculi in top hats whohappily call themselves sperm. Peru is blurted, practicallybludgeoned out by a middle aged man who remembers.An obsessive memory allows no gruesomeness or pettywickedness to escape. Look, read, there is a world whereevery detail shimmers with hidden significance, burstinginto both the strange nests of solipsistic self-satisfactionand the paranoid apercus of the trillion ways one can beset up to be lacking forever and ever.The searing truthfulness of detail baffed out by Peru'snarrator may partially account for the work’s globalunintelligibility. Street people, babbling bag ladies forone, buzz like wasp nets with childhood and familymemories. But do they ever come out and say, as Lishdoes in the first pages of Peru, “I wanted to be able to siton the toilet and really do something.”? This bluntforcefulness screws itself through an intricate maze ofsqueamish opacity, in a narrative voice purely streamingconversationless conversation. Monologically propelledsentences pulse toward the implicated, then often ignored,reader. It is difficult to extract a typical passage thatwould not pull out the entire book in its tangled skein ofobliquity and pounding redundancy, yet this fragment issuggestive:I was dead wrong about the colored man... But in mymind it was all of it different. In my mind, the coloredman was a big part of everything which went on in thesandbox— in my mind, he was just as big a part of itas the nanny herself was, even though I really knewthat he actually wasn't, even though I really knew thatI was just making all of this up.The bifid straightforwardness insinuates a veracity itimmediately demolishes. Unlike the conceptually flaccidafterbirth of authorial insight into consciousness, thereader is stuck with a minimniscient voice who just saysexactly what he says.In a very palpable sense, this guy sounds funnier thanthe dialog from Huckleberry Finn or even KiddieyWalker What is the story behind these sentencesconstructed like Fibonacci series, where every pauseincorporates all preceding phrases before injecting another? I found this book not to be easy to put downSuppose you get up to flip over The Replacements' Tim,then the whole time you're hearing Hold My Life. ’ youtruly discover what it means to be lost in a book. Lish'sobsessive, recursively bailed up discursus won't easilyhelp the reader to find his place again amidst the rollingwaves of spume. This is not the kind of writing, were itactually written by a seven year old, that would earn agold star. But Lish is clearly beyond such encomia, as heplays with the ranting soliloquy as the most honest andoverpowering level of truth. The monologue is a pali¬mpsest, folding over and revoking and adding andcontinually frustrating the shallow search for finality.Connoisseurs of fatigue, insomniac literati, take onPeru' Despite all the surface differences, by page 156 Iwas thinking of Midnight's Children, after the ramblingnarrator's nose and head began to crack. Each is anabsurd instance of a man trying to stop talking byexplaining himself fully. At least one pyrotechnical effectis the dazzling endurance test run against the reader.Undeniably, the narrator must go on too long, to evincethe exhaustion. But how long after it has gone on too longdoes it sustain an admittedly etiolated meta-interest?Shortly after this struck me, I found: “I just thought ofsomething. Maybe it will be a curse on you just to readthis.“Tell the truth, tell the truth, didn’t you get just a littlebit scared?”though Peru had yet to change my life, I was sobedazed and stunned from my suburban cocoon that I tookthe next step. I picked up What I Know So Far and DearMr. Capote, both reissued in ’86 Scribner SignatureEditions with sharp, cunningly a propos Jasper Johns’paintings on the covers. As a review is nothing beyondblurb and blague, I was moved by a blurb on the back ofLish’s first book: ‘it’s Lish and Brodkey against theworld- HAROLD BRODKEY.”Who is this guy, Harold Brodkey?He is the author of First Love and Other Sorrows,short stories that stream across the fifties with a collectiveintegrity rarely achieved in ostensive novels. Publishedfirst in 1958, it has just been reissued, while literarygreats such as Don DeLillo herald the coming ofBrodkey's apocalyptic Party of Animals, his work-in¬ progress of almost thirty years. The undeniable tiesbetween Brodkey and Lish rarely appear as overlap invoice or narrative technique; instead, each individuallyfocuses upon the vivid contours of experience which havebeen counterfeitedly stamped ordinary. People the age ofseven, 13 or 16 afford Brodkey limpid moments fordrawing the day-to-day stasis so electrically charged withimportant tensions right there on the surface, firstencounters with the unfair fallout distributing wealth andemotion, wedging insecurity between the defensive post¬ures that become regrettably natural. His writing unravelswith such grace that it would be impossible for him towrite about nothing at all, though in lesser hands that isall his stories would amount to. The kinetic discontinuitybetween stories, which leap from one tall kid at 13, toapproximately the same one at 16, then to a differentlynamed junior at Harvard, resembles the gappy pulse ofpicture frames at a home movie session. Threading allthese slight glances together is Brodkey’s delicate ex¬ploration of the interstitial fluid binding unlimited self pityto sincere but limited sympathy for others.Profoundly gifted with a touch that could flip thedevil’s heel, he never confuses “being sordid with beingtalented.” In the title story, Brodkey is on the spot torecord the words spoken which unite the awkwardnarrator to Eleanor, a girl from his high school that he’salways liked:“I’ve been damaged by my heredity—”“You, too!” She exclaimed happily. “Oh, that’swhat’s wrong with me!”Everyone can recall the occurence of these first kisses,but too often they quickly garble into the blurred hopesand cumulative embarrassments of an already aged self;recollection, even in literature, only dredges up enoughsludge to say that, “yeah, that’s wot happened.” It won’tbe hypnotism, but reading Brodkey and Lish, that willevoke the past’s hidden depths, swirling currents, eddiesand warps. Perhaps they have only given us the childhoodexperiences of two brilliantly attuned men; perhaps theclarity is an optically overpowering sham photogene. I forone have recaptured a great deal of the phenomenologicalcontinuity of experience by assimilating these accounts tofill the lacunae in my life that I’ve always wonderedabout.The flip-flopping levels of interwoven discourse,unveiled by Flaubert in the pig auction scene of MadameBovary. has been successfully technologized with ellidedradio and TV voices as they waver through White Noiseor, 10 years earlier, in William Gaddis’ JR. A far morehumane, less reductive use of this method can be hearrunning through Brodkey’s stories. The most densefrequencies of competing and simultaneous commu¬nication repeatedly connect the narrator within an ec-osphere of human gossip and chatter; each grounds theoblivious others in settings where old ladies exchangeadvice for back pains, schoolkids shout tag in the street orfire ominous red disintegrator pistols.The Peru voice says: “You could really make a list offavorite things. You can’t do it anymore, you can't do itnow— but you could have done it every day of your lifewhen you were six.” If you believe this either becauseonly children have egos, or perhaps because they're theonly ones who understand the difference between things,then it helps tag the perceptual age of Brodkey’s fresh,clear voice. In First Love..., the favorite words ofPreston are listed, then Caroline’s favorite books arenoted in Sentimental education. and later, in LaurieDressing. Brodkey's still able to recognize and record hermost favored smiles. He could do it every day if hewanted, without ever becoming a self-conscious liner ashe exults in the seams that wrap the quotidian.Sentimental Education, the middlemost story', glissadestentatively from a single male narrator to encompass adimerous twining of voices before moving to explore thepouts and songs inside Laurie/Laura for the remainingfour story slices. Elgin, a Harvard upper-classman, andCaroline, at Radcliffe. are enthralled, particularly withmetaphysical poetry and with books in general. Elgin fallsin love with her at first sight from the steps of Widener,and she tells her diary later of the intelligent, strangelynasal voice that so impressed her in a seminar. Theiranxious restraint is mirrored by a prose as light and trickyas a butterfly net. Only after twelve pages (out of 48) dothey first kiss. This accidental proportion marks by nowthe only level at which childhood’s bases are touched. Theliterate, playfully awkward and aware couple resolve toavoid becoming “sloppy” (not once do they lapse intocalling it a “relationship”). Thread taut between un¬repentant ribbons of intelligently crafted, naively sufferedself-pities is a remarkably honest first love affair. What isso hard to believe, or even accept, is that people ourparents’ ages could have been so sensitively close to hip.If this wry grace and charm were possible then, why areour parents like they are? W'orse, what if these tenuouslygrasped forms of wisdom won’t protect us from becoming...? Alongside the warmth tinkle subtle shards of vio¬lence. and Caroline confesses diurnally her own embar¬rassed emotion: “It’s funny he is not more handsome inhis clothes, but that only makes him seem more beautifulto me, I think. I feel I would like to give birth to him.Sometimes, I want to crawl into his pocket and be carriedlike a pencil. I never let him see how strongly I feel.”rather than straining with elliptic understatement, Brodkeyjust writes with eyes on his fingertips, exploring the mostintimate points of contact where life is always justbeginning.The later stories, limned by Laura’s eyes, as shecourts, “becomes” engaged, makes babies and lives inthe suburbs with her lawyer-husband continue to trackdown big game in the micro life skills of picking a babysitter or twisting an ice cube tray. Each gives a tinnier,more plangent ring to Brodkey’s unfailing flic of the pen. Perhaps when one can’t stop growing up, it remainspossible to stop enjoying it.Lish’s own collection of short stories, What I KnowSo Far, won’t bolster one’s dimly idle hopes for apleasant senescence. To capture a single theme curclicuedand spun throughout this dauntless string of original crispstories, one would have to settle for a gerrymanderedrubric too blunt to inflict a paper cut. This bookcontradicts itself, it is wide (162 pages), it containsmultitudes. It thrashes. The urban eldritch lurks in masterbathrooms, hides behind the faceless janitor, assumesform as a monitor lizard. Comparatively, the singeing,screaming threats in hard core punk these days (sitthrough Big Black’s “dead billy,” e.g.) scratch into one’sears the same Fuck You’s Holden Caufield crayoned ontoprep school walls. The caged, condensed puerile energies,as they filter through distorted amplifiers, may adequatelyexcite hormonally pumped, post-pimply college students,but they derive their death threats from things even thefive o’clock news could tell you were dangerous. Lishtwitches nervously at all the things other people do tellyou.The first stories pose as cool, dispassionate prisms,refracting events that other people report as havinghappened to themselves; the narrative geometry oscillatesbetween two distinct, skewed accounts which neither addup nor generate a unique third point. The formalproperties invite a playfully confused or suspicioustrippiness; like a breeze that hits windchimes, the narratoris neither here nor anywhere as first the one and then theother is played off the tumbling configuration. How toWrite a Poem unabashedly instructs the uninitiated: stealone. This pedantic tip to plagiarize does illuminate Lish'sastounding creative energy. Although there are momentswhen he writes like the late(r) J.D. Salinger with a stop'to tell, the only person he’s conceivably stealing from ishimself. He apparently constructs a person, beetles andwheedles his way through the first’s wormholes to feel outa second, and usually stops after a few' more outre'reiterations. So what is the stuff these characters are madeof? Roughly speaking, they're about 70% limbic system,with higher cortical functions to flesh out paranoias,craven impulses and nervous disorders. This, not surpris¬ingly, is the key to the ordinary. They are frequentlycuckolds, and of those, almost every one is a wittol. Themost compelling aspect of these pictures has to be theirnauseating veridicality. Even the slightest obstacle in dailylife conjures up an unlimited number of violent imagedsolutions, and the reader can feast upon ball-peenhammers smashing into cheeks, station wagon loads offamily careening beneath 18 wheelers, young kids fallingfor far-below concrete. A typical reaction to the littlesetbacks implicit in the imbricated hopes of a family is theelaboration, through a bizarre maze of enthymemes, ofthe logical necessity of blood sacrifice far less opaquethan God's requested favor from Abraham.Lish, former fiction editor of Esquire and a professorof writing at both Columbia and NYU, explores a varietyof diverse diversions in his first stories. Imagination readslike some genetic recombination of Spinoza and Bar-thelme. The main characters are X. a teacher of storywriting, and a hairy student, named Y, and a sexy womannamed Z. “In the opinion of A to Z, exclusive of Y, Wwas the best there ever was.” This will, of course,devolve to slightly less abstracted realms to treat ofadultery, professional envy, and the trifling problemsengendered by misunderstanding. The final sentences, sosleek at insinuating the darkest undercurrents that wereperhaps always obvious, deliver the same vivid realityonly once before glimpsed, in Brodkey's State of Grace.With just a fucking sentence!Lish can dance through a short-short story on stiletto-pointed heels. His reminiscence of an adolescent whorestory in fleur is pure virgo syntactica, untinged w ith eitherwistfulness or regret; it is just an occasion for the narratorto gloat upon his own preternatural cleverness. "Three”describes the number of things that "happened to metoday.” Previously a radio actor and talk jockey, Lishdrolly toys with the limits of writing, as his voices appearridiculously like some man compulsively gesturing in atelephone booth to an invisible person at the other end. Awoman falls under his descriptive scalpal: “You mightwant to see her this way— nice eyes, nice hair, prettyface, those bones, good ones.” This made me laughwithout even having to think about all those creativewriting students in the middle of Iowa handing in pagelong descriptions of all the other students' faces. Whoeverbought the con that words could transport a reader tovisions? Could anything less than a freak chromosomalchiasma link the verbal and visual fetishes? WhileBrodkey traces the fissures and invisible cracks of humaninteraction with the knowing touch of a Blind WillieMcTell. Lish ears everything, he’s the sound effects manbar none.In Peru, a harelip's speech is faultlessly heard andshamelessly recorded, and the sloggy. sloshy, squshysounds of metal parting flesh spray unadulterated purefrom the page. The bank clerk who begins Dear Mr.Capote (DMC) eleven times admits to being the verysame radio imp who could play all the voices, includingyoung Dr. Malone, besides which make siren sounds andbreaking glass and all the others just using his mouth. Thehebephrenic fixation upon the sounds of words coursesthrough Lish’s work. In DMC, it forms part of the serialkiller s trademark, “for the media.” Before putting Paki,his sturdy knife, through the female victim’s eye, he stunsthem with the word for the day— “copacetic,” “snick¬ersnee. "lanuginous,” whichever word’s on the son’scalendar that day. But the sounds displace every smallersense, the syllables are incandescent charms, spells that(continued on following page)12 CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986Let Truth Be the PrejudiceW. Eugene Smith: His Life and Photographsby Ben MaddowsThere is something surprising about the demystificationof a genius, the revelation of both his brutality andcompassion. So frequently we recognize great art but failto appreciate the struggles or contradictions out of whichit was born. And often we gloss over these artists’ flaws,excusing them because their work has changed ourperception of history. Despite his brilliant photographs,Gene Smith, known in his photo credits as W. EugeneSmith, must command our ambivalent regard as anindividual.His photographs little reveal the turmoil of his life;perhaps only the darkness of his prints suggest hissympathy for his subject and the idealistic fury whichfueled his creations. Ben Maddows, who wrote the textfor W. Eugene Smith: Let Truth Be the Prejudice,skillfully guides us through Smith’s life and lets us feelemotions of affection and pity, disgust for his exploitationof the people who loved him, and admiration for theglorious photographs which were the children of this fitfulcollaboration.W. Eugene Smith was born in Wichita, Kansas onDecember 30, 1918 and died in Tuscon, Arizona onOctober 15, 1978. During these years, he set himself onetask, to record by word and by photograph the humancondition. While no one can attain this. Smith virtuallysucceeded. At the University of Arizona’s Center forCreative Photography, he left 100,000 negatives from allover the world. This enormous number amounts to anaverage of a roll of film a day.Though he travelled to many foreign places on as¬signment — Europe. Africa. Japan and the Deep South —Smith still retained much of his Midwestern charm. Hewas by all accounts, clever, energetic, shy, madlycompetitive, selfishly naive, and intellectually amateur.He became famous early in his life, and suffered no realeclipse except in his own mind. Raised with the narrowoptimism of the American small town, he thrust himselfinto the mad. tolerant and cynical urban culture of postWorld War II, and found that he was unable to makepeace w ith his earlier self.He was a dramatic and intense man. Margery Lewis(who later took the name Smith), one of his lasting friendswho bore his second son. described her first impression ofSmith. “He was reticent, soft-spoken, and his wistfulhalf-smile and violet eyes of a trusting child werefetching. He was graceful in movement and even throughhis clothing you could see that he had the form of a Greekathlete.’’ Virility was very important to him. Many peopleloved him. almost too many it seems. There were at leastten women in his emotional life; two were his wives, fourwere not; three were his daughters and one. with himuntil he was 37. was his powerful mother. He used all ofthese people mercilessly, and still they loved him. Herewarded them not with money, for he was nearly alwaysbroke, but with a flattering intensity and regard. It was inthis same way that he lived his life. Everyone who knewhim testified to his love for melodrama. He threatenedsuicide scores of times, though there was never a timewhen he had to be rescued by medical means.Smith's medical history is lengthy and disturbing. Hewas hurt often, four times severely. The most dangerousthreat to his body was his addiction to amphetamines,particuarly Benzedrine, and alcohol, on which he reliedheavily in his later years. Smith's enormous output andferocious energy were.perhaps sustained by such drugs.Benzedrine kept him spinning at an exicted rate, hecouldn't sleep, had no appetite, but he knew he wasbrilliant. His addiction to uppers brought him close toparanoia.Smith always insisted that he was humble, but he wasonly in comparison to his standard of perfection. Hedemanded that he take the risks his photographs required.Once, when shooting U.S. military training maneuvers heset up a bombing shot with two soldiers. The armyrefused to let their men be used in such a high risksituation during training, so Smith and a friend sub¬stituted. The bombing ruptured Smith's eardrum. AsSmith looked at his wet prints his original excitment(continued from previous page)assault and envelop the situation. A twisted kind ofpaternal love insidiously motivates the narrator to go tor47 murders, astutely reasoning that he can sell his storyrights, through Truman Capote, for the kid s inheritance.This squinty-eyed Babylonian logic recurs in ForRupert— with no Promises, and then, under the face offrustration, in For Jerome — with Love and Kisses.Essentially, in any life, if one just thinks about it for awhile in the right light, someone must die. in order thatthe rest may continue living out their lives and values.The Rupert story initiates what will turn out into theLish cycle of obsessive monologues, developed as epi¬stolary screeads until the Peru climax, which is appar¬ently an emetic unmediated by even a typewriter. In thefirst, a man has two sons by different women, andestranged from one, he continues to protect and nurturehis second, a boy named Rupert so gifted he “could bethe President of the United goddamn States, or change thetheory of zero.” But this father discovers, as he confidesto his brother the (letter) writer, that he only has 6 monthsto live. With so short a time left to care for Pert, he disappeared, “Dam it, such a dope I am. Somebody kickme. Here I just missed getting a wonderful picture, thebest I ever made, by not raising my hand a little more andhaving my elbow bent more.” His bitter self-criticismpoisoned any victory with a feeling of defeat. His self-love and self-hatred were inextricable. Later, Smith wrotein all capitals to a friend who was studying photography,“KICK YOUR OWN PICTURES APART - DO NOTLET ADMIRING FRIENDS TELL YOU THAT THEYARE GOOD!! FOR THEY ARE NOT!! FOR THEYARE NOT GOOD!! REMEMBER THAT YOUR PIC¬TURES ARE NOT GOOD.” He added. “The sweat andtears, the personal danger, or personal interest, addnothing to a picture. There is only one thing that countson that final little slip of paper — is the picture good? —Did the photographer succeed to perfection in gettingwhat he set out to get?” Smith's denial of his own worthled him to identify with victims. Throughout his life.Smith struggled against the mid-American culture that hadcreated him. He fought to defend the voice of the victimagainst the anti-semitism, racism and anti-communismthat had been the staples of his upbringing.Smith was raised in a white Catholic middle-class homewith Black servants. Most of his family's money camefrom his mother’s southern ancestors, old slaveowners,storekeepers and distillers. His father was a quiet man.unlike Smith's mother who was a formidable woman.Smith's father committed suicide during the depressionwhen his wife refused to let him borrow money on herholdings. This event prematurely aged Smith, yet at thesame time seems to have helped preserve in him a child’sselfish desire for utter and complete love. Many of hislife’s companions did their duty as lovers, assistants andmothers.Most of Smith’s early work until World War II wasremarkably consistent. On July 25, 1934 The New YorkTimes published a photograph of the Arkansas River driedup into a plate of mud during the Dustbowl. Thephotograph was by Gene Smith, then 15. His pictureswere clever, interesting and skillfully composed, but theylacked the icy compassion of either Walker Evans or thematernal warmth of Dorthea Lange, both phtographerswith the federal Resettlement Administration of thedepression. Fundamentally Smith was too busy making aliving and reputation to have paid them much attention.Yet even during these early years Smith quarelled withthe editors of Life and Newsweek over their choice of hisphotographs. This was an idealistic struggle that wouldlast his entire life.World War II shocked him out of his efficientcomplacency. Like the many American's whose countryhad been safe from war for three generations, he feltmadness, pain, filth and horror first in strangers on thefield, and then in friends who were killed in action. Hesought to get as close to the stench of combat as possible,but was always dissatisfied with his results. In the heat of Saipan, Leyte, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, where Smith wasfinally wounded, he was transformed and. became a“moral photographer.”The 1946 exhibit of his war photographs lifted Smith'sreputation from that of a hard-working photojoumalistinto the realm of a genius. Bruce Downes, then editor ofPopular Photography wrote, “Your pictures are true andhorrible and agonizing, but they also have a movingbeauty of their own... Having seen your pictures I willnot forget them for the rest of my life.” Henri Cartier-Bresson, a member of the photographic collectiveMagnum, whom Smith met several times said, “I feelGene's photographs reflect a great turmoil. They arecaptured between the shirt and the skin; this camera,anchored in the heart, moves me by its integrity.” Smithhimself used this word integrity throughout much of hisfurious life.Smith resumed working with Life after the war, andproduced some of his richest projects of his career. HisCountry Doctor, Spanish Village. Nurse Midwife, and theSchweitzer piece are not groups of single images, butstrong collective statements which reinforce one anotherto express Smith’s moral convictions. Each of these fourprojects reveals Smith’s strong idolization of the subject.Perhaps his identification with his subjects enabled him toachieve a depth of understanding lacking in most of thephotographs of the time. As Maddows says, “We think ofBeaton's cynical, razor-edged, chic and tricky portraits;of Steichen's cool romanticism; of Karsh's faces as ifsprayed with preservative; of Avedon's corrosive imagesof the great and the celebrated; and Cartier-Bresson'scruel richness of detail. In contrast. Smith's work is farmore patient, admiring and benevolent.”Smith’s sensitivity made him acutely aware that he wasphotographing in the age of photojournalism. When inWashington taking photographs of the army he noticed theracial segregation of the generals. Smith raged, “It'srotten, like a lot of other things in this world. That showswhat I should be doing with my camera! I’m wasting mytalent on these everyday nonsense assignments — I shouldbe doing essays that save men from their misery . There'sa lot of rot. corruption, prostitution, exploitation, andmost of all bad journalism, controlled by money-madmagazine factories...I’m tormented by my ideals — Ialmost want to run free of so-called civilized shackles.”But Smith was not foolish. He realized that magazinelayout was important and covered himself with manyapproaches to a story , active and posed, framing that wastall as well as wide. Smith fought Life for more pages andfreedom in his expression. In one discussion with hisassistant Robert Harrah. Smith said. “I wanted to jumpinto the lake the other night! Life is destroying me! Idon't know what to do with anything!" Then in a typicalmelodramatic fashion Smith jumped up on his bed andrecited. “Oh agony, oh agony! What will happen to mywife? What will happen to my child? Oh agony — quotethe drunkard, never more."But Life was not an organ for producing images oftruth and compassion; it was essentially middle-classentertainment. While it pretended to listen to Smith'svalues, it listened keenly to its audience, careful not toalienate them. For years Smith had to accept Life'scompromises. In one letter to Joseph J. Thorndike Jr.,managing editor of Life. Smith wrote. "Photography, andto me this is photo-journalism, is a serious matter, and myintegrity and sincerity might be called my religion. This isnot a new attitude on my part, and most of the researchersand editors with whom I work, if not always in agreementwith my attitude at least are aware of it. In fact I have hadthe word “idealistic" tossed sneeringlv into my face onmore than one occasion. When I give myself to a story 1give myself to it completely — until publication do us part— and then frequently I grieve (and without expectationfor the failure that is Smith's), and never quite forget. "But there was no real way to reconcile the commercialideas of Life and the social and aesthetic views of GeneSmith, and on November 2. 1954 Smith resigned overtheir layout of his Schweitzer story, a photographic essayon a white doctor in Africa.The period after Life was difficult for Smith financiallyand personally . His one large project, a documentary ofPittsburgh stretched, through broken contracts, from five(continued on page 14) 3CDT3&Oo£Psights the ineluctable truth: He must kill his first-born, sofhat fragmented shards of envy and stored up hatred willnever endanger Pert’s progress with the theory of zero.The urgency that impels the writer is poignantly devel¬oped. poised so exquisitely when he claims to be able to“write a story’ that no one but the ones who most matterto him will be quite certain it is true. I do see now that itis only through the miracle of the falsehood of fiction thatI can catch up the people I love from the truth andconsequences of what they might do.” An ambiguityerupts, gradual in dawning, that the writer might be hisown brother, that he may be struggling to distance himselffrom his blood thirst by publishing it. As the possibleworlds drawn dangle and bifurcate, the imminent seri¬ousness of Lish’s contrivances amasses a force thatthreatens to shred the petty truths in which we concealourselves.For Jerome unreservedly dives through Lish’s pre¬viously tentative fortrays into banal madness. From hereto DMC is but a single pirouette. Jerome’s father calls towish him a Happy High Holy days, only to be told by animpersonal operator that the son has changed to anunlisted number; hence, the 53 page letter. The evolution, from the pellucid crispness shining in each singular story ,to this babbelogue. insanely interspersing Borscht Belthumor with retirement village anecdotes and literarypersonalities, is no less sharp and bracing than the shiftfrom sketches of powerful realist propensities into themonster dripper canvases in the case of Jackson Pollock.The analogy suggested here is striking, even as itricochets. Lish wields formidable credentials in theliterary world (i.e. New York), and yet the appeal of hislater work is scarcely more accessible than modem artever was. Perhaps, one might pretend to say, his greattalent now aspires to recapitulate the Hindu cosmologyimplied in the doctrine of maya and lila. Limber,ascetically bony sannyasin sit around contemplating thepossiblity that the Godhead is so dazzlingly clever that it’sspinning away its unlimited powers, throughout the longand tedious kali yurga. by tricking itself into feeble,limited and all too mortal forms. With perhaps Faulkner'sBenjie as a faint precursor, Lish appears to be grapplingwith the dangerous project of creating a literature thataims point blank at the ignorant, mundane, and mon¬otonous.by Jack Climacs YYYYYYYYCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986 SmithattheDawnofMoreSmith•PoliticallyNotAbstract Sweet Willby Philip LevineWhere Water Comes Together with Other Waterby Raymond CarverIn a 1977 interview with Studs Terkel, Philip Levineconfessed to having read Terkel's Division Street whileliving in Spain, “not for the point it was making but justto hear American talk.’’ In this interview, and others citedin his collection Don’t Ask, Levine comes across as theliterary aspect of what the sixties were about.The biographical sketch which appears in severalvolumes of his poetry describes how “after a successionof several stupid jobs he left the city for good, living invarious parts of the country.” Levine's poems seem toseize certain people and events, and plant them so firmlyon the page that further change — through time or deathor any other natural occurrence — is no longer possible.Past and present compress: I began this poem in thepresent/ because nothing is past.”Tess Gallagher has commented about this nature oftime, in which a poem represents both the actual and thepotential:The time of the poem is not linear, is not the timeof “this happened, then this, then this,” though Imay speak in that way until I am followed and thelanguage leads me out of its use into its pos¬sibilities. No one is buried so deeply in the past thathe may not enter the moment of the poem, the pointof all possibilities where the words give breath, in are-imagining, so we know what was as what it isnow and what it can become.The voice which runs through these interviews andthrough his latest book of poetry is that of the workingman. He is an urban poet whose vision is more at homeon the paved streets and in factories than in wooden glens.His poetry lacks the abstraction and murky symbolismwhich mars so much of modern poetry. Instead. Levinemanages to speak in a straightforward manner whichnevertheless does not become prosaic.Sometimes wistful. Levine's work reclaims a time ofinnocence. Wisteria tells of his boyhood love for theproverbial girl-next-door. When the girl moved away withher family:I went on spring after spring leaden with desire half-asleep,praying to die. Now I knowthose prayers were answered.That boy died, the brick housesdeepened and darkened with rain,age, use, and finally closedtheir eyes and dreamed the sleepof California.The menial jobs he held have their own poetry in thisvolume. Many of the poems such as A Poem with NoEnding, in Part II, celebrate the lonely man who findshimself at odds with modern, mechanistic society. Thephysical surroundings of that age have changed:I passed the old house and saweven from the front that four treeswere gone, and beside the drivea wire cage held nothing.This poem traces memories of family concerns, ofhigh points of pleasure, and moments of pain andconfusion. His political stance runs through the poems,but without the cloying romanticism which marred somany writers of the sixties. There are no daisies in gunbarrels in his work. Instead, confronted with the destruc¬tion of war. he asks:How many lives were torn apartin those years? How many young menwent off as ours did but nevercame back?Levine’s work is crafted with a strong, disciplinedhand. His lines show a judicious sense of enjambment andlength, which augments the narrative style of so many ofthe poems.Raymond Carver's first major collection of poemsshares a sense of intensity with Levine. But whileLevine’s brooding comes from the experience of a mantrapped by socio-political forces outside of his control.Carver’s hero cannot control his political chaos.Carver’s readers will find that his verse shares similarconcerns with his short stories. Like Levine. Carveravoids the use of the common conventions which readersexpect of a poet. His poetry approaches the diction of hisshort stories, and they work because of that. His use ofnatural surroundings is secondary to the stories he tells ofdisappointment and loss, of the difficulty of living in anunpredictable world:There’s plenty to do,God knows. Plenty of grim work in the days, and months,ahead. Shamil is cut there in the moutains some¬where —or maybe he’s on the Steppes. The scenery islovely,you can be sure, and this is but a rough recordof the actual and the passing.Carver’s poems are deceptively simple, w ithout the cloakof a private symbol system. But it is their very simplicitywhich makes them so accessible and therefore so moving.When he allows himself the luxury of self-imitation, hispoems falter. One technique which he overuses is theincomplete sentence. Used sparingly, they provide force,emphasis, surprise. Carver, however, uses them in mostof these poems, with the dulling effect of blocking therhythm of the line:Say I did that, in the simple way I’ve described.From bed to desk back to childhood.From there it’s not so far to the trestle.And from the trestle I could look downand see my dad when I needed to see him.My dad drinking that cold water. My sweet father.The river, its meadows, and firs, and the trestle.That. Where I once stood.This is a mild fault which should not dissuade thereader from exploring Carver’s poems. His strength isunderstatement, a way to bring the pain of the humancondition into scrutiny with a subtlety that is chilling. MyDaughter and Apple Pie. quoted in full, illustrates this:She serves me a piece of it a few minutesout of the oven. A little steam risesfrom the slits on top. Sugar and spice-cinnamon—burned into the crust.But she’s wearing these dark glassesin the kitchen at ten o’clockin the morning—everything nice—asshe watches me break offa piece, bring it to my mouth.and blow on it. Mv daughter's kitchen,in winter. I fork the pie inand tell myself to stay out of it.She says she loves him. No waycould it be worse.Carver's collection shows that he is one of those rarewriters who can handle both poetry and fiction well.by Martha Vertreace(continued from page 13)weeks to five months. Smith saw the Pittsburgh project assome of his best work. While some of the photographsmake definite social statements, the streets in the poorBlack ghettoes named. Pride Street. Loyal Way. andDream Street, scores of them say nothing but only reveala “modest beauty, a gentle and melancholy lyricismwhich is another face of Smith's genius.” In 1958 thisproject was finally published with Smith’s own originallayout and text.Smith's last projects were centered in Japan. DuringWorld War II he had described the Japanese as barelyhuman, “little men with plenty of fight.” In 1968 theHitachi corporation hired Smith for a year for an adcampaign, and paid for his book Japan: a Chapter ofImage. Smith was not entirely happy during this year, butwas there anywhere that he could be happy? After theHitachi project, which in some resemble the Pittsburghstory . Smith did portraits of the jazz artists Buddy Rich.Duke Ellington, and Stan Getz. These photographs reflectmore of Smith than did his earlier portraits of classicalmusicians. During this period Smith was repeatedlyhospitalized for ulcers and later in Bellevue Hospital foraddiction (A charge Smith later denied). Smith, like otherphotographers, reached a slack period in his life, asMaddows writes, “almost as if the very multiplicity of(his) images (had) exhausted (his) capacity for seeing.”In 1970, Magnum, under the direction of Cornell Capa sponsored an exhibit of Smith at the Jewish Museum inNew York. Only three days before opening Smith, hisfuture second wife Aileen Sprague and his assistant LeslieTeicholz, whom he met at Woodstock, finished mountingthe mammoth exhibit of 600 prints. In some sense thisexhibit was Smith's revenge, for it contained manyphotographs which had been rejected by life.Smith’s final project was in a small Japanese fishingtown. In the fifties a large chemical firm. Chisso, had aplant nearby, which used mercury' as a catalyst foracetaldehyde which was the basis for that relic of the 20thcentury: plastic. The waste water from the plant wasdumped into the sea where it was absorbed by theplankton. The mercury was absorbed and worked its wayup the food chain as an organic poison, ending up in thefish which are still a mainstay of the Japanese diet. Thisnon-lethal dose of mercury crippled its victim. By 1968Chisso had replaced mercury with another catalyst, butthey could not replace the 600 tons of mercury on thefloor of Minamata Bay. Chisso knew all of this; thefactory hospital had reproduced the disease in cats byfeeding them similar doses of organic mercury. In 1970one of the photographers who had worked with Smith onthe Hitachi project alerted Gene and Aileen of theproblem.In Minamata the fact and the photograph of the factwere intimately connected. Smith’s photographs becamemore dramatic and less journalistic. He was creating another true legend, the most famous of these photographswas that of the cripple staring-eyed girl. 15-year oldTomoko Uemura being bathed by her mother. Smithprinted more and more darkly as he went along. Maddowsdescribes how “His sense of identity with the victim, as afellow sufferer, gave him a special vision, as if he werephotographing, so to speak from inside the subject'smind.” The Smith’s work at Minamata was interrupted onJanuary 7. 1972 when Smith was attacked by Chissounion members outside their plant at Chiba.Aileen Sprague Smith, worn out by the Minamataproject which had stretched from two months to threeyears, stayed with Gene until the Minamata book wascompleted. When he an Aileen separated in 1975 hemoved in with a young photographer. Sherry Suris, whowas to stay with him until he died.Smith's health was rapidly deteriorating. He wasdiagnosed much too late as being a diabetic. His frequentdrinking did nothing to alleviate his condition. WithSherry's help he moved his entire archives to theUniversity of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography.Then on December 23, 1977, shortly after Aileen sued fordivorce, he suffered a massive cerebral stroke. After herecovered he continued to teach and work on hisautobiographical “book.” Smith continued to drinkheavily. When looking for one of his strayed cats Smithhad his second stroke, and he died the next day, SundayOctober 15. 1978.There is something particularly paintful about Smith’sdeath. It reveals the sense of how we all engineer our ownends. Perhaps had Smith lived differently, he could havelived longer. But despite all of this, we are left to balancehis loving tyrannies and addictions against the sheerweight of his accomplishment. As an artist in the “bazaarof commodities” Smith fought against conformity. Hishatred of authority was another side to his compassion andhumanity. But Smith, like any artist longed for approvalon his own terms; his stimulants, pills or inhalants, andhis depressants temporarily removed these tensions, andalways returned him to the world, desperate, sad andangry even at the time of his greatest successes.In some sense Gene Smith was a martyr to modernphotography, which increasingly deals in cliched imagessuited to a mass market, he sacrificed his health, familyand career in the pursuit of integrity. It was the intensityof his life, rather than its breadth which gave his worksuch a powerful quality.Maddows faced eleven tons of material from Smith’sdiaries, personal letters, war dispatches and photographs.He blended Smith’s words with his own. photograph withtext, sympathy with criticism. But through out the bookwe sense Smith struggling to speak for himself, tearingthe pen away and writing his own story, refusing to let usglorify him. an in so far as he is able, letting truth be theprejudice. And in his incomprehensible and angry rhetoricSmith will say, “And I photograph—my name is dumb.Anger and Sorrow fire the universe of my being. Andpain is the searing twister causing freeze. I have much tosay, including apologies, philosophies, and complaints. Iam late to the track of the dollar, traced somehow withinthe forest mechanical upon its floor of concrete. Thespoor of my prey is repellant even as 1 eagerly race afterit—who is whom, whom is who. who's who on theracetrack circle.”by Anjali Fedson14 CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986INALSWEEK SPECIALonly v Per copyw (For Self Service Copying)And we’re expanding our hours just for youThursday, June 5 we’re open 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.Friday, June 6 we’re open 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.Saturday, June 7 we’re open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.970 E. 58th Street, 1st Floor Bookstore BuildingMe COPYCENTERA DIVISION OF THE PRINTING DEPARTMENTCHirAr.n LITERARY REVIEW—TRID AY JUNE 6,TheLongandtheShortofIt “RedeemThe Time. RedeemThe unread vision in the higher dream.—T.S. Eliot Ash WednesdayI. PreviewThere is a growing discontent among reflective people,including some scientists, teachers, and students, with theprevailing mode of understanding and explaining human¬kind and nature. Simply put. our dominant pre¬suppositions and premises of thought are perceived as asancient and deeply obsolete.Such currently held notions as the Cartesian dualismseparating ‘mind’ and ‘body.’ Cartesian materialist re-ductionism, and the various corollary separations thathave arisen in our Western culture between humankindand society and humankind and the larger ecology areintellectually obsolete. Available thinking today offersdemonstrably better ways of understanding the world.We set out to explore the implied challenge in a simplefashion. Firstly, we obtained numerous responses fromstudents to a request for “the two most importantquestions of your life.” Secondly, we interviewed a dozenadministrators, faculty, students, and alumni of theCollege after each one had read the complete collection ofResponses (see below).Before proceeding further, the reader may find ithelpful to keep in mind three guiding metaphors andmyths. The curriculum with its collection of courses isvisualized as a patchwork quilt of shifting patterns. Ourtightly stitched quilt will provide protection, at least,against the vagaries of the social climate. But, unless thesingle patches are so interrelated in a succession ofaesthetically and spiritually moving patterns and sub¬patterns of color and design, the whole will offer coldcomfort to the soul.The student’s college experience is equated to that stageof heroic journey of Theseus when he encounters Prooc-rustes. Procrustes offered travelers a night's rest on oneof two iron beds. The short ones were presented with avery large bed and forcibly stretched to fit. The tall oneswere tried in a short bed and suitably shortened bychopping off a portion of their legs. Theseus was the firstto defeat Procrustes and punished him in a mannerbefitting his crimes.Finally, we adopted a symbolic interpretation of ourentire experience of this venture as a dialectic play ordance between Dionysian fall and Appolonian rise. Wesought the pulse and rhythm of thought and action of eachindividual involved in this enterprise including ourselves.At all levels of participation, we saw seeming opposites —dark Dionysian imagination and light Appolonian ration¬ality, thought and action, body and spirit, the masculineand the feminine — harmoniously and gracefully inter¬woven, yearning and moving towards embrace, or lockedinto a static dominating/submitting relationship.II. InterviewsWe began with an interview of Dr. Clifford Gurney,professor in the Bio Common Core. Dr. Gurney combinesthe special concerns of a physician-healer with those of ateacher. He was deeply impressed by the seriousness andcogency of the student Responses and noted that the issuesrequire further exploration; perhaps best done underinformal circumstances.Gurney forsaw some obstacles in the process ofaddressing these issues, — after all, there is a significantgenerational-cultural gap separating Gurney from thestudents. Also, trained as a professional and accustomedto dependence upon specialist advice, he was mostreluctant to venture upon the unfamiliar ground ofreligion, ethics, and metaphysics in his classes withoutexpert guidance.Prof. Langdon Gilkey, a philosophical theologian wasfascinated with the students Responses. He noted thattheir many questions about the existence of God indicateda search for meaning. He says, “I was impressed with theability of people in our pluralistic world to focus on thesequestions of the meaning of life, and the relation of themeaning of life to any larger meaning, which is wherehumanism shades into the word ‘God.’Even the seemingly trivial questions revealed to him adesperate attempt to pretend that nothing was at stake.The bulk of the responses were on “ultimate” and“religious” concerns — the basic questions in anyreligion.On the social significance of the Responses, Mr. Gilkeyhad this to say (see his address at Denison Univ., 1981,entitled, “Theology and Education for a Time of Trou¬bles”): we are facing a Time of Troubles, a period ofgrowing tension, difficulty and conflict” — “widelyexpressed in literature, art. and reflective commentary; itis even more universally felt, and by old and young alike,especially perhaps by the young.”And how should the University react? Gilkey thinks itmight take these Responses as a guiding suggestion forchange. In paraphrase of A.N. Whitehead — “A culturethat doesn't apply to its reason to these ultimate symbolsupon which its life is founded is an irrational culture.”The College and the Graduate Divisions are involvedprimarily with imparting skills, while the spirit oftenremains untouched.The term “self' was originally used by Gilkey to avoidthe implications of the term “soul” in Christian theology.He later thought that “spirit” was closer than self to hisintended meaning. We prefer the word “soul” in this andother contexts in Plato’s usage as explicated by JamesHillman (Revisioning Psychology). Soul refers to that“—which makes meaning possible, turns events intoexperiences, in communicated in love, and has a religiousconcern.” By “—soul I mean the imaginative possibilityin our natures, the experiencing through reflective specu- 1. a.b2. a.3. a.b4. a.5. a.b6. a.b8. a.b.9. a.b,10. a.b.11. a.b.12. a.b.13. a.b.14. a.b.15 a.b.16. a.b.17. a.b.18. a.19. 9.10.11.1. a.b.3. a.bb.8. a.b.9. a.b.1. a.b.2. a.b. Group A 6. aWhy are we here on earth? (What is my purpose?)What are my responsibilities as a human being? 7. aWhat purpose do human beings serve?Does God exist?Why do fear, anxiety, and depression plague my life?What will I finally study here (major in)?What has determined the order of the universe?Why does man have the idiosyncrasies he has and why ishe not worse off? •What is my purpose (or for that matter anyone else's)here on earth? I suppose I ask this with respect to myrecord question which is .Wherein lies human happiness?How can I clear away the distractions that plague me?Should I be virtuous or wicked?Why is it so difficult for people to get along with oneanother (and their world)?How different are we—or can we be—from one another?When will they find a cure for diabetes?Will 1 absorb enough knowledge to get into and throughmedical school?Does God exist?How much do men and women differ according to Bio-(not sociological differences but biological ones!). 4.Why do I exist? (or) Why am I here, at least?How does the world become peaceful?What am 1 doing to do when I graduate? What career 5.will I have? W’ill I be successful?How will I ever finish my BA paper? 6.Am I virtuous enough?Will people ever get along?Does she love me? 7.Do I love her?What is the meaning of life?What will the future bring?Where am I (we) going?And why?Why am 1 here, i.e. U. of Ch.?Why do I have such an “abnormal’’ extended family?Why are we here? For what purpose are we placed onthis earth? I cannot help believe that man just fits into asystem, a creature who lives—eats, works, reproduces toensure the continuity of the species and dies. There mustbe some higher purpose for which I was placed in thisuniverse.Why am 1 here? If man is here for some purpose, I, b.perhaps, have some special reason for existence. 13. a.(This one I’d like to figure out soon.) b.How can I experience a great amount of new things in a 14. a.way in which I can act effectively from what I’velearned without wasting time by making the same b.mistakes over again?How can I really get involved with other people in a way 15. a.that brings out the really human and bonding qualitiesnatural to both of us? b.Why am I alive?What defines good? 16. a.Is there a solution to the world’s problem of hate and b.war? 17. a.What will the world be like in the future in all ways?Is there life after death?Is there a God? b.Is there life on other planets? 18. a.Is there a God? b.Can I live forever?Group B 19. a.If men were abie to get pregnant, do you think they b.would enjoy having sex? 20. a.Of all things in the world, what would you choose to be b.the most valuable toward protection in having sex? 21. a.How??? Can you figure it all out? b.Is life in general factual or opinionated? 22. a.I’m a little nervous about beings a success in life. I’msure that I will, but, I would like to know the secret tothis very puzzling game. b.How can man gain immortality on this earth?When 1 dwell into the scientific world my questions are 23. a.obvious and have already been stated. So, I tend toanswer questions rather than state them. For example, b.since man develops materials to protect him, is man’sown protective material needed anymore? 24. a.Is the world coming to an end soon and if so will I bedoomed to hell even though I have committed only slight b.sins (lie, already)? What is the secret of perpetual youth, or could I liveforever?a. I understand that life scientifically began with anorganism. Has any new discovery been made about howthat living organism got here in the first place. I needfacts/proof.a. Where does human emotion originate?b. Theoretically, how does man classify life?a. How does the sun come into being?a. Do you think that there is an easy way to success: If so,explain.b. Why do we go to school?a. What is humanly possible?b. Is science (truth) man’s conception of phenomena ortruly universal laws?b.11 a.b.12. a. Group DWho am I—what is the being that is me in this bodymade up of?What does my life consist of?Will I be happy and successful (e.g. am I being good toothers, etc.)?What should 1 do with life?What is being good?What will I be able to accomplish in the field or career Ichoose?Who will I share my life with?What do I want out of life?What do I do about accomplishing these goals?Am 1 happy (asked daily)—is my life worthwhile?Am I doing something to change my situation, if I amnot happy?Will I fulfill this yearning to really realize who I am asan individual, citizen, and human being?How, why or why not?Will I become successful in my occupation?Will I have a fulfilling personal life?What contribution to the world can I make to the worldin my life?How can I be happy or find fulfillment in life?What am I going to do after I graduate?Who am I going to do it with?What will happen to me when I die?Does God exist?How do I learn how to learn something I don’t know anddon’t know how to learn?Am I in love?What am I? (What is this thing I call me)Why am I here? (on earth)Have I no real value, according to the things I wish toachieve?Am I a despicable human being and why does it matterif I am?Am 1 happy in my life doing whatever it is I’m doing?(at this moment or at any time in the future?)What is my impact on others and the world aroundme—good or positive, bad or negative, nil?When will I get out of the U of C?Will I be happy with my major in the future?Is my feeling that there is a God or power that presidesover our lives real or true, or is it only a response toconditioning by social standards and practices?What will I do with my life?What contains the Universe?What gives rise to order in the Universe or what isenergy?Who am I?What is love?How can we achieve social justice?How can I best serve my God?Who am I going to marry?What will be my profession?How can I best fulfill myself within my work? To whatextent is that fulfillment dependent upon “career” and towhat extent will it be purely the “work.”In what way will love and a somewhat traditional familylife figure into my life? Compatible with my work?Whether or not I will end up with a decent summer job?(I am a 3rd year)Whether or not I will end up with a decent job after Igraduate?Have I made an effort to always improve myself andlearn so that I feel I have lived my life to the fullest?Have I always tried to help others, and not make othersfeel isolated or unwanted?The first set of Responses from college students (GroupA) was obtained in 1982. During the first week of thequarter the students were asked to “write upon smallcards the two most important questions of your life.”Maximum time for responses was five minutes; nameswere to be omitted. All of the cards were copied withoutediting. All of the Responses from U.C. college studentswhich were subsequently obtained (Groups D, E, F, and G) met the same conditions. The collection of Responsesfrom other groups, i.e.. Group B consisting of 4th yearhigh school students. Group C consisting of students fromColumbia College (Chicago), and Group H consisting ofU.C. college alumni of the class of 1936 differed in minorrespects only. Only a selection from the replies receivedfrom a total of 185 individuals appears here. Copies of thecomplete collection are on Reserve at Regenstein Library.lation. dream, image and fantasy — that mode whichrecognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or met¬aphorical.”Gilkey points out a problem in the University's generalapproach to knowledge, “mainly that it makes anintellectual object out of everything and therefore, since itcarries that all the way through, it doesn’t know what todo with the most important things in life.”“In the study of religion, for example, there’s onething left out — You’ve got theology, ethics, social studyof religion — you've got everything except this . . . (Hepoints to his chest) . . . Piety. On the whole, theUniversity after the Enlightenment has not felt this is anissue it can concern itself with. I hear good theology, lotsof ethics, but the soul is dried up.”The quest for meaning shown by the Responses haslittle to do with formal education, according to Prof.Wendy O’Flaherty. Soul cannot be a direct goal of theeducational experience, simply because the faculty cannotdesign a curriculum so that the student will emerge fromthe College with a soul. However, the College must makeavailable the resources of the great “soul-makers” (seeher “Aims of Education” address in The Maroon, 9/27/85).As far as soulmaking itself goes, she said “You can atbest create the situations in which it might happen.”She went on to recount an East Indian story about two different ways of learning. The question is whether God ismore like a mother cat or a mother monkey. The babymonkey must hold on tightly while the mother swings inthe trees gathering food. The baby cat is carried in themother's mouth, has little choice about where it goes. Acat school, says O'Flaherty, is “a school about in¬direction, chance, and impotence in achieving enlight¬enment.” She went on to say that the University tends tobe more of a monkey school. “I think most undergraduateeducation should involve both schools. To think that it isall monkey is to make a mistake. The cat mother idea isthat a lot of it can’t be put into a curriculum. Some of thiscannot be done systematically.” When we asked if inpreparing its curriculum, the College might in some wayacknowledge those aspects of learning that are non-curricular, O'Flaherty retorted “Don't expect it.”Prof. Herman Sinaiko, Dean of Students, observed thatthe students’ questions were of the type that could comeright out of the Humanities common core. This countersO Flaherty's impression that the responses were “ques¬tions a priest or rabbi would help with, rather than aHumanities Core instructor.” However, Sinaiko wouldprefer not to call the questions ’religious,” as that wouldplace them in traditional contest of religion and familyrather than the College context of reasoned discussiondistant from doctrinaire belief.Students should sec such “ultimate” questions as(continued on page 17)16 CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986relevant to their lives hut expect to discuss them explicitlyin the classroom only under very special circumstances.The questions are great for “bull sessions” in dormswhere, unfortunately, the atmosphere tends to be in¬tellectually “undisciplined and sort of sloppy." Sinaikowould wish to bring the bull sessions into his classroomwhere subjectivity is avoided and “intelligible reality”rules. For example, although students are apparentlyconcerned with Virtue, they arc reluctant to discuss thistopic in a curricular context.Sinaiko thought the newly devised sequence bringingphysical and biological sciences together in the CommonCore will be a wonderful corrective to many mis¬conceptions. The heads of the “kids” (Sinaiko frequentlyused this term rather than “students”) today are stuffedwith received opinions, with views of the world that arenot perceived as such — they do not know that thedivision between the physical sciences and the biologicalsciences is entirely conventional.Most of Sinaiko's initiatives have been taken in theextracurricular context of students' lives. Quality of lifeissues are enormously important but largely neglected."We are throwing away three fourths of the energy whichgoes into their education." Retention of students withmaintenance of high standards of intellectual achievementdemands great attention to the fostering of maturation forthose who need it.Professor of Biochemistry. John Westley noted that thestudent questions are not those that scientists normallyask. at least, in their professional lives. But such issuesfall within the context of a broad Liberal Education. Heraised the issue of the limits of enquiry and of how theyare set. Prof. James Teeri. of the Biology Dept., wasastonished at the large number of questions of deep,personal significance and also by the depth of unsecurityand uncertainty of purpose they revealed.Both Westley and Teeri have been involved in design¬ing the new sequence of Common Core courses(mentioned above) which is to debut in Fall, 1986. Thevery existence of this new sequence implies considerationof such questions as were raised in the Responses. Whythe new sequence? Largely because, Teeri says, “The oldways of teaching, particularly to non-science majors, arepretty sterile.”This situation will be greatly improved by the 6-qtr.sequence entitled “Natural Sciences” and built upon theclose collaboration of faculty from both the PhysicalScience and Biological Science Divisions. The aim of thesequence is to weave together into a common fabric thestories of physical and biological evolution beginning withproblems of the origin of the physical universe and theorigin of life.Several problems may be foreseen. Although thesequence has been designed for non-science majors, it isthe science majors who are the more seriously deficient ofthe two groups in understanding their world. And they —the science majors — are unlikely to select this sequencein preference to the much more technical alternatives thatthey need in their areas of specialization. Finally, whenTeeri was asked about the inclusion of such topics asepistemology and Cartesian reductionism, he replied thatways of viewing facts will be more important than thefacts, but that a part of the teaching necessarily will be“reductionist” because — “that's the way 1 earn myliving.”Prof. Kathleen Shelton. Master of the HumanitiesCollegiate Division, views the primary function of Hu¬manities to provide students with texts, ways of thinkingabout fundamental topics (many very similar to those ofthe Responses). Further, its purpose is to develop theskills necessary for written critical expression.We puzzled over the reasons for the several titlechanges of a proposed new Common Core requirement inthe Humanities. The first title was “Non-verbal Human¬ities” which was subsequently changed to the “Non¬verbal Arts” which finally came to known as “Music andthe Visual Arts.” The reasons for the name-change weremade perfectly clear to us. In Shelton's view the originallabelling of courses as “non-verbal” was literally“graceless.” Furthermore, the language itself was ob¬viously “pejorative.” particularly, “—in a society asverbal as ours.” Thus, we might regard music and thevisual arts to be our non-verbal texts. But. that does notmean that one's responses to them must be non-verbal.We then asked whether the Humanities should have aspecial place in Liberal Education, especially for a societywhich grants the natural sciences a dominant status in ourculture. Furthermore, the well known philospher. A.N.Whitehead, had already noted some fifty years ago thateducation in the sciences was apt to produce moral andaesthetic blindness, particularly in scientists and affirmedthat “the fertilization of the soul is the reason for thenecessity of art.” Shelton's response came quickly. “He’svery romantic.”We showed the Responses to a 4th-year student in theCollege, a male graduating in History. He felt that hisquestions had changed throughout his undergraduateexperience. “When I was a freshman, he said, ‘I w’asmuch more into rational thought — 1 assumed theimportance of intellectual pursuit." Therefore, he couldunderstand a lot of the questions that dealt with issues ofsuccess in school, in career, etc. In experiencing pro¬foundly the limits of rationality, he came to look onintellectual pursuits in a much different light. Powerfuldirect experiences — immediate experiences beyondwords — sparked a revolution in his beliefs, leading himto ask much different questions. He was struck by certainpeople he had met here — other students and professors— who were well-read, well-studied, and very articulate,who use their power with words to say “There are otherthings besides words.” He noticed this in his own studiesas well, adding “All my intellectual striving has comedown to this: So what?” He felt fortunate that this waswhere he had ended up after his education. Some people. he felt, get to the limits of academic values and retreatquickly into the more familiar world of the ‘known.’ Hesaid that “A lot of the professors around here who I’vedealt with act like their thing is where it begins and whereit ends. It’s important; I think there should be people inour society who think that way and work that way. but . .. put it in perspective. It’s just like anything else.” Helooks forward to getting out of here this June, not toescape the University necessarily, but to feel freer toexplore other kinds of experience, and therefore, learnother things.Another student, also a fourth year male in the College,was surprised by the self-centeredness and absence ofcommunity he perceived in the Responses. He said itseemed that “the people are obsessed with whether theyare doing right or wrong, but you don't see much aboutconnections with other people. I didn't see much caring,much community.”He went on to express his own regrets at not havingbeen more involved in other things besides schoolworkover his four years here. “I could have done an awful lotmore to help people. There's plenty of time.” To somedegree, he felt the College’s approach to academics hadhad a hand in limiting the social involvement of students.“The emphasis, unfortunately, is to much on the class¬room. I mean, studying facts alone while Humanity’s allabout us. . . There's very little emphasis on currentinteraction. No time! No time! They're all running aroundsaying there's no time.” He went on to say “I could havedone an awful lot more to help people. There’s plenty oftime.”He felt that the people in the University communityneeded to put more energy towards communing in thatthere are important forces of learning there that cannot beJim’s ExperienceOik day. when my son, Jim, was eight years old and inthird grade at the University of Chicago LaboratorySchool, he returned home unusually late. The followingmorning my wife and I received a summons rom theschool.When we arrived at the school, we were greeted by atearful teacher with the school psychologist who an¬nounced that Jim had done a “rerrible thing.”it seems that on the previous day, our son had beenkept after school for some relatively minor infraction ofthe rules. This "terrible thmg" Jim had done was evidentin a note lettered in a childish hand which read as follows:"Dear Miss Tracey — I'm mad angry and I am goinghome. What is more I am going to tell everybody what Iknow about you. You are a phony teacher.”The following day, Jim came home at the usual time,sat down on his bedroom floor, and commenced playingwith his toys. Soon, be started repeating loudly, over andover again, the word “Phoney.” When my wife askedhim, "Please Jim. tell me, what’s a phony?” he repliedwithout a moment’s hestitatton, “A phoney is a personwho asks you questions but already knows the answers. ”~MMharnessed in a text in a classroom, or in a room at all!“Non-intellectual experience is important.” said he.“because you’re not expected to quantify it, you're notexpected to analyze it to death.” Then we all laughed alittle about his use of the word ’death.'The last student we spoke with was a second-yearstudent considering a major in Anthropology. Her firstresponse to the questions was that she didn't think fiveminutes would be enough time to come up with the mostimportant question of one's life. In time, she said, thisopinion changed, because she felt that people must havethought about them before they were asked to recordthem. On the whole, she saw the questions ranging frompersonal concerns (e.g. what will I do?) to generalconcerns (e.g. Is there a God?). For her own part, she feltshe would probably ask one of each.We got onto interesting ground when we started tospeak of her studies. She wondered “if it is ethical to lookat other cultures. Maybe it's not appropriate to go thatfar." She was concerned that the anthropological studyshe saw going on was intrusive, doing more harm to theobserved than good for the observer, and she evenwondered if the knowledge gained that way was super¬ficial. She said that she always had asked the question ofthe ethical basis of the study of other cultures in herclasses and this pretty much always received the sameanswer — "For the purpose of this class, we cannot reallyaddress this question.”As far as the major question of her life, she felt theyhad not changed drastically since she had come here,though “my approach to answering them has changed —not that 1 have any answers. I just think about thequestions differently.”III. Overview — What is this thing called LiberalEducation?There is nothing more damaging to the process oflearning than dogmatism. In fact, the capacity to riseabove (or sink below ) dogmatism is precisely what shouldbe cultivated in an institution devoted to liberal education.Dogmatism is often subtle and difficult to detect, especi¬ally in one's ow n way of thinking.A system of thinking is dogmatic when it restricts itsresponses to only those aspects of experience that it cancope with, and simply refuses to recognize any value inthose that it cannot. It denies the status of reality to allaspects of the world that slip through its net. and it can dothis because it claims to know what constitutes reality.Open-minded thinking, or general openness, is the signof a healthy individual, capable of interaction andcommunion. A closed individual wishes to avoid inter¬action. or will interact only on predetermined andaccepted terms. A dogmatic individual wishes to repro¬duce asexually. to spawn ideas without allowing anyforeign information to invade the gene pool and alter thebasis of their beliefs. Closedness is equilavent to stagna¬ tion, living death, refusal to change. Openness, however.does not necessarily lead to formlessness, although it isprecisely this fear that drives a person to dogmatism. Thisfear grows out of an inability to deal with vulnerability,out of a way of constructing meaning-systems that fallapart if pressed on their weak points (e.g. the hole in thedike. Achille's heel). Yet. any way of living in the worldand communicating must have at least one input from theoutside world, if it hopes to be able to adapt, and adaptresponsibly to the changing environment. The outsideworld is, however, at times wild, at times unpredictable— so a system of thinking that is open to the outside willsometimes have to accept some knowledge that isunpredicted and unexpected.When it comes down to it, we are always stuck withour way of thinking: the desire to be open should not leadone to abandon their point of view. Open-mindednessdoes not have to be that drastic. It merely means allowingone fissure where the not-yet-known can seep in. Theunfolding of the unknown is what we call spontaneity.When the not-yet-known reveals itself, there is thepossibility for a truly unexpected event — a newknowledge that was not accounted for in the previoussystem of ordering the world. Sometimes, a system ofordering works pretty well over a relatively small domain;then, it is tempting to direct one's energy towardssuppressing spontaneity. Spontaneity — the emergence ofthe unknown — then become the only thing that can makethe system vulnerable, and vulnerability is the only thingthat threatens the continuation of the system. Thus, we seehow, through determined effort, we can force a system towork beyond its natural and proper life-span. And thus,you can see how we are dogmatic in our fierce rejectionof dogmatism. Now, it is the proper time to tell a story:When I first came to school. I was utterly seduced bythe power of pure reason. / felt like I had discovered thekey to understanding. But soon that got out of hand. Iascribed to rational thinking an absoluteness, I believed itto be the path to enlightenment. This is an easy trap to fallinto, because in most cases logical thinking has a built-invindication that subsumes all other types of knowledgeunder its own. It has the danger of becoming a closedsystem of understanding, one that claims to describe all ofthe world in its own terms. By its decrees some things are' ‘true.'' others are ' 'false.'' ' 'meaningless, "or ‘ ‘in¬significant. ” But a closed system can offer only verylimited possibilities of learning, and this contradicted myoverriding desire to have a truly liberal education.Therefore. I was confused. On one hand. I could feel thepower of logos and was tempted to follow its through toits absolute power But on the other hand, one thread ofmy personality still said "So" — one small voicereminded me that the whole idea of secure knowledge is adead end. It said "You'll never really know for sure, sowhy don ’t you go do your laundry instead?" This was theone thread of my personality that is rooted in the earth —in the overall, communal context of nature. As the y earsof study went on. this small voice grew louder, and Ilistened to it more. As recognition of my place in alarger, mostly unknown framework grew, so did thepossibility of my ever really learning any thing. "Chaos. ”I realized, "is precisely what is missing from mystudies." Sure, we talk about infinity and randomness inschool, but we do it within a controlled framework. As /gradually withdrew my undying devotion to rationality,spontaneity creeped up through the cracks, and trulyunexpected things started to happen — things / couldn'talways control or understand very well. Buy my life tookon a different character — spontaneity acted like a gluethat could hold all of the disparate elements of my lifetogether.Yet spontaneity is spontaneity , and chaos really meansrelinquishing control, not within limits, but totally . Ibegan to miss the secure knowledge I had found before onthe pages of books. That was once something I could trustand be sure of. and all I had to do was go ahead and learnit w ithout questioning. Sow that there was the possibilityof the unanticipated bursting into my life, nothing seemedr<x) stable. But along with this instability came somethingI cherish more — the possibility of learning — in thebroadest sense from any thing. of acquiring a truly liberaleducation and not only learning about all w ithin a limitedsy stem of "True" and "False. " — GDWe want to become responsible individuals, capable ofacting responibly in all the situations we go into. Asystem of learning, the curriculum, only offers some partof the things we need to become individuals with at leastthe possibility of acting responsibly. Some things arelearned, as Wendy O'Flaherty puts it. only “accident¬ally” — spontaneously. Not all of the things at play in thelearning process, not even the most important ones, canbe controlled by the College, and it is important to(continued on page 18)CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6 1Q8* SpontaneityandChaosintheCurriculum^“Science comprehends the thought oflife, not life.” ,—Bakunin(continued from page 17)recognize and acknowledge those ‘wilder’ elements ofeducation. Learning in the classroom is sterile learning ifit never leaves the realm of the vicarious to take fo. m inaction. Action takes piace out in the field, in the co: textof someone’s “real life,” and therefore leads to inter¬action. In action, what has been learned is truly tested,and its deeper, less literal meaning is revealed. We studyethics, go on to write about ethics in a paper or in a book,but how much of this emerges as ethical action?This is not an attempt to discredit the activities ofintellectual pursuit, but it is an attempt to put them intoperspective. Sinaiko doesn't like to talk on the level ofreligion in his classes because this is often characterizedby an unwillingness to question the basic assumptionswhich bring it about. He expressed his desire to avoid“the encapsulated viewpoint” that so often goes alongreligious doctrine. Yet is a disciplined, reasoned discuss¬ion a surefire way to avoid close-mindedness? Is hetalking about openness, but openness within limits?”— The more formally-ordered a college becomes themore it includes a procrustean role. Why does this self-serving policy insist upon single-dimensional conformity?What did William Blake mean when he wrote, “May Godus keep/ From single vision/ And Newton’s sleep?”— Do we have souls as in Hillman’s definition above?Are students on a soul making path? Is the Collegeinvolved in their processes? Can (should) it participatemore explicitly? Opinion is divided.Sarte asked simply, “What should I do about what theyhave done to me?”— College students commonly do not ask teachers thegreat questions of their lives. Is this because they havehad experiences similar to Jim’s (see box)?— The College faculty was called to devise a “newcurriculum” under the banner of “Coherence.” Will“Coherence” carry beyond the limits of curriculumreform?— Obviously, the patch-work curriculum is alreadycoherent. Does “Coherence” mean more of the same or adeep change in pattern (context) and in the larger patternthat connects patterns (context of sub-contexts)?—. “Coherence” might refer to a yearning towardwholeness, relevance and larger meaning that is conveyedby words such as grace (which there are many kindsincluding God’s), communion, love, piety, etc. Whatmeaning will be achieved if “coherence" is a) limited tothe academic curriculum, b) extended to include extra¬curricular life for students, c) extended to include thelarger society, d) extended to include all of the remainingenvironment on this planet? — On the other hand “Coherence" might refer toincreased control, resistance to change, a misguidedattempt to assert the dominance of one of the pairs ofgreat opposites: the light of Appolonian rationality vs. thedark of Dionysian inauguration, the verbal vs. the non¬verbal experience, life vs. death, peace vs. conflict, etc.Can we continue to avoid acknowledging and harmonizingthe opposites and not run the great risks, that excess ofhigh rationality may lead to extreme mental rigor, to rigormortis or death on the one hand, and that excess ofcreative, inspired imagination may lead to chaos, toinsanity on the other?— Is chaos what is missing from the curriculum? Shouldwe make Spontaneity pan of the Common Core?— Students can be induced to discuss such topics asVirtue in class (Sinaiko). Why then is it so difficult toinduce the faculty to discuss related topics (annualmeeting, 5/7/86, on the question, “What role should thefaculty play in promoting the development of characterand ethical judgment in college students?)—■ Gilkey observed that most ideological conflict in oursociety arises from widespread misunderstanding of ourcultural life. He asks a question applicable locally.Perhaps, then, the major philosophical and theo¬logical task of our time is represented by thisquestion, as old as the tradition of reflection itself:How are the many diverse ways of thinking in aculture — its technical and scientific thought, itssocial and political thinking, its artistic and moralexperience and reflection, and its deepest or reli¬gious convictions — to find unity\ that is, togetherto achieve coherence, mutual credibility, and ef¬fectiveness? That such a crucial enterprise ofthought as this should seem strange, esoteric, anduseless to much of our current cultural life,especially to much of its official philosphy, not tospeak of its scientific faculties, is itself possibly thestrangest truth of our present cultural existence! —Gilkey (Creationism on Trial)— The teachers of the six-quarter sequence developed by the Physics and Biology divisions are prepared to dealwith questions of the origin and evolution of the cosmosand of life from the perspectives of material mechanismand Cartesian reductionism. How will they do withquestions of the origin and evolution of mind, con¬sciousness, human culture, and ethical and aestheticvalues, for example, for which they, presumably, are notprepared?— The Hutchins’ College created a climate that favoredpersonal autonomy, however with the unfortunate side-effect of a high drop-out rate. Yet, almost all whoexperienced these old times say that the Hutchins' Collegehad something of great value that has now vanished. Whydo I keep thinking that presently we have everythingexcept the essentials?— “This is it, I think, right now, the present thisempty gas station, here, this western wind, thistang of coffee on the tongue, and I am patting thepuppy. I am watching the mountain. At the secondI verbalize this awareness in my brain, I cease tosee the mountain or feel the puppy. I am opaguc, somuch black asphalt. But. at the same second, thesecond I know I've lost it. I also realize that thepuppy is still squirming on his back under myhand. Nothing has changed for him” — AnnieDillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)Our cultural existence has evolved within and still restsupon non-verbal experience. The experience may beverbalized but does not become learning until it produceschanges in behavior. Why then, upon hearing academicareas as music, dance, the visual arts, etc. described asnon-verbal, do some faculty rise in opposition to suchusage0— To settle for words only is equivalent to going into arestaurant and eating the menu.by Gideon D'Arcangelo and Marty MathewsMarty Mathews is Professor Emeritus at the University ofChicagoAgainst the Apocalypse:Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Cultureby David RoskiesHow limited was our understanding about what the Germans were capable ofdoing! We simply could not imagine that the entire inventory, worth tens,hundreds of millions—that all this would be set on fire on account of us!This quotation from an unknown author of the Warsaw ghetto expresses the mainproblem for audiences today in understanding the Holocaust. It is without analogy orprecedent, and for audiences outside Europe, the horror is clearly attenuated But even,perhaps especially, for those who witnessed firsthand the atrocities of the Holocaust,comprehending it is nearly impossible. This is a well argued point in David Roskies'Against the Apocalypse. Many of the people that Roskies calls “scribes of the ghetto”,such as the writer quoted above, were bewildered when contemplating literary responses.After all. how can literature transcend the destruction of a culture? As Roskies pointsout. destruction of a culture was clearly what the Nazis attempted. In places such asVilna. “the Jerusalem of Lithuania.” special brigades of scholars were organized todestroy Jewish libraries and archives. The response that Jewish writers and artists settledon. Roskies argues, was a return to. or parody of “literary' use of themes and archetypesof destruction.”Though Roskies confines his arguments primarily to modern Eastern European Jewishwriting, he starts with a description of the archetypes of destruction used in the Jewishliturgy. The liturgy, he argues, took on two apocalyptic themes starting with the Romanpersecutions in Israel. One was the covenantal theme which interprets any communalcatastrophe as proof of a breach in the covenant between the Jewish people and God.The catastrophe has been brought on because people have not kept the faith. The Mosaiccurses are an example of this theme: “The Lord will make the rain of your land dust andsand shall drop on you from (Jie sky until you are wiped out.”The other theme of destruction Roskies finds in the liturgy is messianic. According tothis theme, The suffering of the Jewish people will be vindicated in the future by awarrior messiah or an angry God: “He will execute judgement on the nations and fill theworld with corpses; he will shatter the enemy’s head all over the wide earth.”Because “one notices and remembers what one is coded’ to notice and remember”these themes were carried over into Jewish writing in Eastern Europe. Roskiesdocuments responses to several historical threats to Jewish culture and community.Among these were pograms, both spontaneous and state organized, the forced relocationand slaughter of Jews during World War I and the Ukranian civil war and the so called“rape of the shtetl. ” There were of course, many responses literary and otherwise, tothese catastrophes. Two which Roskies views as altogether modem responses are satiresof the two original themes. The first of these is a humorous description of the destructionof pograms. It could take the form either of prose description or poetry. In one poem byChaim Bialik for example, the pogram is described as a wedding dance:Harp and song sound rhythmically-All are dancing, I dance too.Ho-lo-lo, ho-li, ho-li-They break the door down to the house,The window panes they smash to bits,Door and glass fly higgledy-piggledy—Ho-lo-lo, ho-li.The other response is prose rendering of the effects of a pogram in which the death andsuffering are seen in dispassionate detail. Both of these are parodies of their scripturalmodels which no longer expressed the extent of the suffering felt by the modern writers.This is not to say that there is no other modern response. Indeed, both themes are givenstraight treatment. Some writers called angrily for retribution against the pogromists.Recognition of the satirical and straight treatment of the themes of destruction formsthe basis for Roskies’ argument that literary responses to the Holocaust were similar toprevious responses to catastrophe. Although the humorous portrayal of death anddestruction drops out of the literature almost entirely, these are both flat, dispassionatedescriptions of suffering and angry calls for retribution. One of the most confounding ofthe former is a father’s description of the murder of his newborn child: Yom Kippur—East River, Robert Frank (see article p.4)They broke open the door and entered the room. When my wife heard that thedoor had been broken, she immediately ran to see what was happening to thechild. She saw one German holding the baby and smearing something under itsnose. Afterwards he threw it on the bed and laughed. When my wife picked up thechild, there was something black under his nose. When I arrived at the hospital, 1saw that my baby was dead. He was still warm.The lyrical dispassion with which the author threats the subject is is horrifiying in itsown right but also echoes the treatment given pogroms by previous writers.The recurrence of his form parallels the recurrence of what Roskies calls the ghettopoems of rage. These, he argues, are part of a “continuum of Jewish response tocatastrophe.” The “sense of deja vu“ which came out of ghetto writing during WorldWar II seems to show that the old forms were being used to describe the Holocaust. Thisargument, that “writers and artists managed to deal with the Holocaust by returning tothe old archetypes undermines the claim that the Holocaust is unique.” If the Holocaustwas unprecedented, why didn’t the artists who dealt with it use new forms to expressthemselves? Because the historical break of the Holocaust “was anticipated by theartistic process, especially during the decade following World War I.” A few otheranswers to this question suggest themselves, particularly that there was at least one newform of expression which came out of the Holocaust, which Roskies even mentions. Thiswas street singing in ghettoes. One street singer wrote “there is no alternative but toimitate the troubadours of old. To become the carriers of our own song, the preacherswho bring their sermons to the people.” This is not a conclusive answer but Roskiesdoes not show that such a form was not a legitimate new response.In a sense this is just hairsplitting because in addressing the question of whether therewas a unique response to the Holocaust, Roskies presents the various responses. Thiscomes as close as possible to answering the question that underlies the work: how canone understand a catastrophe of such magnitude? By surveying the responses Roskiesshows that the attempts to understand it took many forms, and lets the witnesses speakfor themselves. In part it is his obviously wide-ranging scholarship which allows him todo this. Therefore, even if one if unable to evaluate Roskies’ argument in an informedmanner, his book is worth reading as a humane approach to the historical problem of theHolocaust.by Bill Hanrahan18 CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 19861 IAsk about our Dinner/Theater Specials fromMallory's Restaurantand Wine Bar and theM & R Hyde Park Theatres.- Details at Box Office -JO JO DANCERSat., Sun. 1:45, 3:45, 5:45, 7:45, 9:45Fri., Mon.-Thurs. 5:45, 7:45, 9:45POLTERGEIST IISat., Sun. 2:00,4:00, 6:00, 8:00,10:00Fri., Mon.-Thurs. 6:00, 8:00,10:00 PGCOBRASat., Sun. 2:15, 4:15, 6:15, 8:15,10:15Fri., Mon.-Thurs. 6:15, 8:15,10:15BACK TO SCHOOL - STUDENT SPECIAL*★ SPECIAL PRICE - $2.50 Mon.-Thur. 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I SO IQTHE OFFICE OF THE DEAN OF STUDENTS IN THE COLLEGETHE STUDENT ACTIVITIES OFFICE & THE QUALITY OF LIFE COMMITTEEPRESENTSENIOR WEEK ’86BEST WISHES TO THE CLASS OF 1986Friday, June 6Saturday, June 7Sunday, June 8Monday, June 9Tuesday, June 10Wednesday, June 11 PUB NIGHTALUMNI PICNICPRESIDENT’S RECEPTIONSPECIAL FILMQUAD CLUB PARTYCAPS OPEN HOUSEFOR INFORMATION ON TIMES, PLACES AND TICKETSCHECK YOUR MAIL FOLDER OR CALL THE STUDENTACTIVITIES OFFICE AT 962-9558.1 inMoDCL CdWCM 41*10 VllDGO ■1342 Cast 55th Street>493 6700 ; INCLUDES 50 COPIES ON24 LB CLASSIC LAID BONDSELECTION OF ATTRACTIVE PAPERSgopyworfoThe Copy Center in Harper Court6210 S HARPER AVENUE • 268 2233Hours, WON ERI 8 30 AM 6 PM SAT 10 AM 5 PMSnobsWearing them con be a form of reverse snobbery Because Birkenstocksandals hove no delusions of high fashion They're |ust the most incrediblycomfortable Things you con wear next to weoring nothing. 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A red building across the street from the Royaleis painted across one side with golden letters proclaiming:“Madame Arthur.” An unsuspecting tourist might takethis to be a homespun version of the Moulin Rouge or theFolies Bergeres, but he would be sorely mistaken, 'asMadame Arthur is home to the transexual and transvestiteprostitutes of the Butte.From nine to eleven each evening, the balance oftourists to prostitutes at the Royale gradually shifts infavor of the latter, until, at eleven-thirty, they have oncemore reclaimed the territory as their own. It has beenknown to happen that a drunken tourist stumbles out ofthe Royale late at night, only to emerge from MadameArthur's golden doors fifteen minutes later, or very veryearly the next morning. The point of this is that thetransvestites are convincing—they know their beautysecrets and they keep them. What gives them away, if itdoes, is the Adam’s Apple. Otherwise it’s the back,whose vague triangularity is quite evident in the cut ofcertain evening gowns. It is safer for them to go casual,but oftentimes they cannot resist, donning backless gownsand semi-transparent chemises which reveal the vestigesof a once masculine musculature along with any unt-weezed hairs.Though slight in stature, the Cambodian owner of theRoyale commands authority with his boisterous, occa¬sionally violent evening clientele. When he walks outfrom behind the bar, the knives go back into the dresses.Perhaps the prostitutes are aware of certain facts regard¬ing his skill in the martial arts, or perhaps they respect theGerman Shepard nursing her pups in a warm comerbehind the bar. Lining the entire perimeter of the Royaleis a strip of mirror about five feet off the ground and fourfeet wide. When the owner gets a bottle of liquor from theshelf behind him he can keep an eye on the front view ofthe action at the bar; when he turns around and checks upon the tables beyond the bar, he sees the flipside of thesame action: a tableau of virgins and whores, shep-erdesses, chorus girls, housewives and bombshells; Mari¬lyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Leslie Caron and GraceJones, flirting, nudging, laughing, drinking.The mirrored strip is an interesting security device.Aside from its obvious function of informing the owner asto the goings on in his bar, it displaces the attention onemight otherwise pay to one’s neighbor and diffuses it toevery corner of the room. Furthermore, the awarenessthat one is being watched has a tendency to alter one’sbehavior; one moves, speaks, drinks and smokes at acertain critical distance, but at the same time, one issubject, actor, and creator; to drink happily at the Royaleis to bring one’s creative and critical faculties intoequilibrium. The prostitutes wish to be ladylike; themirror is integral to attainment of this false ideal.Manu and Anna walk briskly into the Royale, wherethe air is exceedingly humid; the heat of the day has broken and it pours rain. The owner looks happy to seethem, and indeed he is; it is a pleasing change of pace forhim to see a heterosexual couple, and he likes Anna,because he can speak English with her. He greets themcordially and shows them to a corner table which is in thedirect line of vision from his habitual standing placebetween the beer taps and the cash register. The ownerdraws two beers for them, occasionally casting glancesupward to confirm their incongruous presence in his bar.The man appears at ease with himself. He has pushed hischair back from the table a few feet so that he can stretchhis long legs out to one side; his hands are in his lap,fingers interlaced, eyes veering neither left nor right, butremaining intent upon the young woman opposite him.She too has an air of self-assurance, but when her eyesmove to the mirrored corners on either side of her, or tothe mirror behind the bar, she flushes as if catchingherself doing something impolite.He takes a tray and carries the beer to the table.“Rene has not yet been here?” asks Manu.“No, not yet, but he is expected. And you, Made¬moiselle, things are going well?” While Anna and theowner converse in English Manu rolls a cigarette andlights it.“Excuse me, but I see I am needed at the cashregister.” Manu exhales.“So what did he have to say, Anna?”“He said I should have dealings only with trustworthypeople, since I'm not going to get a lease out of thedeal.”“He’s right; this mad Russian—or whatever he is—is awaste of time at best, and at worst he's a thief.”“Probably, but it’s the first lead I’ve had in days, andI'll feel better just doing something, even if it doesn’tseem promising.”“It certainly doesn’t... You know you can stay with mefor a while.”“Yes, but I want something permanent.”“But you're only here for another six months.”“Permanent for six months then.” The owner sets theirthird round of beer on the table.“It’s ten-thirty—Rene should have been here an hourago.” Manu’s face relaxes and he smiles at Anna. “Of allthe women I know, you’re the only one who would put upwith an hour in this place.” She shrugs.“I'm taking notes. This place reminds me of somethingI read in a guidebook about Ludwig of Bavaria: In themirrored rooms of his palace at Linderhof. he found aninvitation to self-contemplation and escapism. It’s inter¬esting here, even if Rene stands us up again.”“Well, you should find my brother to be Ludwig’sequal, if he ever shows up. I imagine he will—I told himI'd have the money. And don't be surprised if he’s cold toyou. I’m sure he'll interpret my bringing you along as akind of chastisement.”“I’ll be prepared then, but what I don't understand ishow the mad Russian could have thought I was the rightsort of person—I said almost nothing.”“He probably just wants to see your face in day¬light—that'll decide how right you are. Why do you trusthim anyway? Is it because he looks like an old bear, withhis big stomach and grey beard?”“No Manu. that would be like saying that I trusted youat first because you're clean shaven and you wear aleather jacket.” He shifts uncomfortably and Anna senses someone staring at her. Glancing at the mirror above thebar she finds herself looking into a pair of deep-set browneyes—Manu’s eyes except for the delicate brows abovethem.“Manu, I don’t think I like this anymore.”“What, what’s the matter?”“Ahhh.” He sees his brother in the mirror aboveAnna's head. “Thank God mother already died a peacefuldeath.”“May I join you?”“Anna—my brother Rene.”He scrutinizes Anna, then shakes his head dis¬approvingly at Manu and angles his chair toward him,effectively blocking Anna from the conversation. Hisstraight, shoulder-length black hair is pulled together atthe nape of his neck with a heavy silver clip, and Annacan make out a pair of ornate silver earrings as theyoccasionally swing into view. His white satin minidress issleeveless with a zipper running from hemline to turt¬leneck—open to just below his derriere. Fishnet stockingsand white, thigh-high leather boots encase his legs. In themirror his profile looks emaciated beneath the buffmakeup. Pale, pale, skin and black shadowed eyes, nottoo much lipstick on the pouting mouth. His jaw is squarelike Manu’s, and tinged with a faint five o’clock shadow.He is not saying much in response to Manu’s questioning,and finally swivels on his chair to face Anna.“Charming dress you’re wearing.”“Thank you. So is yours.”“What do you think, should Manu let his hair grow?He’s been wearing the same coupe militaire for yearsnow.” Manu’s eyes narrow and his jaw sets.“No, I think it suits his face quite well.”“Ah, well in that case, should I be cutting my hairshorter?”“No, yours suits you too.”“But how can that be? It’s the same face.”“No, it isn’t,” says Manu.Rene sighs and looks up into the mirrored comer onAnna’s right, frowns, and begins applying lipstick. Themirror makes his face look hard and exposes a few flawsin his makeup job—not enough blending. When Annalooks at him directly he makes a much better impression:he would certainly fool her if she passed him on the streetat night. Manu continues to question him as he primps.“Your health has been o.k.? No more sore throats?”Rene shakes his head.“And father... Did you know he said he'd like to seeyou? Maybe you could come for dinner next Sunday,although of course you'd have to wear normal clothingand no makeup.”Rene looks at him sceptically.“And everything's been going well for me at work.They promoted me and I’ve been travelling, buying carsand parts. You see. I’m not going to wind up as a simplegreasemonkey.”Rene smiles vaguely and stops his primping to faceManu.“That's nice.” he says.“And the five thousand francs,” says Manu, “I've gotit here with me.” This got Rene's attention.“Cash?,” he asks.“Yes.”Again Rene turns to the mirror, this time adjusting the(continued on page 22)Every Day fMrTf}■the woman is the thief in mecatching unsuspecting rain,making things growin a day’s terrain, soft and muddy,in part upbringingin part desirein partno choice for now.the child is the beggar in mesitting concrete coldskirt spreadcircled before me,like an offertorywaitingfor the worldto rain gold.by Laura HartCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986 21Black TulipsWinter is the snow with black silhouettes.—Vincent Van GoghI spent the afternoon rummaging throughold photos, solemn black-and-whiteslike stills from a forties’ newsreeltrimmed with pinking shears. My brotherand I squinted as sun bounced off micaflecks in old cement. Shadows of ourfather, who took the snapshot and motherwho waited, covered our feet, climbedour skinny legs to the knees. In tanand yellow sunsuits, we sucked our pennylicorice sticks which melted like oilslicks in our palms — a posed picture; henever liked them, holding his like driedfish or a garter snake which bloodwarms. When the shutter blinked, windsprinkled crows like pepper from aspens.Almost a lie, this scene. Van Goghwrote Theo that no true black exists,never thinking that where air thickenswith the brown smell of cow, Dutchbiologists would separate the lastintrusive purple from the marriageof Queen of Night and Vienerwald. Myaunt would say we stood like flowers,olack tulips, she called us.by Martha Vertreace# fMMNj/Npl (continued from page 21)silver hair clip. "Enough.” exclaims Manu, slammminghis glass down on the table; beer slops over the sides.“How can you stand this boor?” says Rene. “Hiscondition has worsened since the last time I saw him.”"I think I can say the same of you,” says Manu.“Listen closely; you're not getting one finger on thismoney until you tell me why you need it.”“Anna.” says Rene, “what is it that you do here inParis?”"She studies French Literature,” says Manu. “Quitevading the question.”"Why don't you study the literature of your owncountry? But I imagine it's fairly insipid.”“Go to hell,” she says in English."Oooh. I've heard that before. No need to bring aperfectly good argument down to a personal attack.”"The money,” says Manu. “Why do you need it?”“To make my tithe.”"Stop right there.”"All right then, abortion for a friend of mine.”"Really?,” asks Manu with interest.“Yes, really, if it pleases you so much.” Manu crosseshis arms and stares at Rene, who finally stops hisprimping and turns to Manu.“It’s for a baby, a lovely little baby who is sleeping inmy room even as we speak.”“What?” exclaim Manu and Anna.“If you don’t believe me, come see the proof.”They leave the Royale and walk across the street toMadame Arthur, which they enter through a door in anadjacent building.“It’s much plainer than I imagined it would be,” saysManu as they walk up a spiral staircase of rough brownwood.“Of course,” replies Rene, “but this is the backentrance. The front would probably conform to yourstereotype.”“Why don’t you at least zip that skirt all the waydown? It looks like it’s going to burst open any minute,”grumbles Manu, climbing the stairs behind Rene.“In the first place, this is a dress, not a skirt; secondplace, it’s not going to burst open unless somebody forcesit.” And with that he casts a coquettish glance over hisshoulder at Manu.The three of them. Rene in his white ensemble, Manuin faded jeans, a leather jacket and work boots, and Annain her demure blue dress, turn off the staircase at the thirdfloor and enter a long hallway of whitewashed stucco.Rene stops at the fourth door on the right and knocks.“Tanya” he calls softly, "I’m back. My brother andhis friend are with me.” A shuffling sound comes frominside the room then a door clicks shut.“Excuse me, but I don’t think she'd want to meetyou.”“Who is she?,” asks Manu.“She’s been taking care of the baby when I have to goout.”“Why doesn’t she want to see us, has she got adisease? She shouldn’t be watching over the baby you know...”"Precisely Manu, I entrust my young charge to thecare of a leper for eight hours each day, hoping togradually relieve myself of the burden.”They enter a comer room with windows extendingfrom the floor to two-thirds of the way up the wall on thesides which overlook the street. Through the left windowone sees the Royale, which is at the intersection of theRue Steinkerque—leading up the hill toward the BateauLavoir and Sacre Coeur—and the Boulevard Rochechuart,which leads one further into the Place Pigalle, or, in theother direction, to the Place Clichy—a glitzy version ofPigalle, above which is the Cimetiere de Montmartre.Straining a bit to the left, one may discern the elephantinewhite domes of Sacre Coeur at the summit of the Butte.The view through the right window is of the bumsloitering on the strip of trampled grass which runs throughthe Place Pigalle, and of the newstands at the entrance tothe Metro stop Anvers.The windows are open, their transparent white curtainsrustling in the breeze. In the center of the floor sits amattress covered with heavy silk of an intricate black andgold pattern. Next to this, also on the floor, is a blacklaquered tray. On it are a pot of orange marmalade and achunk of bread. The chairs and couches around theroom—a mixture of fake Louis XVI and sixties vinyl inblack and yellow—are all turned toward the mattress,forming a circle, roughly. Manu notices this and makes asound of disgust, which Rene ignores. Sitting on a chaiselounge, he motions to Anna to come nearer."Will you help me pull these things off?” The left bootslides off easily, but the right is a struggle. When itfinally come Anna’s shoes make a loud clacking noise asshe stumbles backward and onto the bed.“Careful Anna, you’ll wake the baby...”He points to the comer opposite the window whichoverlooks the Rue Steinkerque, where a white wickerbassinet stands. The three tiptoe over and crowd aroundthe sleeping child. Manu looks questioningly at Renewhen he sees the baby’s blondish hair and almond shapedbrown eyes. Rene smiles, “her mother is Korean, thefather is French.”“And,” asks Manu."Nobody knows where he is. Her mother, Ibouk, hadto go back to Korea. She said she’d explain when she getsback, if she does...” The baby makes a charmingsnuffling sound and rolls over onto her stomach. Annalooks at Rene for approval, then quietly pulls up the pinkcoverlet which the child has kicked to the bottom of thebassinet. Manu wipes his grease stained hands on hisjeans and strokes the baby’s tiny hand with his indexfinger. The baby’s fingers curl around it. Manu beams.Leaving the group, Rene walks to the window over¬looking the Boulevard Rochechuart and pulls three chairsinto a circle. He brings a bottle of whiskey and threeglasses from a cabinet and sets them on the floor.“Can I entice you away from there with a drink?”Anna and Manu laugh and sit down in the armchairsoffered them.“So Manu,” he says, pouring three fingers of whiskey into each glass. “This business of the five thousandfrancs, can you spare it? When Ibouk left she gave mefive thousand for the care of the child, but I think that waspractically all of her savings. I’d like to be able to giveher something to start out with when she gets back.”"And if she doesn’t?”“If there is any possible way, she will. If she doesn’t, Idon’t know. I’ll have to think about that if it happens. Inthe meantime the baby needs food and clothing, and she’sbeen sneezing a lot so I may have to take her to thedoctor—and medicine is quite expensive—although shemay be sneezing because of the perfume in the air, I don’tknow. And she'll need toys, and I'd like to pay Tanyasomething, and...” Manu takes an envelope out of theinside pocket of his jacket and hands it to Rene."There’s five thousand. Don’t worry about paying itback.” The three of them sip at their whiskey in silence."Thank you, Manu. If you’ll take off the damnedjacket. I’ll change out of this dress.” Manu jumps up andtears off his jacket; Anna laughs softly."Whiskey, Anna, pour us some more,” whispers Renebefore disappearing behind an oriental screen. He reap¬pears in a pair of black satin pyjamas and walks over to avanity with an enormous round mirror, where he beginsremoving his makeup."Anna,” he asks quietly, “does wearing makeup makeyou feel more like yourself, or more like someone else.”She looks surprised, and considers for a moment."The person I see in the mirror, wearing makeup,becomes myself, but still, it seems like someone else.”"You don't think of it simply as an amusement?” Shetakes a sip of whiskey."Yes, sometimes I reason with myself that that’s whatit is. Other times, I think it’s a way to gain control overyour image, in order to control the responses of peoplewho look at you. Then again, I admire women who canuse it well, especially plain looking women. They findsome good feature and emphasize it. It’s a way of sharingpower—or at least a means to power. The real you wantedit, but this self-created other you gained it... so, have youreally gained anything?”"But Anna,” says Manu, “you’re beautiful, eitherwith makeup or without.”"Manu," says Rene, “you’re missing the point here.Don't you see that...” He is interrupted by the ringing ofthe telephone which he dashes to pick up."Rene here...Tonight’s not good.... I see, alrightthen... Yes, In an hour.”"Who was that?,” asks Manu."Nobody... A cockroach.” He casts his eyes over thesoiled tissues on the vanity. “I’ve just wasted a lot ofcoldcream.” He moves to the whiskey bottle on the floorand pours another three fingers. Anna passes, and he andManu down their drinks rapidly."Let’s not wait so long until the next time, Rene.”Rene looks uncomfortable."I 11 let you know how the baby’s doing, Manu. AndAnna, if you’re up this way some afternoon ring and seeil I’m home. It’s the time of year for walking you know.Library season is over.”—II—■————■■■■■III!—■.n, mmThat Night in W alesSomething has to be in place herefrom that night in Wales, waitingfor the ferry to Dublin, the fogfilling everything, even, years later,the books we have from that trip,and an image of a man staring outacross the sound through the mistas sell-conscious as any sea captainof being watched, even at his best,most reflective state, never unaware:what we said that night starts to matterless than what we need to remember now.Later that night we would watch himlet match after match burn awaybefore he breathed smoke throughthe first pause in the story he wastry ing to tell. I'm going backthis far because we need to believe 4for all of us that whatever we saidthat night, most likely comicly Celtic,a mythic lie from some story ,reflective words, sav of the way fogcaught in the castle turret, traceda golden window grey. . . .The pipe burns cold again, we watchdark water, half awake for the Irish coast,reading, talking that night away,what did we say to each other, old accents,that we could say now, however trivial,however dark, in the voices we have learnedthese years apart, what stories, howcan we believe there was a time before. Shared QuartersThe magnolia behind the poetry office blooms now ,or did last week, and today litters the spring lawn,snowing blossoms like an apology, more fragilethan the southern variety for having to live heresix months over frozen ground. On a floorabove the office, the atomic scientists movethe hands of their clock w ith a fearful precisionand a solitary woman works night after night.Entering through the side door we lack the nerveto ask her what she does, suspect she thinks itmore real than what we do. I wonder a lot nowwhat it is that we do, how it might be possibleto reconcile her light as it burns this lateand the clock and the magnolia that greet us_each week as the value of what we look for becomesless clear—what son of violence was Dickinsonthinking of, anyway, the top of your head off.So none of the values we thought would help are immunethe ratio between the year and the time a magnoliatakes to bloom, reach fullness, and fall away,is smaller than the ratio between the year andthe minutes of the scientists, so rationalthat makes it all seem, measuring the worldby a magnolia that offers almost nothing,a clock even less, this time we live through.Ill Mlnlr■ , ■ 1 . ^■■ ■.'CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 19867WaysofLooking A test was recently conducted by the Societyfor the Appreciation of American Poetry (SAAP)in which seven normal people were confined to aroom for a seven day period. This was part of astudy of the effects of alcohol, simple starches,and limited lighting on the comprehension of20th century American poetry. The participantswere led to believe they were taking part in astudy of group interaction under simulated qua¬rantine conditions. The room contained a couch,four chairs, a refrigerator, pretzels, a vaporizer,a flashing neon “Budweiser ” sign, and severalvolumes of contemporary poetry. The followingis a transcript of the group's discussion of apoem by Wallace Stevens. On,: I really like those „are good. Like, ah,just after." When lrea[though, of, like. whenyou're out..,i„ thewTO,Blip: Uh-huh. ’Om: Like a pure, fine ^echo,or a resonance? YouBlip: Or even it’s silent, €echo, it stops, and (BljpcI was of three mindsLike a treeIn which there are three blackbirds. Beep: Hmm. Who wrote that?Pat: Wallace Stevens.Blip: Wallace Stevens. He’s from Connecticut.(laughter) By the way.j>at: He’s the Man With the Blue Guitar,rit: Why...why don’t we start at the beginning.or...Pat ’.(overlap) He was a banker.Bit: Insurance salesman.The blackbird whirled in the autumnIt was a small part of the pantomimeOm: “...for blackbirds.” I mean, that...thatseems just...like a joke to me.Pat: But it could...I mean, the thing is that...Om: “A fear pierced him...” I mean, like thisparanoid maniac...Pat: I mean, the thing is that a straight reading ofthat..that is sort of, maybe, provoked by theoverall tone of the entire thing, but, I mean, thatin and of itself...Om: I just...think some of these arejust...they’re...it’s like the movie Being There,where this guy just talks...just says senselessthings, and people...Blip: ..derive some significance from it.Om: ...they just say, “you’re a genius,” youknow... “You should be President...”Blip: I...I know what you’re saying.Om: 1 mean it’s deep in a sense, but it’s funny ina sense too. “I was of three minds/Like a tree inwhich there are three blackbirds?” A man and a womanI Are one.A man and a woman and a blackbirdAre one. Bit: Well, what you're saying about the cday aspect of this., in 11 — “he rode oveConnecticut in a glass coach” — so, we 1that Wallace Stevens is this insurance exeand he goes to work, probably, so he's...Pat: So. eleven is like a fingerprint, you'saying, it’s like a connection back to theauthor.Bit: Not neccesarily, but I’m saying thatto-day aspect of it — I mean, yes, in a sea connection back to him.Blip: In particular.Bit: But that’s of some interest.Blip: Some days you think about yourselreference to your mythology that comes,know, your roots. It’s not all autobiograsometimes it’s more local, sometimes it’mathematical, philosophical, visual.I do not know which to preferThe beauty of inflectionsOr the beauty of innuendoes.The blackbird whistling* hOr just afterBit: No. The absurdity of it...it’s a different...Blip: It’s a different statement.Bit: I mean, that a man and a woman could beone makes much more sense than that a blackbirdcould be thrown into it. I mean. It’s like...theblackbird’s in there all the time anyway.Dot: Well, it’s a really gruesome statement, ifyou want to know, ’cause, the original biblicalstatement, a man and a woman are one, is talkingabout sex, you know? Two should become oneflesh? If you have a blackbird in there it’s kindof...Pat: See, Bit, what I’m saying is that there’s anargument for casting greater suspicion on thatfirst statement. In order to... I mean, just lookingat that, and having that statement make sense,A man and a woman are one, you have to bringa tremendous amount to bear, right? But it’ssomething that you do easily, because you’reused to doing it with a statement like that. Imean, you sort of let that go by. But the nextone, in terms of its semantics, its logic, is verysimilar. But at the same time...Dot: Yeah, I see what you’re saying. wm Pat: Would you agree that it’s a possible readingthat some of the stanzas provide a key to some otthe others?Pit: Later on...after that you decide what theyhave to do with one another.Om: Check out what he did here...he put...Pat: Why does the process of interpretation haveto follow that pattern?Pit: It doesn’t.Om: ...they’re four stanzas with five lines; threewith three; two with two; two with four...Blip: Oh, Man...Pit: There definitely are three that prefer to theIf: “I” “I,” and “I,”... 2, 5, and 8...all threeated by threes.V 1Icicles filled the long windowWith barbaric glass.The shadow of the blackbirdCrossed it, to and fro.The moodTraced in the shadowAn indecipherable cause.Ming«e...nh,“TheBlaikread thaten you ^/0°ds, ofoe noise?■ ^0u kiio v'enf evenBI>P dips i...anything youJie nature imagesbird whistling/ort first, I just• something,^mething?here’s like awhat I mean?jf it’s not anis hands)the day-to-: over ’we know;J executive.you'rethe actualthat the day-a sense it is Othin men of Haddam.Why do you imagine golden birds?Do you not see how the blackbirdWalks around the feetOf the women about you?Blip: Okay, I'm sorry. It’s.. What's that?Pit: ...about?Blip: Excuse me?Pit: “Oh thin men of Haddam...”Blip: Oh. I don't know...I looked...I tried to dosome research on that today at the library, but Iwasn’t able to find anything. I thought it was abiblical reference; it looked like one...so I wentthrough a Concordance, and I couldn't findanything in the Concordance...Pat: “Strong’s Concordance.”Blip: Yeah. “Strong’s Exhaustive Con¬cordance.”Pit: Somehow this... “thin men of Had¬dam “...conjures up, uh...Bit: Dashiell Hammett, (laughter)Pit: Ah, I’ve forgotten...Never mind.Om: William Powell.Pat: “Dashiell Hammett "...(laughs)Om: And Myma Loy.Blip: Right... laughterPat: Good old Myma Loy.(pause) When the blackbird flew out of sightsIt marked the edgeOf one of many circles. VIII1 know noble accentsAnd lucid, inescapable rhythmsBut I know, too,That the blackbird is involvedIn what I knowBeep: But the blackbird is in both places. Orwhatever that object is. It’s getting outside ofhimself, but it’s also himself.Blip: Well, the way y&&r, put it in moral termsis that, you can’t just...if you want to have anymorality whatsoever, any perspective on thelworld, there's got to be something outside. Therehas to be something, outside of you, that isn’tyou. That’s basically what I’m talking about. Atleast one; that's all you need. If you have onething outside of yourself, then you have access tothe world. That allows you to have consciousnessof other things. Billions of other things. Aninfinite number of other things.Pat: Like he says: “I was of three minds.”Pit: Actually, it says...in 9; “when the blackbirdflew out of sight it marked the edge of one ofmany circles;” That’s the circle of sight.Pat: Right. Once the blackbird disappears you'reaware of the extent of your view.Dot: Or just the circles... and how you'rethinking.Pit: I’ve been laden with these...Beep: This is really cool;...Pit: ...laden with the types of perception...Blip: Types of consciousness?irself innes..you(graphic,:s it’s At the sight of blackbirdsFlying in a green light.Even the bawds of euphonyWould cry out sharply.Pat: Well, it’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking.”Om: ... one woman...dies...Pat: Thirteen points of view.Blip: Thirteen ways of thinking.Om: “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black¬bird.” Some of these, like...“He rode overConnecticut/In a glass coach./Once a fear piercedhim in that he mistook the shadow of hisequipage...” (Om pronounces the word with theaccent on the first syllable)Blip: Equipage. Equipage. (Blip pronounces itwith the accent on the second syllable)Om: Equipage? (Blip’s pronounciation)Blip: Yeah, I’m sure, ‘cause it’s like equipment.Om: I just asked Bit and she said it was a meansof carriage.Pit: Yeah, it’s a...Om: Equipage, (back to his original pronouncia¬tion)Blip: Okay.The river is moving.Tljie blackbird must be flyingPat: But, Blip, when you say there’s...we’re...we’re...You say we're relatively welleducated people, is that saying, like...Bit: (overlap) I’ve really been wanting to buyBullfinch’s Mythology.Pit: Bullfinch’s?Pat: Yeah...I’ve never seen it. but I’ve...Pit: You’re...you’re a fairly well read person, soyou could...Pat: (overlap)...It’s the...urn ..like...there’showever many of us, and what we know; andthere’s the poem. He rode over ConnecticutIn a glass coach.Once, a fear pierced him.In that he mistook*> The shadow of his equipageFor blackbirds.Pat: Yeah, and they’re not moving.Beep: Yeah. “The only moving thing is the eyeof the blackbird.”Beep: Yeah, it’s about circumventing... aboutgetting outside of any fixed reality.Om: I think it’s just like thirteen separate... Idon’t know , it seems like it's just thirteen...Pit: By the way: what is euphony?Bit: Euphony?Pat: Sounds that are pleasant. As opposed tocacaphony which are — (cacaphony misp¬ronounced)Bit: Cacaphony. (correcting Pat's pronunciation)Pat: Cacaphony, which are —Bit: Unpleasant noises.Blip: Beautiful sounds.Pat: Right — the bawds of euphony would be theclowns...?Blip: “Bawds” are, uh, it’s often used forprostitutes.Beep: But in this context...Blip: I looked it up in the dictionary, (laughs)Beep: The blackbird is like the soul of the poet.It goes outside and it goes within, and.. I'mreally confused. But... you know what I'msaying?It was evening all afternoonIt was snowingAnd it was going to snow.The blackbird satIn the cedar-limbs. at13WaysofLookingataBlackbirdFiction by Lenette SadekWalter stood before the mirror knotting the tie that Sophie liked. She had touched itwith one finger and told him that she like it. He looked at the clock and though of her inthe bookstore already, even though they weren’t to meet for another hour. She likedbooks. He stepped back and looked at the tie. The red and yellow stripes seemed tocircle upward from the wide bottom. He yanked the tie from his neck and threw it on thebed. He reached toward the hanger on the back of his door, but instead of pulling downthe solid dark tie, he opened the door. His sister stood there. She smelled of friedsausage."Breakfast is ready," she said. She reached up on her toes and kissed his mustache.He went back to the mirror. “I’m going to skip breakfast," he said with his lip over histeeth as he brushed his mustache.She closed the door and sat on his bed.He took the dark tie from the hanger on the door."You’re never home on Sunday anymore. And now you’re not even eating breakfast.Jenny and Mary will be disappointed."He hung the tie around his neck and picked up the tweezer. He yanked at a wild hairin his mustache."Come sit down Walty.”He clattered the tweezer onto the porcelain tray and sat on the chair beside his bed."They miss seeing you on Sunday. The only day I ever got to see you when we wereyoung.”He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair and leaned his cheek bone against hisknuckles. His eyes followed the narrow ruffle on the collar of her robe. He smelledperfume somewhere beneath the ocior of sausage. “I know, he said. “I waited forSunday all week too.” A short laugh came from his chest. "And then, I was glad whenit was over.”Her eyes narrowed and seemed brighter, like the narrow bright eyes of their mother.She might have been beautiful, as their mother was. But she had their father’s nose. Along hook of a nose that dripped in winter,"Why. Why were you glad.”Her words came like solid little objects into his ears. He looked up at the glare ofglass over a shiny picture of a rainy street hanging on the wall. "Sunday afternoons inthe big bright room weren't real. It was the rest of the week. The grey halls. Thecrowded school room cold in winter. At night the stink of disinfectant in the long roompacked with beds. Two hours away in a room with fruit on the table was like a dream.And Morie could always boast that he had a visitor from the outside.”"It was the most real thing in my life Walty." She looked down into her cuppedhands upon her lap."I sometimes suspect you almost liked the orphanage."“You like to think of yourself as the one who suffered most. Well you didn't. Youhad a friend. You had Morie. The girls didn’t have close friends like that. We had thenuns, I guess. And we were taught to be family, not friends."He took her hands into his. “And now we are a family.""We’ve never been separated Walty. Not really. We always knew that we had eachother, on the other side of the wall.”"I have to go now." He stood up. "But I will make more time for Jenny and Marythis week. I promise.""But where do you go Walty? You can’t be spending this much time at Morie’s, inthat old decrepit bookstore, with his crippled little wife. I know you're really glad you she said. “I didn’t holdJ hri .L rHi—.—iJCL, — didn’t marry her. But sometimes I worry about you seeing so much of them.He held the dark tie in place and fisted the knot up to his neck."But that wasn’t the reason I didn't want you to marry her,it against her that she was crippled.”"I’m going now.”"Where Walty? Don’t open the door. Tell me where."“I’m supposed to meet someone. And I can’t be late. "“Someone? Who?""A friend.”„ t“Bring your friend to dinner. Jenny and Mary love company. If Sander doesn t likeit, he can stay in the bedroom.”“I know you’re really glad you married him."“Yes I am.” She pushed her chin forward. “He’s the father of my children.”Walter laughed. “I bet Mother said that once.”She stooped and grabbed his slipper and threw it at him. He caught it against hisstomach and tightened his jaw, showing his bottom teeth. He flung his arm out. She heldher hands before her face and he let the slipper fall gently on the bed beside her. Heopened the door and went downstairs.“Dinner at two o’clock,” she called after him.He hurried to the bookstore, a half cellar that smelled of rain and wood. Black spotssparked in his eyes after the bright sun. Then he saw Morie’s wife, looking like aporcelain doll behind the counter. She smiled and pointed to the back of the store. Hereached his hand out toward her as he walked to the back.Sophie stood with her head bent. A bone stuck up in the back of her neck.“I’m sorry I’m late Sophie.”"Look at this little book I’ve found. Isn’t it lovely. Just feel the cover.” She took hisfinger and touched it against the book."Let me buy it for you.” Walter took the book to the counter. Morie’s wife tapped onthe silver bell.Morie came through the beaded curtain at the back of the store. A belt squeezed hismiddle into two lumps of loose flesh. "Leave it to you Walter to find my gems. There’smore where this came from on those back shelves. Old man Gracem’s daughter broughtthem over.” He looked at Sophie. "Gracem lived in that old house on the comer for thelast half century.” He pressed down on the cash register and an eight bounced up in aclatter of tin and glass.“Eight dollars?” Sophie said."What do you say Walter. You know books. Is it a bargain or not?”Walter took out his wallet and lay eight dollars on the counter.Walter and Sophie left the store. "Let’s walk by Mr. Gracem’s house,” she said."Did you know him?”"No. But daddy probably did when he was younger. Daddy knew everybody.”They stood before the narrow frame house with long windows. "It looks as if no onehas ever lived here,” she said."Do you want to see where I lived?” Walter said.They crossed the street and passed through a crowd before the Presbyterian Church.Walter took her hand. She walked slowly. Her wooden sandals clacked on the sidewalklike an echo in the crowd. He led her into the park and stopped before the fountainwhere stone dolphins spouted water. She held the book in the folds of her skirt."They might have made the park beautiful,” she said looking up at the dolphins."But their eyes are so flat, with only stone holes for an iris. And they don’t seem to beswimming, or leaping. Just big stones propped in the air.”Walter looked away from the dolphins, to where a bum lay sleeping under a tree, hisfist still holding to the neck of a bottle. "This is it,” he said.“This is what?”“Where I used to live.”“But it’s the park.”“There were apartment buildings here. And I lived right about here. Up on the fourthfloor.” He pointed across to the river. “I watched the river from the kitchen window.”“There were,” she said. “Big apartment buildings crowded with sagging porches andno trees. It’s one of those things I knew and forgot about.” She shaded her eyes andlooked across at the river. “When I was little Mother took me to a birthday party. Andbefore my plate was a tiny pretty bottle filled with red water. I think I looked at it allday. Then years later, after Mother was gone, I saw small bottles of colored liquid in thedime store and realized I had forgotten all about that first bottle. You know, the sense ofit. All I remembered were memories. I forgot those apartment buildings the same way.Although they didn't mean the same thing.”“I thought I was in the wrong place the first time I came back. Then I saw the river.And the same old street sign. It’s a strange feeling, to think of my mother reading herbook in bed on the fourth floor that’s gone. She had one book. A book of Germanpoetry . She read it aloud, in bed. It made me angry. She would say, ’Walty doesn't likemy little book.' And she’d laugh and touch my forehead. It wasn't that I didn’t like herpoetry. I couldn’t understand those coarse furry words on her tongue. My father didn'tlike it either. When she would hear him coming, she dropped the book between theboard and the mattress.”"Only one book. I couldn’t imagine a world with only one book. You still have it,don’t you?”“Mother died when I was five years old. Father left us at the orphanage. I don’t knowwhat ever became of her things.”She held the book up against her breasts. A drop of water made a dark spreadingsplotch on the book. "That changes your whole life. Why didn't you tell me?”He turned from the dolphins and walked back toward the street. Her sandals clackedloudly behind him, as if she hurried.“My sister wants us to come to dinner this afternoon.”“To dinner? Am I dressed alright? Should I go home and change first?”He looked down at her white blouse and wide blue skirt with small red buds. “Youlook very nice.”What s she like? What s her name? I don t even know her name. Did you know thatwhen you talk about her you only say ‘my sister.’ ”"What’s she like? I don’t know what she’s like. I sometimes think of her as the dollshe carried by the neck in a nelson lock. The doll with big painted eyes, the paintspreading over lines that were supposed to be eyelids. It had a cracked forehead. Icracked it. With the old pickle jar. I regretted it. I lost the cricket that was in the jar.”"Stop walking so fast Walter. I’m losing my breath.”“We’re almost there. It’s the house at the corner.”“On this street?”I came here by accident. My sister married Sander Crimmins. He owned the houseon Hewing and Briscole and I live in their upstairs bedroom. I wanted her to marryMorie.”“Morie?”Walter pushed the gate open. Jenny and Mary played on the swing he had hung fromthe tree. Jenny let go and Mary fell screaming."Uncle Walty,” Jenny called and skipped toward him. She took two of his fingersand looked up at Sophie. Mary came screaming. She looked up at Sophie and stopped“Who are you?” she said.“This is Mary, Sophie. She’s like my sister. And this is Jenny. And Jenny’s likeme. Jenny held his fingers as they went up the stairs. Mary followed behind, repeatingthe name Sophie. rSander lay on the sofa smoking a cigarette. “Sophie is here,” Mary said. Sanderpicked up his head. He dropped his cigarette into the ashtray on the floor. He got up andsmoothed his undershirt. "Sophie. It’s nice to meet you. Irene said Walter was bringinga friend. You girls stop staring. Irene! Irene' Walter’s here w.th his friend. Just give meCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986wmmConstruction/DestructionYOUYOU WEREYOU WERE ALWAYSThe story is over,now we’re burning all the bridges.WERE ALWAYS SOALWAYS SO MEANThe narrative doesn’t function.SO MEAN TONow we’re burning all the bridges.MEAN TO METhere is no elemental force.TO ME LIKEME LIKE INow we’re burning all the bridges—the machine is down.LIKE I WASN'TI WASN’T HUMANWASN’T HUMAN ANDThe feelings are a fraud-now I’m burning all the bridgesHUMAN AND IAND I DIDN’TThere is no point.1 DIDN’T HAVEWe're not burning any bridges.DIDN'T HAVE ANYIt’s all a lie.HAVE ANY FEELINGSANY FEELINGS BUTI'm going to stop:there were never any bridges.by Anthony Mayphoto by Chris Staceya minute.” He went to his room.‘‘Sit here Sophie,” Mary said, pushing at the rocking chair, making it rock like agalloping horse.Walter sat on the sofa with Jenny. Sander came out wearing a shirt and tie. ‘‘Sophie,would you like a refreshment? A beer or a soda?”“A soda please.”‘‘Get her a soda Walter.”Walter went into the kitchen. His sister picked a worm from the spinach. ‘‘I’m here,”he said.She shook the worm from her finger into the sink.Walter took a bottle of soda to Sophie.“Walter. Put it in a glass with some ice in it,” Sander said.‘‘No that’s fine.” Sophie reached for the bottle.“Warm day,” Sander said.“Hot,” Sophie said.“Maybe after dinner we could all walk down to the park,” Sander said.“I want to go to the movies,” Mary said.“Yeah. The kids get tired of the park. Walter, he’d live there if you let him. Younever met Irene, did you Sophie? Let’s go out to the kitchen.”“Irene, this is Walter’s friend Sophie.”Irene smiled down at the steaming bowl in her hands.“Let’s sit down,” Sander said.“Mama, Uncle Walty says I’m like you,” Mary said.“Can I help you with anything?” Sophie asked.“Of course you’re like me.” She placed a platter of boiled beef and cabbage on thetable.“Here Sophie." Sander handed her the bowl of liver dumplings. “Where’d you meetmy brother-in-law?”“At the bookstore.”At Mode’s.” Sander nodded his head. “You like books too?”“Poetry. Walter bought me a book today. An old book of poems.”“Walter doesn’t like poetry,” Irene said.“She’s always reading something too.” Sander pointed his fork at Irene.“What do you like to read?” Sophie asked.“Poe. His stories. And Kafka.”“Oh I love his big insect self.”“It wasn’t himself,” Irene told her. “And it wasn’t big. It was small, and crawledalong the windowsill of the sanatorium where Gregor was an inmate, across the streetfrom where the Samsa family lived. Gregor’s imagination used the insect for a means ofentering the Samsa house. He couldn’t go as he was. And of course a bug can goanywhere. But then, at the end, where the story begins, he is lost in the bug, confinedthere.“Wait a minute,” Walter said.“Ridiculous,” Sander said through a chunk of beef.“It was a hospital,” Walter said. “And we never had a view from the hospital.”“The sanatorium was the center of the story. It was the real window through whichGregor looked, the window of his distorted vision, which was of course his own self.”“But how could he see the picture of himself,” Walter said. “The picture hanging onthe wall, of when he was in the military.”“It was his wish to be part of society.”“But the violin.” As Walter argued with his sister, he didn’t see Sander leave thetable. He heard Mary scream and looked up at Sander holding a boar’s dusty head. “Ishot it myself,” he told Sophie. Mary slapped her hands to her face.“Put it away Sander. She’s not interested,” Irene said.“It is intimidating,” Sophie said. “I guess they charge with those ferocious tusks.”“They did me. In Western Carolina.”“There are two Carolinas,” Irene said. “A North and a South.”He lay the head in the corner of the kitchen. “Mary wants to go to the movies afterdinner Irene. We can double date again.”“I can’t Sander. I have to iron your work clothes.” Mary screamed. “I want to go to the movies.”Irene took her from the table.They finished eating. Walter washed the dishes. Sophie dried. Sander put on hismilitary jacket and explained his medals. “It’s too bad I can’t button it anymore.”Walter and Sophie left Sander with his medals on the front steps. Jenny walked themto the gate and called good-byes after them.“Would you like to see a movie Sophie?”“I think I’ll just go home now. If you don’t mind.”They turned the comer in the direction of the apartment building where she lived.“What do you think of my nieces?”“They’re pretty little girls. I think Jenny would be more. I mean talk more, if somuch weren’t going on.”“Yes they’re very pretty. They don't have my sister's nose. She got it from myfather.”“You have the same nose, Walter.” She looked up at him. “Who do they look like?“I suppose Mother. I really can't see her face anymore. But I remember she wasbeautiful.”“Your father. You didn’t tell me what happened to him.”“He died. Long ago. I’m sure.”She opened the door. The hall was cool and smelled of fish and old cigarettes. Hewalked her up the stairs.Her father sat at the window. “Good Afternoon Mr. Lapychak.” Walter said loudly.The old man turned. He released his little fist from his long white beard. “Don’t worryDaddy. I’ll comb it tonight,” Sophie shouted. He raised his trembling hand to Walter,then to Sophie. He clasped his beard again and turned back to the window“I'll call you tomorrow Sophie ” He kissed her forehead and went back downstairsand walked to the bookstore. He stayed there until Morie locked up.The house was dark when he returned and he went quietly up to his room. It stillsmelled of his sister. He looked out at the tree, black in the night. He turned and lookedat its shadows in his room. Then he saw his sister, in his bed He turned on the light.She blinked her eyes and sat up. She looked at his clock beside the bed and he saw thebook that he had bought for Sophie beside the clock. He picked it up.“You left it downstairs this afternoon. I brought it up. And I guess I fell asleep."He pulled off his tie. “I’d like to go to bed now.”“She seems very young, Walty. And sensitive. So sensitive, that it’s a defect. She’sexcessively thin too.”Walter pulled off his shirt. “I’m tired.”“I hope Sander didn’t upset her with his head.”Walter shook his head. He sat in the chair and pulled off his shoes.“We’re all very fond of you here Walty. Even Sander. And the children sometimesask me, ‘Do you think Uncle Walty will ever leave us.’ ”He dropped a shoe to the floor.“Don’t,” she hissed in a whisper. “You’ll wake Sander.”She reached for Walter's hand. He moved it away. She folded her hands and touchedher fingertips to her chin. Her eyes wandered about the room and stopped at the picturehanging on the wall. “I can’t love anybody but you Walty. I can’t love him. Not eventhe girls. Not really.” She leaned her head against Walter’s shoulder. “Please Walty .Tell me you won’t leave. Whatever else you do is alright. Just don’t leave.”He touched his face to her head and bit a strand of her hair. He was tired and his armfelt loose and weak as he held her shoulder to make her sit up. Her shoulder was soft.So soft that it seemed if he kept pressing he would feel her flesh like the material of herrobe between his fingertips. “I won’t leave you Irene.” The words felt moist and furryin his mouth.“Do you promise.”“Yes.”She got up. She bent to kiss his forehead and he closed his eyes. When the doorclosed behind her, he opened his eyes and took Sophie's book. He began to read. He fellasleep in the second poem and awoke in the dim morning to his sister standing over himholding a wooden spoon blobbed with oatmeal.CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986Her foot inside the cloudy pinkA slippah so divineThe whited ankle dipped in inkTo get there just in timeThese ways we know these ways we knowWe count them and they count.They draw our faces uppty tightOur whited eyes in flount.But ho along the rugged roadA rugged roady flies.He aims us blunt, but sharp enoughAnd shoots us in the eyes.We think we saved! We cry aloudWe fall down smiling deadThe nicey hero sits on usAnd fucks us in the head.We moan we sigh we die and dieIt not for want of lack.Our pinky ear detects a fear!A noise upon the track.m ft The amazon! her eye a flameHer mighty footed legHas shook the ground our pinky foundOur hero hides his peg.She takes her aim with flatted chestWe awesome open wide.She shoots the flaming arrowAnd it stings us in the side.Who bad guy? cry the brawny bodIt's him we say so griefedWe shot enough! our pinky smudge!She smile her pointy teeth.Ass off the dirt she say so grimIt quivers us anewBut ass we off and standing stillWe find we like the view.This up stuff aint too bad you knowWe think we been a jerk.It what I has been telling you.Now get to fucking work.MINOLTAMAXXUMAUTOFOCUS SYSTEMPROFESSIONALMAXXUM 9000built-in precise autofocusEasiest to use SLR cameraAutomatic Multi-Program Selectic2-year Minolta U.S. A. limited warranty on camera, 5-year on lens.mODGL CrtMGRrt AMD MlDCO1342 G4st 55th Strggt493-6700Reai time continuous autofocusmg5 FPS with optional motor drive1/4000 second shutter speed with1/250 second fiash sync.NEWSTANDARDMAXXUM 5000All Cameras come with 50mm 1.7 lensesADVANCEDMAXXUM 7000Automatic Multi-Program Selection.Advanced Touch-Control Panel forease of operationBuilt-in MotonFilm-ControlSystem.Don Roth's Restaurants -a Chicago landmark for over66 years - fine dining -specializing in grilled seafoodand outstanding prime rib -come celebrate with us! •for reservations made between 5 00 & 7 00 P M1 10 E. Pearson943-3300Parking arrangementsReservations accepted ZMNROTHSIN WHEELINGOn Milwaukee Ave Northof Dundee Road (Rt 68)537-5800Reservations accepted(except Saturday) DOfi ROTH'SRIVER PLAZA405 North Wabash527-3100Parking arrangementsReservations accepted&OTU£ Of:FOR*CHGRADUATEWITHTRADITIONTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGOALUMNI ASSOCIATIONSALUTESTHE 1986 A. A. AWARDSWINNERSTHE ANNUAL AWARDS ASSEMBLYSaturday, June 7,19864:00 p.m. SWIFT HALLFOLLOWED BY A RECEPTION5:00 p.m. - HUTCHINSON COURTNO TICKETS REQUIRED ALUMNI AWARDSThe Alumni MedalLuther H. Foster, A.M. *41, Ph.D. '51The University Alumni Service MedalArthur R. Schultz, A.B. ’67Professional Achievement CitationsWilliam W. Cooper, A.B. *38Fritz R. Leiber, Ph.B. *32Herman Pines, Ph.D. *35Eric J. Simon, S.M. '47, Ph.D. *51William J. Small, A.M. '51Public Service CitationMarjorie Holloman Parker, A.M. '51, Ph.D. '51Alumni Service CitationsAlice H. Lyche, A.M. '47NedaLoseff Michels, Ph.B. *47, M B.A. '49Iwao Shino, M.B.A. '55HOWELL MURRAY AWARDSLYNN BIRCSAK LISA MONTGOMERYFRANCIS CONNOLLYS. JANELLE MONTGOMERYGRETCHEN GATES GINGER OSTROMANEESHA LAL CHRISTOPHER RUPRIGHTMICHAEL MEDINA BENJAMIN WEINBERGCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1086 29—1985-1986STUDENT GOVERNMENT FINANCE COMMITTEEALLOCATION REPORT TO FEE PAYERSEach year, the Student Government Finance Committee (SGFC) receives 45% of the Stu¬dent Activities Fee, which it then distributes to Recognized Student Organizations. SGFCwill receive approximately $114,000 from the collection of the Student Activities Fee during1985-1986. The totals below represent the aggregate requests received from student groupsand the subsequent grants and loans recommended by SGFC and approved by the StudentGovernment Assembly, for the summer, fall, winter, and spring quarters of the 1985-1986academic year.It is expected that a student group which receives a loan from SGFC will repay the loan bythe end of the academic year in which it was received.GROUP REQUEST GRANT LOAN GROUP REQUEST GRANT LOANAction Comm For a Free SA $ 1,228 $ 795 $ o Re-creation Society (MARRS) $ 325 $ 324 $ 0AIDS Patient Support Group 825 132 0 Model UN 1,795 50 0American Med Student Assoc 575 375 0 Organizacion Latino Americana 1,044 605 250Black MBA Students 250 200 50 OBS 12,843 7,320 4,020Black Graduate Forum 4,411 3.003 280 Overseas Developement Society 18 8 0Cancer Society. UC 30 35 0 Persian Evenings 391 310 0Cap and Gown (Yearbook) 100 0 96 Pro-Life Assoc., UC 342 122 0Cercle Francais 130 0 0 Romance Language Review 1,551 322 0Change Ringing Society 945 900 0 Ryerson Astro. Society 1.538 297 243CAUSE 145 0 0 Salisbury Geography Circle 70 30 0Chess Club 822 756 0 The Social Vanguard 20,898 0 0Chicago Contemp. Music Society 35 37 0 Student Steering CommitteeChinese Students Assoc 4,293 1.845 1,400 for the Ronald McDonald House 24 24 0Chinese Undergrads 632 625 0 Students Against MS 95 14 0College Bowl 776 773 0 Students for Israel 1,014 77 200College Picture Directory 4,426 0 800 Students for Nuclear Disarm. 874 325 0Committee Against Sexual Harass. 355 274 0 Students to Save Spring Formal 18,425 3,900 9.500Comm, to bring Moam Chomsky 2,040 0 0 Symphonic Wind Ensemble 4,715 2,530 2,080Common Sense 819 0 0 Third World Politcal Forum 2,227 1,664 0Concrete Gothic 424 0 424 Tortious Productions 4.485 0 3,285Dance Club 3,396 1,230 900 Urban Poverty Seminar 660 386 0Chicago Debate Club 4,714 4,541 0 WHPK - FM 33,523 14,182 0Ethnographic Film Group 1,499 604 330 Women’s Union 517 433 50Fantasy Gamers 788 260 0 Young Dogs 1,365 1,130Folkdancers. UC 9,517 0 0 Student Gov. CommitteesF.O.T.A. 8,434 7,429 1,246 Academic Affairs 57 57 0GALA. 4,840 2,070 1,101 Activities 27,837 19,022 0German Club 63 73 0 Community Relations 799 340 30Graduate Music Society 229 94 0 Election and Rules 307 307 0Greek Students Assoc. 1,627 1,313 200 Finance Committee 925 925 0Hispanic Culture Society 255 105 0 Graduate Affairs 1,761 1,761 0Ikebana Club 423 423 0 Office Administration 4,680 3,872 0Indian Student Assoc. 908 309 590 Student Services 397 336 0International Students Org. 382 240 0 Publicity 943 49 0Int’l Relations Student Org. 249 210 50 University Services 6,955 155 6,800Korean Undergrads 4,439 669 350 Minority Affairs 27 18 0Medieval & RenaissanceTOTALS $ 216,351 $ 88,350 $ 34,275 =1985-1986 FINANCE COMMITTEE OFFICERSLisa Montgomery, ChairBill McDade, Treasurer1986-1987 FINANCE COMMITTEE OFFICERSTimk Hansen, ChairBill McDade, TreasurerATTENTION STUDENT GROUPS:Receipts for the fiscal 1985-1986 must be received by the SAO Auditor on or before Friday,June 13,1986. Receipts dated before June 13, 1986, but not received by the SAO Auditorwill not be honored.Request for summer allocations will be considered during the summer. See SAO Office fordetails or contact Tim Hansen at SG Office, 962-9732.30 CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986ftdegree it employed a structural (eidetic) phenomenolgyand its double bracketing procedures (which suspend theobjective standpoint and abstract from the accidentalfeatures of experience) to focus on a description ofvolitional structures, the “fundamental possibilities” ofthe willing subject, but it was an extension of Husserl inits transcendence of the usual boundaries of description,immediate conscious experience, to explore volition itself.The second volume of the philosophy of the will,Finitude and Guilt, published in 1960, was comprised oftwo books: Fallible Man and The Symbolism of Evil. InFallible Man, Ricoeur broadened the brackets to pursuethe problem of the will in the domain of human fallibilityand guilt. The strict structural phenomenology of the firstvolume gave way to a more existential phenomenologywhich reflectively focused on specific aberations withinthe willing structures, “the disproportion between theintended meaning of freedom and the experience offinitude” (Ric., HSS, 33). Here Ricoeur sought to specifythose aspects of existence that contained the possibility ofevil. This represented a shift from an “eidetics” of thewill to an “empirics” of the will.In The Symbolism of Evil Ricoeur moves even fartheraway from the initial structural phenomenology ofFreedom and Nature toward a concrete “mythics” ofthe will, a description of the human experience of evil,guilt, and suffering. This was a shift from the structuralpossibility of evil toward its very actuality. But theactuality of fault was not to be directly analyzed in termsof its immediate experience, which it eludes, but ratherindirectly, through a detour, the language in which thisexperience is expressed, in the primary form of thesymbol and the secondary form of the myth. TheSymbolism of Evil then marked “the turning point ofHusserlian phenemenology, already extended to the prob¬lematic of fallibility, toward a hermeneutics of symbols”ibid.Since symbols possess a double meaning, a latent andmanifest content, Ricoeur made his first explicit move toward hermeneutics, initially defined as the decipheringof a double meaning, which he would later term“hermeneutic phenomenology” (in the Heideggariarsense where hermeneutics and phenomenology mutuallysupport one another in the interpretive description ofexperience, but which, unlike Heidegger, would come tohave an explicit epistemological and linguistic orient'5tion). The interpretation of symbols sought to uncover theprimordial experience of being-in-the-world in addition tothe contribution of symbols to thought. But the decipher¬ing of the symbol did not yet have a “suspicious”motivation, a development that had to await the dramaticencounter of phenomenology with psychoanalysis.The projected third volume of the philosophy of thewill, the Poetics of the Will, was aborted, and per¬manently deferred, in the face of the developments on theFrench intellectual scene in the 1960s. There phen¬omenology, the whole reflective tradition of philosophy towhich Ricoeur was linked (Husserl, Kant, and Nabert),and the main concerns of his philosophy of the will wereforcefully confronted with the “semiological challenge”,a two-pronged attack by psychoanalysis and structuralism.Immersing himself in a critical dialogue with each ofthese disciplines, Ricoeur published two major works indirect response: Freud and Philosophy (1960) and TheConflict of Interpretations (1969). While he had strongreservations about each of these problematics (e.g., therepresentationalism of the unconscious, the elimination ofthe subject in the suppression of polysemy), Ricoeur wasalso decisively influenced by each. With regards tostructuralism, his project “was enlarged and displaced ina new way, by the recognition of the lingual characterwhich was common to my first hermeneutics and to thedistorted expressions studied by psychoanalysis” (ibid,33,34). Psychoanlysis, in turn, led Ricoeur away from astrict “hermeneutics of recollection”, the respect for thesacred and primordial meaning of the symbol, toward a(continued on following page)Paul RicoeurTime and Narrative-Volume 1by Paul RicoeurMy general goal is to explicate Ricoeur’s main themesin Time and Narrative (TN), focusing almost entirely onvolume one, and to critically reflect on some of his majorthemes. It will help considerably to situate Ricoeur’s mostcurrent project within the context of his past work. I beginwith an effort to map out the major methodological andthematic shifts in his work, while underlining its essentialcontinuity.I. From Freedom and Nature to Time and Narrative.Ricoeur began his career steeped in phenomenology, inboth its transcendental and existential versions. As agraduate student at the Sorbonne in the late 30s, he wasparticularly influenced by the work of his instructor,Gabriel Marcel, who sought to develop a concreteontology based on the themes of freedom, finitude, andhope. Embracing these themes as his own, Ricoeur feltthe need for a more systematic and rigorous mode ofinterrogation than Marcel had employed, and so turned tothe phenomenological method of Edmund Husserl.Following the publication of two books on Jaspers andMarcel in 1947, Ricoeur published Freedom and Naturein 1950. This was the first volume of a projected threevolume study in the philosophy of the will. The generaltask of this ambitious tome was to explore the volitionaldimension of “incarnate existence”, in Marcel’s phrase.Issues such as action and motive, need and desire,pleasure and pain were analyzed from a pheon-omenological perspective, one which sought to describethe ways such phenomena appeared to consciousness andto relate their modes of appearance to the intentionalprocesses of consciousness (which is always consciousness of something). Freedom and Nature was “aHusserlian attempt to extend Husserlian phenomenologyto volitional experience” (Ric., Hermeneutics and theHuman Sciences, 33). The attempt was Husserlian to thePaul Ricoeur has been the dean of the faculty ot lettersand human sciences at the University of Paris for manyyears. and is currently the John Nuveen ProfessorEmeritus in the Divinity School, the Department ofPhilosophy, and the Committee on Social Thought. Thefollowing is an interview conducted by Steve Best duringMay of '86.Steve Best: I’d like to focus our discussion on politics. Iwant to ask about the political nature and implications ofyour work, to ask what, if anything, a Ricoeurian politicsmight be. I might say from the start that while theautonomy of the political realm is explored is your work,politics, as is philosophy, is ultimately inscribed within alarger theological context where your task, as its mostgeneral level, is to seek a new totality of Being — througha radical path of thought and a poetics of existence. Thetransfiguring of Being, the recapturing of the sacred, thereawakening of the mystery of our existence, these issuesI take to be your point of departure and arrival, a circlenecessitating the mediation of politics and tactical issues.Is this a fair characterization of your work?Paul Ricoeur: Sure, sure it is. It is. For me, the politicalissue has been present in my work, for two or threereasons. First, due to my belonging to socialist move¬ments in France, at least for the last year or two,practical, as a citizen. But also for theoretical reasons,because when confronted with Marxism I always won¬dered where the mistake was and for me it’s not so muchin economics — the analysis of capitalism is not absurd —but in the failure to develop a political theory , maybebecause the illusion was that if we correct the inequalities, the injustice of the economy, then the politicswould be safe. So there is no specific political problem,there are only social and economic problems. And thiswas, I think, the great error because there are specificdiseases of power and this is what has been completely omitted by Marx. The test of Marxism was the totalitarianstate. Hannah Arendt. to whom I owe so much, was wellaware of this failure of Marxism, which was not so mucha misreading of the economical situation but of thestructure of power.SB: You point to a number of reductive aspects ofMarxism, for instance its reduction of alienation toeconomics, where you would see alienation, at least incertain respects, as an ontological condition.PR: Yes, yes, as though the reforming of the ills ofsociety were only linked to the bad relationship betweenlabor, property , and money. And then to think that if youcould cure this illness in the society, any political toolwould be good. I think that this was the reason, and alsothe fact that Marx didn't achieve his goal of a completedescription of all the spheres of existence, all sociallevels, because his Capital occupied him so much. Andthen it was the work of the social democracy after hisdeath that built this horrible conception of the party.SB: To return to the question of religion, isn't it true thatyou want to rethink the entire problematic of the profanewithin a new problematic of the sacred, or to bring, forinstance. Marx into a confrontation with Heidegger, forHeidegger is obviously a major influence on your work.PR: Yes...SB: In other words alienation can never be fullyovercome until we learn how to think Being and to give abroader dimension to existence than Marx ever did orcould.PR: No, because there’s this wrong idea that theideological sphere was merely the reflection of the socialand economical spheres, so we spoke of the lack ofrecognition of the autonomy of the political sphere, weshould speak now of the lack of recognition of theautonomy of the ideological sphere, the place where whatI call the mytho-poetical nucleus of a culture as well as aprivate life. This has not been recognized on this level of the system of symbols, beliefs, nouns which articulate ourspiritual life has a specificity of its own. Of course if isnever completely severed from the economic, socialsituation, and not from the political level of existence, butit is creative in the center of existence. And it is thiscreativity which (Marx) has completely overlooked.SB: The problem is Marx's ontology which sees man as alaborer but I would say you want to see the human beingas Dasein, where Dasein, of course, signifies the spacefrom which the question of Being can arise. So if youreconfigure man as laborer in terms of the questioningDasein, then the larger problematic of Being is openedup.PR: But it’s more the Marxism after Marx that has thisvery reductive view because Marx himself saw in labor anaspect of creativity which has been destroyed in themodem economy. So therefore his problem was torecover the creativity of labor. But then we need a notionof creative labor bolder than the Marxist theory of laborSB: And Marx, of course, defines production as “freeand creative activity” in the Grundrisse.PR: Yes, but that comes from the German idealism wherethe words creation, production, has a broader sense thanin the economical use because it’s the production of manbe man, so it’s a self production. And then if we put thatin a different language it's the creativity through symbolicactivity. This is what I should read into the notion ofproduction: not only in economical terms but in terms ofthe permanent invention of human life through thesymbolic activity and transformation of our heritages.Because one more illusion of Marx, precisely at this levelof production, is that man creates man out of nothing,whereas we know that in fact it's only on the basis of aheritage, a culture, that we may develop, but we neverincrease from nothing. So there was this kind ofdeification of man as being able to generate man out of(continued on following page)CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986 31RupturingtheNarrativeRicoeurInterviewRicoeur (continued from previous pag )“hermeneutics of suspicion”, a critique of the symbol asa disguised manifestation of infantile narcissism. Ricoeuragreed with the Freudian theme, but saw it as too one¬sided. failing to grasp the other dimension of symbolswhich the hermeneutics of recollection describes.While the critical appropriation of Freud markedanother shift in Ricoeur’s work, the adoption of asuspicious, genealogical stance, at another level there wasno change at all. Hermeneutics, though made suspicious,was still the deciphering of a hidden meaning; it still hadtoo limited a field. This field was significantly broadened,however, through the structuralist problematic, in thedirection of a more general hemeneutics of the text, awork of discourse defined by the rules of its genre. Hereexplicit structuralist, linguistic, and epistemologicalthemes were developed, all entailing “a profound meth¬odological revolution" within the ph^nomological tradi¬tion. At this more general level. Ricoeur also engaged inexplicit debates with the hermeneutical tradition, fromSchleiermacher to Gadamer. and extended the field evenfarther with the application of hermeneutics to theproblems of the social sciences.This brings us to the last and most recent stage inRicoeur’s thought where the dominant concerns are thestudy of semantic innovation, in both its metaphorical andnarrative forms, and the triadic relationship between time,narrative, and historical writing. Ricoeur continues his(qualified) defense of subjectivity with the (Kantian)notion of “productive imagination”. Against struc¬turalism, which confines meaning to the closed play ofsynchronic structures, the productive imagination con¬stantly produces “new configurations of meaning”. Sub¬jective creativity is seen to occur in the construction ofmetaphor, a sentential level, and the construction ofnarratives, or plots, which occurs at the meta-sententialdiscursive level, and where the narrator, be it a historianor novelist, “introduces an intelligible order into asequence of disparate events.” (TN, IX). The narrativeplot is similar to the “predicative assimilation of met¬aphor in its creative integrative function, uniting diverseelements into an intelligible, ordered whole. In bothcases, there is “a new thing—the as yet unsaid, theunwritten—springs up in language” (TN, IX), a“synthesis of the heterogenous” whose source is the rule-governed productive imagination. Both metaphor and plotreveal “the same basic phenomenon of semantic in¬novation” (TN, IX); together, they constitute “one vastpoetic sphere”.Though we see a dynamic development of thematic andmethodological concerns throughout Ricoeur’s work,there is an essential underlying unity holding it togetherand projecting it forward. Two concerns clearly stand out:the dialectical conception of the subject, decentered butnot dissolved, and the sustained focus on hermeneuticalissues. TN, as we will now see, addresses and developsboth of these concerns in a remarkable way.II Time and Narrative, Part I: The Hermeneutic CircleAnd The Theory of MimesisThe title of Ricoeur’s latest work is deceptively simple.The conjunctive “and” must receive the emphasis and beread as a dynamic figure. At the most general level, we can say that the task of TN is to work out the complexdialectic between time and narrative, their mutually-supportive. mutually-entailing, circular relationship. Ric¬oeur wants to reconceive the meanings of time andnarrative in light of one another and grasp the significanceof this for our understanding of human experience and thehistorical sciences. By “time” Ricoeur means both (1) thep re-reflective lived time-temporality, as recast byHeidegger—of human experience, the fundamentallytemporal character of experience where past, present, andfuture modes interweave in a complex, non-chronologicalform that is dominated by the future mode, the mode ofDasein's projection along the path of its essential pos¬sibilities; and (2) the derivative, reflexively oidered serialtime as represented in narrative forms. By “narrative”,or “emplotment”, Ricoeur means the synthetic functionof the productive imagination which orders experienceinto a coherent, chronological whole, and which assumestwo fundamental forms, the two “great modes” ofnarrative, historical and fictional narrative, fundamentallyrelated insofar as they are different aspects of the same“poetic understanding”.In volume I of TN, Ricoeur explores the historicalmode of narrative, leaving the analysis of the fictionalmode for volume two. He begins with his “major thesis”:that time and narrative stand in a circular relationship toone another. Time is humanized to the extent it isexpressed in narrative and narrative is meaningful to theextent it expresses the temporality of human action. Butthis is a hermeneutical circle, not a vicious circle, and soa “healthy” rather than fallacious one. Its movementmarks a progression in analysis, rather than a tautologicalregression, where “the arguments advanced on each sideof the problem aid one another” (76).As Heidegger long ago observed, the issue with anyhermeneutic circle is not how to escape it, for it exists,but how to come into it in the right way. Ricoeur choosesto enter into the circle of time and narrative from twounique standpoints: the Augustinian theory of time, asdeveloped in the Confessions, and the Aristotelian theoryof plot, as developed in the Poetics. These texts give usindependent points of entry (as far as this is possible)—from the side of “the paradoxes of time” and “theintelligible organization of a narrative” (13). Each aspectis a needed, but by itself incomplete account of experienceand narrative form. Just as Augustine fails to link histemporal analysis on the narrative structure of his text, soAristotle ignores the temporal dimensions of emplotment,despite his overtures to the beginning, middle, and end ofa narrative, leaving the analysis of time to the Physics. Bybringing these two texts together, Ricoeur is able to setthe general issues of TN into motion.Each text then “engenders the inverted image of theother” (4). Specifically, the Augustinian analysis of timeestablishes the dominance of “discordance” over “con¬cordance”, as every temporal aporia he discovers yieldsnot a resolution but another aporia. Here the prevalentattitude is perplexity. Conversely, the Aristotelian theoryof plot establishes the dominance of concordance overdiscordance, as inchoate experience is given shape in anarrative order. Here the prevalent attitude is confidence.Ricoeur proposes a (somewhat uneasy) synthesis of theseoppositions in the figure “discordant concordance”, an(continued from previous page)nothing, out of scratch.SB: But let’s approach the question of politics moredirectly now. Allow me to begin by drawing a strictlyanalytical distinction between what we'll term the macro-and micro-level of politics, within the political field andyour work in general. At the macro-level of your workwe find a vigorous critique of contemporary social and ”§■economic institutions, with the focus on capitalism, at the %levels of production (hypertrophic growth), distribution q(asymmetrical patterns) and consumption (the transmogri- <fication of Dasein into the consumer). In response you Sadvocate a mixture of decentralized socialist economics zand a liberal politics. But your really distinct things I find $are worked out at the micro-level and this is where I’dlike our conversation to focus. Here, rather than socialand economic reform. I see you advocating a revolution inconsciousness and being. Just as you take the indirect pathto self-understanding through the mediation of traditionand to self-understanding through the mediation of tradi¬tion and past cultural forms, to religious faith, throughatheism, and to ontology through epistemology, I find youtake the indirect path to politics, through ethics and aphilosophy of reflection. That is to say macro-politicalissues of institutional reform, while addressed at theirown level, are ultimately analyzed from macro-politicalperspective where we find the themes of subjectivity,consciousness, desire and everyday life.PR: I m not sure what you mean by “micro-politics” ...SB: Let’s use the term the “everyday life” and under¬stand it as signifying an epistemological break, a shift oforientation within the Marxist tradition away from theconcept of political and economic revolution, wherequestions of subjectivity are deferred until “after” therevolution, toward an immediate analysis of subjectivity,consciousness (and not only “false” consciousness), anddesire. This shift, begun for us perhaps by Reich,continuing through Gramsci and people like Lefebvre, Ifind to exist in your own work.PR: Yes but, the level of political problems is preciselymicro-level. I mean that it’s of interest to the communityas a whole. And at that point, I must say that I am verymuch in debt to Hegel, to have raised the problem ofpolitics precisely as the permanent mediation between twoopposite trends. A trend towards the conflict of privateinterests — this is what he calls “civil society” — and it’sgood because there is an aspect of rationality in it, thatorganized interests compete against one another, but above this atomistic society, we yearn for a communitylife which will be integrated. We want to have both acompetitive society and an integrative community. Thesemay be two opposite needs, but precisely this defines thepolitical problem; how to integrate a society defined bycompetition between organized groups of interests, and a aporetics of time and a poetics of narrative integrated intoone circular model where each aspect implicates the otherand the paradox of time, as initially discovered byAugustine and later confirmed by Heidegger, is preservedand the closure of narrative, as witnessed by the Greeks,is never complete. Time, and the paradigm ot differenceand displacement it entails, is never wholly discordant;narrative, and the paradigm of totality and order it entails,is never wholly concordant. The dialectic figure dis¬cordant concordance”, developed by Ricoeur out of hisdialogue with Augustine and Aristotle, articulates thischarged symbiosis of Dionysus and Apollo, of chronosand muthos. A key point must come out here. Ricoeurwants to deepen and radicalize temporality in order tofollow Heidegger in the opposition against the vulgarconception of time as a continuous succession of nows, onthe one hand, and the sterile, ahistorical abstractions ofthe historical sciences, on the other. “Chronology . . .does not just have one contrary, the achronology of lawsor model. It true contrary is temporality itself.” (30).Having analytically separated the two halves of thecircle in chapters one and two, Ricoeur replaces themwithin their proper dialectic in chapter three, where hedevelops a hermeneutical theory of mimesis, the creativeimitation of action.The theory of mimesis serves a crucial function forRicoeur. Its main role is to be the needed mediatingconstruction between (humanized) time and (meaningful)narrative. Accordingly, the “explanation of mimesisremains subordinated to my investigation of the mediationbetween time and narrative” (10). But this mediationdemands its own mediating figure, subordinated to themimetic theory as a whole, which is the theory ofemplotment proper. Narration serves a mimetic function,but it is situated in media res, within an entire mimeticprocess of which there are three stages.Emplotment. which Ricoeur identifies as mimesis-2, issituated between the pre-conditions and post-conditions ofnarration, bounded by the “real” conditions of action.The first stage of mimesis, mimesis-1, is the realm ofmeaningful experience anterior to narrative constructionand all reflexive consciousness in general. For phen¬omenology and hermeneutics alike, the question ofmeaning is primary and the source of meaning is foundprior to language. A whole world of meanings are built upbefore consciousness reflects on its fundamental experi¬ence in the world. It is the task of hermeneutic phen¬omenology to uncover and interpret the primordial field ofmeaning which Ricoeur is now calling mimesis-1.“Whatever the innovative force of poetic compositionwithin the field of temporal experience may be, thecomposition of plot is grounded in a pre-understanding ofthe world of action” (54).There are three essential aspects of the pre¬understanding, to be phenomenologically described ratherthan logically deduced. They stand as the essential pre¬conditions, the conditions of possibility, for any narrativecomposition because they involve a certain “preliminarycompetence”. The capacity to describe and organizeaction in a narrative whole is rooted in a prior capacity toidentify action in terms of “its meaningful structures, itssymbolic resources, and its temporal character” (54).Thus, “to imitate or represent action is first of all to pre¬community life in which we rely upon the mutualrecognition of the citizens as equal, as having an equalright, whereas they have different roles in civil society. Ifollow' Charles Taylor here, his claim that if the Hegeliansolution is no longer ours, the Hegelian problem is stillours: how to have the sense of autonomy coming from theEnlightenment, and the sense of integration coming fromthe Romanticist tradition; and this problem is still oursbecause we need to have the sense of belonging to acommunity, which as Hegel said, is the community ofboth owners and non-owners, and on the other hand playroles at the level of society through our jobs and ourexertions as workers, and so. playing different social rolesI should say that politics is always micro-politics since it’sthe fate of the community as a whole.SB: When I say micro-politics and raise the issue ofeveryday life, perhaps I’m asking a Kantian question:what are the pre-conditions, the subjective preconditionsfor an authentic politics -- for political struggle as rooted,and emanating from, subjectivity? For instance, I thinkReich's problem is immediately addressed to us: Reichwould say that though it was in the “objective” interest ofthe workers in Germany to conquer Fascism, in fact theyactually desired Fascism because of the deformations intheir own subjectivity. In your own work, particularlythrough Freud, you’ve pointed at distortions in ourlanguage and desire, and it is these which deliver us overto the project of domination. Let me quote you here: Youspeak of omnipotence as the archaic dream of desire:“This is why the reality principle is the answer to poweronly when desire is stripped of its omnipotence. Onlydesire which has accepted its death can freely disclose ofthings; only desire which has passed through what Freudcalls resignation, i.e., the ability to endure the harshnessof life, is capable of freely using things — people and thebenefits of civilization and culture. In other words, theseare subjective preconditions for an authentic politics.”This is where I see the Kantian question within thepolitical framework. This is where Freud becomes veryimportant in your work.PR: Yes. thank you. We are taking the problem by theother end as you said, the pre-conditions, the way inwhich he lives with his own desire. That's true, that if wehave a society for government which desire is infinite, thekind of society which we live in — this society — wheredesire is infinitely multiplied in this way. And so we areenticed by this society, by the pleasure principle. Ad¬vertising not only encourages, but generates this infinite32 CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986'• understand what human acting is” in its various features(ibid).The other boundary of emplotment and the “farthesthorizon” of Ricoeur’s whole investigation, pursued involume three, is ;he third stage of mimesis, mimesis-3.This stage is the culmination of the entire process, whichis incomplete without it. It is the stage of the aestheticreception of the text by the spectator or reader, theintersection of the “configured” world of the text and the“real” world of its receiver, the fusion of horizons whichthe reception of the text brings about. Where mimesis-1describes the lived pre-conditions of narrative, mimesis-3describes the lived impact of the text which, properlyreceived, opens up its unique world and has the potentialof transforming the world of the receiver. At this levelRicoeur locates both the problem of the reference of thetext and the subversive potential of language in itscontestation of the social and moral order.Between mimesis-1 and mimesis-3, between whatprecedes and succeeds narration, we find the mediatingstage of a mediating construction, the act of emplotment,mimesis-2. As a mediating figure, mimesis-2 “constitutesthe pivotal point of this analysis ... it opens up the worldof the plot and institutes the literariness of the work ofliterature” which draws its very intelligibility “from itsfaculty of mediation, which is to conduct us from one sideof the text to the other, transfiguring the one side into theother through its power of configuration” (53). Narrativeresignification is a transformation, through a linguisticinterpretation and ordering, of what is presignified inpraxis. “The narrative work is an invitation to see ourpraxis as it is ordered by this or that plot articulated in ourliterature” (83). At the level of temporality, narrative’sconfigured time mediates between the prefigured time ofmimesis-1 and the refigured time (in the fusion ofhorizons) of mimesis-3. In the theory of mimesis then weare following a complete process, “the destiny of aprefigured time that becomes a re figured time through themediation of a configured time” (54). This is to say, weare following the process of the construction of a text, anarrative form, the synthetic work of the imaginationarticulated in language and the world it calls into play outof our pre-reflexive experience and the reflexive use ofnarrative technique. The hermeneutic circle is clearlyarticulated in the theory of mimesis: “Temporality isbrought to language to the extent that language configuresand refigures temporal experience” in a narrative form(54). But the point of departure of this hermeneutic theoryof mimesis is not narration itself, but, more fundament¬ally, our being-in-the-world.M,praxis:prefigured time.6 emplotment:configured time 2M,reception of text:refigured timeIII. Part II: Defense And Application of The Narrativist ThesisThe second half of volume one is a long epi¬stemological reflection, “an investigation of the relationsbetween the writing of history and the operation ofemplotment ... an initial approximation (awaiting theanalysis of fictional narrative in volume two) of therelation between history and narrative” (227).Oppositions invite mediation. It is a key Ricoeurianmove to establish antithetical oppositions in order to breakthem down and negotiate between their extreme claims.One such opposition, particularly important in Ricoeur’swork and the whole hermeneutic tradition, is that between“Understanding” (Verstehen) and “explanation”(Erklaren). In their extreme formulations, as oppositions,understanding entails a strictly subjectivistic, hermeneuticapproach to knowledge, denying the validity of objectivityand formalist models, while explanation entails a strictlyobjectivistic, “scientific” approach that denies subjectiveor historical constitution of knowledge and constructsabstract nomological models.This general opposition, which Ricoeur thinks is fatal,is rearticulated in the “epistemological break” thatdistances the disciplines of historiography and narrativetheory. The task for Ricoeur is clear: diminish thediscursive space between these two problematics, es¬tablish a working dialogue, critically examine the leadingcontributions from each side and work toward an original,syncretic theory, toward a position that sees history asneither nomological science nor mythical story, as being“ultimately narrative” in character, yet amenable to a(modified) “scientific” analysis.Ricoeur is working against two specific theses in orderto establish a mediating third: against the scientific thesisthat there is no connection between history and narrative,“making historical time a construction without anysupport from narrative time or the time of action” (92).and against the naive narrativist thesis that there is a directconnection between history and narrative, effecting a“directly readable continuity between the time of actionand the historical time” (92). Ricoeur insists a connectiondoes exist, without which history would no longer behistorical, but it is an indirect connection that has to begenetically reconstructed and retraced. The path fromnomological invariables to the ekstases of lived time isdecisively oblique.Bypassing chapter four, which focuses on the denial ofa narrativist history through the denial of the concept ofevent, I will focus on chapters five, which works toward apositive rehabilitation of the notion of narrative, andchapter six, which identifies and redraws the lines ofderivation from historical science to praxis.Ricoeur critically explicates seven leading contributionsto the narrative thesis, those given by William Dray,G.H. Von Wright, Arthur Danto, W.B. Gaille, LoiusMink, Hayden White, and Paul Veyne. To condense along and detailed discussion, I will forego the intricaciesof Riceour’s arguments and focus on two key themes: thenature of historical explanation and the meaning ofemplotment.The point of departure for a renewed theory forexplanation, the paradigm to be opposed, is the “coveringlaw model” which seeks to cover, or subsume, aparticular historical event with the universal law it supposedly conforms to. Ricoeur’s main strategy is toreject the covering law model, but not all of its terms, asstrict narrativists do. Instead the scientific noti¬ons—explanation, causality, etc.—have to be broadened indefinitional scope and brought into the primaryproblematic of the understanding, and so, to narrativetheory. The latter task is accomplished through the formertask.So we are presented, once again, with the oppositionbetween explanation and understanding. The first point isthat explanation, and so causality, is in no way tied to thenotion of law. Various forms of historical explanation andcausality exist, as Ricoeur shows, they hold in substantiveform without being bound to a nomological logic.Causality is maintained because, as we will see, thenotion of narration, more than a mere serial relation ofevents, depends on it. Explanation is achieved through thenarrative analysis of causal relations, relations which areseen as historically mutable and intrinsically related.There is then a distinct form of narrative explanation,which Ricoeur calls “singular causal imputation”, “theexplanatory procedure that accomplishes the transitionbetween narrative causality—the structure of ‘one becauseof the other’ which Aristotle distinguished from ‘one afterthe other’—and explanatory causality that, in the coveringlaw model, is not distinguished from explanation bylaws” (182). Explanation, in fact, is intrinsic to the verynotion and operation of narrative, as Ricoeur understandsit. “To narrate already is to explain. Every narrativebrings about a causal connection merely by reason of theoperation of emplotment” (178). But the type of explana¬tion characteristic of historical narrative, based as it is onprobability and not necessity, is more like legal reasoningthan logical deduction (Dray); it employs a type ofreflexive judgment in its act of “grasping together”(Mink); it is impregnated with ideological elements(White); and it must involve a teleological element whichaccounts for the motivations and practical inferences ofthe acting subject, thereby blending internal and externalfactors in a “mixed model” of “quasi-explanation” (VonWright).Following Gaille, Mink, Von Wright, and White,Ricoeur unambiguously grounds explanation in the un¬derstanding, our “originary capacity of apprehension asregards the meaning of human action” (135) but, unlikethem, “without denying the explanatory vocation thatkeeps history within the circle of the human sciences”(178). History is a “mixed genre” where various types ofcausal explanation apply, but all forms of causal explana¬tion are preceded by, and rooted in, our prior narrativeunderstanding which is in turn rooted in our “originarycapacity of apprehension”, our preliminary prenarrativeabilities. Explanation then an abstraction from the largerfield of narrative competence and praxis, it is preceded bya discourse that already has narrative form. Ricoeurconcurs with Gaille: “whatever explanations a work ofhistory contains must be discussed in relation to thenarrative form from which they arise and on which theysubserve” (149). We are speaking then of “the primacyof narrative understanding, in relation to explanation(sociological or otherwise) in history and explanation of“the activity that produces plots in relation to every sort(continued on following page)desire. So how to be sober in our desires in a society likethis? This is why I should say that the reform of theindividual and the reform of the institution should proceedsimultaneously. I understand now your question because Iam speaking of the disease of the institution as such, butthey are created from the disease of desire. It is a kind ofmutual reflection, one playing on the other.SB: There’s the structural deformations of the institution,and there’s the pathology of the individual. They’recertainly related issues. The issue is that Leninism, theparadigmatic Marxist concept, postpones the pathology ofthe individual until after the revolutionary project. Thequestion everday life raises is...PR: You meant the responsibility of the individual withdealing with his own distortions of desire?SB: Exactly. Is a politics possible when forms ofsubjectivity which we might find in a labor movement forexample, are infected, and deformed, by bourgeoisconditions?PR: But, on the other hand, we should not say that wehave to postpone political problems as long as theindividual has not been cured. This would be the oppositeextreme...SB: Exactly...PR: Wait a minute... Here I am thinking of a frankdeclaratrion by Kant. He said that we could have thepolitical order even with demons, meaning that the richestproblem is the transformation of our will, and thereforethe healing of the radical ego. But to have the politicalbody is not necessary to have only santified wills, butonly a minimal good will. So, the political problem hasgot to be postponed, until the time when everybody wouldhave changed his own desire, but it’s difficult to have awholesome politics with individuals who are inflated withdreams of omnipotence.SB: We've raised the general problematic of everyday lifeand now I’d like to move back into your work to discussthe axis of concerns I have identified: politics/ethics/reflection. Let’s begin with what ethics means to you inits radical sense, its Spinozistic rather than Kantian sense,what you term a “new ethics”.PR: I work from three poles. The first element is to saythat the task of ethics is to provide for the individualperson, the full development of individual potential. Butthere is a second pole which is the Other. If I rely onlyupon the claim to fulfill my own life, then it will merelybe an egoistic world view . But the Other has a claim infront of me and 1 have to relate my own desire to the integrity of the other. Here the Kantian notion of respect,of compassion, is important. But neither of these polesgenerates the symbolic framework of norms, customs,mores, which constitute the background of all ethicalproblems. So there is a third element, the institution. Icall institution here not only political institutions, but also language is an institution, since I have not inventedlanguage, so it’s always within the basis of a heritage ofbeliefs of creeds, of norms, that I may develop my ownproject of life — and also respect of project of life of theother. So I will say that a basic type of ethics, the need offulfillment, of fulfillment of the ego, the recognition ofthe equal right of the other, but the perpetuation of the^ body of beliefs which constitute a culture.5 SB: All of these senses relate to the sense of ethics you're^ trying to define in your book The Conflict of Inter-| pretations where you define ethics as our effort to exist,i. and our desire to be.X| PR: Yes, yes, yes.i. SB: If ethics is our desire to be. our effort to exist, thenreflection — the philosophy of reflection which youdevelop following people like Fichte and Nabert — is theappropriation of this effort to be.PR: But you see, in this definition, something is lacking,the problem of the other. Since the time when I wrote this— it was maybe too solipsistic and did not take enoughinto account the recognition of the Other as an absolutecenter calling for recognition. And then the influence ofthe French Jewish philosopher. Levinas, was really verygreat — the fact that I have to de-center the originalethics. Of course, following reflexive philosophy, ofNabert. whom you quoted. I do not deny that if it was notfor the sake of the full expression of my own poten¬tialities, the recognition of the other would have noimpact on me. I receive from the other the meaning of myown deep desire to be. as you were quoting.SB: But 1 find these late Hegelian themes that you bringin to be already present in The Conflict of Interpretationswhen the role of reflection, in the fundamental sense yougive to it in your philosophy reflection, is exactly toappropriate the existing cultural tradition, as an integralpart of our effort to be. Because, as you say, con¬sciousness is never attained through immediate self-understanding! but rjfher through appropriation of theexisting cultural field.PR: Yes. exactly. Therefore it’s a whole detour throughwhat 1 call the works ar.J monuments of our culture, andthen here, the place of the other is there.SB: l think it’s there implicitly.PR: It’s implicit there. But it was only implicit because inthe philosophy of reflection there is the problem of theego which is too prominent — but de-centering was madepossible preciselv because distortion of reflection was not(continued on following page)CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986 33iRicoeurRicoeur (continued from previous page)of static structure, achronological paradigm, or temporalinvariant.” (82).In addition to expanding the concept of explanation,beyond the narrow scientific context which forgets andobscures its own lines of derivation. Ricoeur expands thenotion of emplotment. Ricoeur moves away from theatemporal conceptions of plot, such as given by Aristotleand Veyne, and the limiting definitions which seeemplotment to be only one aspect or mode of an overall “Plot, in effect, comprehends in one intelligible whole,circumstances, goals, interactions, and unintended re¬sults” of action (142). Von Wright’s theory of quasi¬explanation “throws into relief’ an “entirely hetero¬geneous concatenation” of factors—external(circumstances of action and unintended results) andinternal (motivations and inferences)—proper to historicalexplanation and which need to be brought into a singlemodel. Greatly complexifying the field of action, Ricoeuraccomplished this through the notion of plot.Lines ofderivationexplanatoryproceduresentities Praxisexternal conditioning/internal motivation •and inferenceindividuals-in-relations Narrativenarrativeunderstandingnarrativecharacters singular causal► imputation:quasi-explanationparticapatory- belonging:quasi-character Historiographynomologicalexplanationfirst-orderentitiestemporality | ekstases of lived time-* ► narrative time quasi-event historical time:(a) chronology“historical style”, such as White does, rather than “the(creative) operation that dynamizes every level of nar¬rative articulation” (168) and the identification of emp¬lotment with narrative activity as a whole. Further, as wehave said, narration does not only describe succession ofevents to tell what happened, it seeks to grasp the integralcausal links to explain why it happened.This key extension, to the point of intersection betweennarrative understanding and causal explanation, followsMink in his definition of narrative as a “syntheticactivity”, a “configurational operation”, an encompas¬sing form of “comprehension”. Narrative is, in Mink'swords, that act of “grasping together in a single mentalact things which are not experienced together, or evencapable of being so experienced, because they areseparated by time, space, or logical kind” (159). Thisconfiguration produces “highly organized wholes”; usinga reflexive, synoptic judgment, it “puts its elements into asingle concrete complex of relations” (159).Following Mink in this broad definition and VonWright in the incorporation of teleological and causalexplanation into a single model, Ricoeur seeks to linkexplanation to a theory of action rooted in the under¬standing, thereby constructing the bridge between his¬toriography and narrative theory. The master term be¬comes “plots”, a “synthesis of the heterogenous”. Chapter six is the concrete attempt to bring togetherhermeneutic understanding and historical explanation,narrative theory and historiography, into one theoreticalmodel that is inscribed within one theory of mimesisinsofar as this model attempts a rational reconstruction ofthe line of derivation running from scientific explanationto narrative understanding to praxis and the ekstases oftemporality. This reconstructive model is grounded at thelevel of mimesis-2, where we would situate historiographyas a form of historical narrative, but traverses the(analytic) boundaries of mimesis-2 and mimesis-1 in itsattempt to recover the roots of “science” in the pre-scientific lifeworld and the narrative structures thatlifeworld generates (out of a “need” to narrate, Ricoeursays). This analysis then, as I see it, brackets the level ofmimesis3, and so the reception of the (historical) text. Butthe connection is certainly there, waiting to be explored,for just as fictional narratives can widen our own horizonsof experience, so historical narratives can have a liber-atory effect, particularly when the history in question(such as our own!) is one that has been buried, obscured,and mystified.To trace the indirect lines of connection and their pointsof intersection, to reactivate the phases of derivation, toundertake a “genesis of meaning,” Ricoeur employs the(Husserlian) method of genetic phenomenology, a “ques¬ tioning back” to the prestructured lifeworld of theunderstanding. Genetic phenomenology, however, issupported by epistemology and the methodology of thehistorical sciences, for it is they, not phenomenology,hermeneutics, or ontology, which provide the mediatinglinks, the “relay stations capable of guiding ... thereactivation of the narrative sources of scholarly history(228). In what he takes to be an unprecedented attempt.Ricoeur is bringing the phenomenologist, the epi-stemologist. and the historian into a dialogue, albeit onewhere the different personalities are represented byRicoeurs decentered philosophical ego.Ricoeur identifies three distinct, but tightly inter¬connected lines of derivation, which involve specificproblematic levels tor the narrativist interpretation ofhistory.1. Explanatory procedures: Here, as already dis¬cussed. scientific explanation is to be linked to narrativeunderstanding (itself a distinct form of explanation) andultimatelv to the prenarrative and teleological context ofpraxis. This occurs at the intersection ot causality and thenarrative forms and competence that historiography pre¬supposes. The mediating figure here is the concept of“singular causal imputation" which we have alreadydefined.2. First Order Entities of History: These refer toextra-individual phenomenal, the primary categories his¬torians work with, the large-scale social entities such ascultures, civilisations, or classes. Here Ricoeur tries tolink the abstract entities of historiography with narrativecharacters and so, real individuals. At stake here is thevery legitimacy and possibility of the narrativist thesis,insofar as the logic of “narration,” as operative in thefield of literary criticism, demands, for its analogicalextension, the existence of “charJbters," identifiable andresponsible human agents of action, which seem under-ivable from the larger anonymous forces. Ricoeur thenhas to negotiate between two extreme problematics andformulate a plausible alternative account of narrativecharacter (and plot). These extremes are represented bythe “realist” reification of social forces, where individualactors are dissolved into the opacity of anonymous,determining social forces, and a “nominalist” method¬ological individualism, which exaggerates the autonomyand rational capacities of the individual, divorcing theagent from the hill social context of agency, where causalfactors are by no means negligible. The mediating figurehere is “participatory belonging,” the very title of whichsuggests a dialectical rapprochement. This term and itskey corellary notion, “quasi-character,” tries to fullyacknowledge the determining force of social conditions,but while insisting on the knowledgeability and efficacy ofhuman action.3. Temporality : Historical time is abstracted from, andgrafted upon, the already constructed time of narrativeform, the time of emplotment, “however artificial this(latter time) may be” (182). Narrative time, in turn, is animaginative configuring of the ekstases of praxial tem¬porality, the complex interplay of memory, circumspec¬tion, and expectation. Historical time, particularly in itsachronological elaboration, appears to have no relation tothe real time of action, but it is Ricoeur’s task to establishits unseverable link to the realm of narrative form and(continued from previous page)self-consciousness as immediate apperception of myself,but the appropriation of the whole achievements of aculture, not only my present culture but the heritage ofpast cultures. So. it’s a long detour through the present ofmy culture, but also the past of my culture, and also theexpectations of my culture — the utopias.SB: Why do you posit a desire to be. why not itsconverse, why not a desire not to be? Does this havesomething to do with your critique of Sartre, where yousay that negation is not the primary' basis of action butrather affirmation? Why not a desire not to be? Why notReich's problem?PR: 1 have always thought, as Hegel — this is maybe inthe Hegelian part of my own conviction — that it has tobe productive to enrich a previous affirmation, anassertion, because to exist is to assert that 1 am. 1 didagree with Sartre, not so much with his concept ofnegation, but with his concept of being. For him. to be. isto be dead: a stone exists — I am not a stone, thereforeit's the negativity which describes my kind. Yes. But whytake this definitional being as this inert, frozen, mode ofexistence? Maybe I should say, I spoke of Hegel but 1 willspeak also of Spinoza. 1 admit that I have always beenfascinated by Spinoza, where everything is affirmative.God, or one substance, asserts himself. There is even noplace for negation at the limit in Spinoza. Everything is anexpansion of positivity, and I like that very much — tosee also the others as asserting something, an aspect of thecultural life, and a dimension of desire. And even indesire, it is not so much that I am lacking, but somethingis lacking that I express myself, so it’s a positivity ofdesire. Maybe it’s the beginning of the illness of desire todefine itself in terms of what is lacking.SB: I’d like to now continue along the lines of philosophyof reflection and politics by raising the problem of whatyou call the task of consciousness. We can say what thetask of consciousness is perhaps to see consciousness as atask. We see it not as an immediacy, but as a deferral,and not a given, but rather a goal to be achieved. Yourphilosophy of reflection, in its reappropriative role,attempts this undertaking through the appropriation of thecultural field, but also, what’s very important here, I find,is your de-centering of the cogito, and the de-centering ofthe cogito as crucial to a political project, as crucial tonew forms of being and interrelations. Let me quote youhere, you say: “The loss of illusions of consciousness isthe condition for any reappropriation of the true subject.” To my mind, this constitutes the future task of a reflectivephilosophy. Couldn't we say more generally that thecritique of the cogito — a problematic that has invadedevery field of meaning — is the future task of politics ingeneral, insofar, as you yourself have seen, that this leadsto a deformed praxis, a praxis based on abstraction, seriality, and possession? Think here for instance ofHeidegger's genealogy (in “The Age of The WorldPicture”) of the subject, the subject-object distinction,and the ramifications of that throughout the whole socialfield.PR: But we must not forget the second part of theassertion that the critique of the illusions of subjectivity —the illusion, mainly, of being the master, of being thecenter of the world — what we called at the beginning thedream of omnipotence. There is a recognition of thenucleus of subjectivity, since what would be the centerassertion if it was not a subject? So, in a sense, thecritique of the illusions of consciousness, is for the sakeof enlargement of consciousness, in the sense of aware¬ness and the critical look on my condition, my wholesituation. But to continue on another line, politics needs,also, subjectivity, because to be a citizen is to beconsciously aware of what is at stake in the conflicts ofsociety, and even power would have no legitimacy if itwere not recognized. By whom, if not by citizens assubjects? And this was the Hegelian dream, that thetransparency of the state should be so complete that eachindividual would be recognized. So, therefore, 1 want tobe recognized by the others and by the institutions. Weneed a core of subjectivity to have real citizens who arenot only manipulated by the media, by the experts, bybureaucracy, or by Big Brother, here, the individual is notthe center of resistance, it is the center of responsibility. Itis the center of initiative, let us say.SB: I'd like to move to what you see to be the specifictasks of philosophy of reflection, specifically, what it isreappropriating. You identify two key themes here: ourability to speak, and our ability to love. I thought wemight first turn to our ability to speak. The question oflanguage figures importantly in your conception of therehumanization of humanity. You speak for instance of “aproject opposed to the dream of domination, to rediscoverin the semantics of desire the impulse to speak withoutend, and the ability to express and communicate.” I’d liketo discuss the question of language in three parts: first,what language means to you and why it figures soimportantly in your work; second, what the present crisisin language is; and third, how we recover our linguisticabilities. To turn to the first question, what languagemeans to you, with Heidegger you say that “Man islanguage. Now does this mean a reductionist equation ofDasein with discourse, or, as I suspect, an attempt toestablish the connection between words and being?34 CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986praxis. The narrativist interpolation of history is chal¬lenged again here in the attack on the notion of “event.”Ricoeur tries to mediate between the notion of the longtime-span and the isolated, punctuated event with mediat¬ing figure of the “quasi-event.” The thesis he sets out todefend is that “historical events do not differ radicallyfrom the events framed by a plot” (208).IV. ConclusionTN is an ambitious, expansive, and impressive work,drawing together a number of Ricoeur's traditionalconcerns and working them in a new problematic wherethey take on a renewed significance. The themes andproblems Ricoeur takes on, as he himself admits, areweighty and difficult. He is to be commended for hisability to work with, and through, huge amounts ofmaterial drawn from the most diverse disciplines andtraditions. He expertly explicates his material in lucidstyle as he critically assesses and appropriates from therelevant texts. With few exceptions -Anthony Giddens,Jurgen Habermas, and Fred Dallmary immediately cometo mind - Ricoeur is without parallel in his encyclopedicrange. To read him is always to acquire a knowledge andappreciation of the true depth and complexity of theissues. TN therefore comes highly recommended toanyone with an interest in phenomenology, ontology,literary criticism, or history and the social sciences.Ricoeur’s dialectical skills, his extension of the her¬meneutical project, and his theory of mimesis all con¬stitute a real contribution to the overlapping problems andproblematics he works with in TN. He convincinglydemonstrates the need for both ontologico-phenomenological description and methodological reflec¬tion. Just as it is the shortcoming of phenomenologists,such as Heidegger or Ponty, to divorce their analysesfrom the connection to the social sciences, so themethodologists are wrongly confined within epistem¬ological fortresses.Ricoeur's mediations are so welcome and that I do notfind room for serious disagreement. It is worth, to beginwith, underlining two key issues of the book. First, whatvalue is to be gained by applying the concept of narrativeto the historical sciences? How does this contribute to ourunderstanding of history and historical writing? Second, isthe analogical transference of narrative to history valid?I would suggest both that the analogy, though a highlytroublesome one, as Ricoeur would be the first to admit,holds and that it yields a great deal of conceptual, evendeconstructive, fruit. It is important that historians andliterary critics see that they share a general discursivespace, what ever legitimate difference exist in theirproblematics and the referents of each. Just as historianstend to deny the role of ideology, imaginative reconstruc¬tion, preexisting philosophical and narrative forms con¬stituting their objective analyses, such as Hempel does, soliterary critics tend to deny any aspect of the “real”which might insinuate itself into fiction, effecting anepistemological break between history (the real) andfiction (the possible), as does Northrop Frye. Thenarrativist thesis that Ricoeur develops, in a sophisticatedform, works to deconstruct these false oppositions, toclose off false conceptual — and institutional — bound¬aries, and to open up, in a strong way, the issue of history as a form of writing (hisotorio-graphy) and so, perhaps,even to problematize the meta-narratives of history suchas written by Hegel or Marx.But given the blank fact that “society” and “history”are forces in no way reducible to the individuals whocomprise and constitute them, the analogical extension ofnarrative terms — character, event, plot — is conclusion,Ricoeur develops his “quasi-” constructions to save theanalogy. While I have been unable to reproduce the actualcare and detail of his arguments, I think his general pointis correct: the logic and conceptual content of these termsremains in substantive form in the transference to thehistorical problematic. Indeed, I would say, the terms arein fact conceptually enriched, insofar as the transferencedemands a demystificaiton of the individualism associatedwith these terms. But Ricoeur is also absolutely right torealize that the individual must remain in some form, asthe substantial referent and force of the narrativist thesis,and so he develops a needed theory of action; whichaccounts for and balances a wide range of “external”(social and historical) factors and “internal”(knowledgeable, deliberative, and inferential) factors. Butwhile he greatly improves on more simplistic elaborationsof these factors — the overly rationalist accounts ofsubjectivity, for example, which fail to grasp the fullforce of external and irrational factors conditioning action— he fails, interestingly enough, to explicitly addressideology and the unconscious, themes by no means absentfrom his work as a whole.I find that Ricoeur obscures a key issue throughout TN,the question of continuity and totality, whether it be theelements united within a theoretical model, the multiplediscursive and institutional forms and practices thatcomprise any one culture or society, and the overallcoherence and unity of the historical process itself. All ofthese issues are raised in an important way, both in TNand throughout Ricoeur’s work as a whole, beginning,perhaps, with the detotalizing notions of finitude andambiguity as raised in his early work. Moreover, Ricoeurdoes advance the key dialectical notion of “discordantconcordance” in this book, a notion I have tried toaccount for. But this specific notion and the generalthemes of continuity and totality, I find, are developedambiguously in TN. “Discordant concordance” appearsto refer to the irreducibly aporetical character of tem¬porality that haunts any narrative whole, the dialecticaltension within mixed models, the uneven development ofthe discursive levels of a given “society” (a pointFoucault develops but Ricoeur only mentions in passing),or the resistance of history to a meta-narrative total¬ization. In short, this key notion requires more elaborationand precision.Similarly, I find that while Ricoeur displays cleardetotalizing tendencies in TN and throughout his work, hetends, with his notion of plot, to gravitate toward atotalizing model which, in its function of “graspingtogether.” overemphasizes the degree to which emplot-ment really can effect a unity. Ricoeur speaks of“synthesis of the heterogeneous,” but this remains anambiguous figure: is it the synthesis of the heterogenous,or the synthesis of the heterogenous? This last possibilitysuggest Foucault’s interesting notion of discursive for¬ mations where dispersion is highlighted, ambiguity to beclarified. What Ricoeur needs, I would suggest, is adetailed and sustained reflection of these issues, at thelevel that Foucault gave (still just a beginning) in hisArchaeology of Knowledge.But if I find Ricoeur’s analysis incomplete in somerespects, I believe it could be fruitfully extended in otherrespects. I think he needs, for example, to extend thenotion of linguistic creative — semantic innovation — notonly to the realm where this involves an active confut¬ation of dominant social and cultural codes, but beyondthe discursive realm proper to the field of creative,appropriative historical and political praxis. Similarly, thenotion of the productive imagination could well come intocontact with the discourse of the productive imaginationpar excellance, this being, of course, surrealism, wherethe productive imagination is explicitly defined in politicalterms and so not as the creativity of the imagination butthe liberation of the imagination from the debilitatingconstraints of a technological culture, which is a broaderconceptualisation. While these themes are not absent fromRicoeur’s work, they are not given a sustained or boldreflection. The difference is between Ricoeur’s poetic“redescription” of reality and the surrealists’ disarticula¬tion of reality, at the conceptual and, above all, tacticallevel of existence. This is not to say, by any means, thatpolitics and political activism are not themes in Ricoeur’swork, but that there is a difference between a politicaltheme and the politic sation of a theme, somethingRicoeur actively eschews on the assumption that a thinkeror artists best serves society through concern only withthe internal problems of form. But this, of course, is afallacy, most undialectical, which ignores the possibilityof maintaining the integral autonomy of thought and art inits politicisation, as so many first-rate thinkers and artistshave in fact done.Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Ricoeur's entireanalysis of mimesis is thoroughly a historical by failing toaddress the decisive impact of contemporary media onnarrative form and narrative competence and recompet¬ence. Ricoeur’s theory is “literary” in the strict sense ofthe word, He speaks as though ours is still a culturewhere oral tales or handwritten scrolls circulate, ratherthan the culture of the mass production, distribution, andconsumption of images. What is required here is anelaborate ontology of contemporary experience, a des¬cription of the impact of the mass media of all aspects ofexperience. For not is basic literacy on the decline, ouractual needs to narrate (if Ricoeur is right here), andcapacities to narrate (our own stories and praxis) areuprooted and altered in the age of the passive consump¬tion of the image.. Perhaps it is appropriate to rupture my own narrativeat this point, to forego the totalization of the last sentence,and to open up, rather than close this text with thefollowing:We tell stories because in the last analysis human livesneed and merit being narrated. This remark takes onits full force when we refer to the necessity to save thehistory of the defeated and the lost. The whole historyof suffering cries for vengence and calls for narrative.(75).by Steve BestPR: Yes, you are right, because what we already saidabout desire, about praxis and action, confirmed that weare not only language. But -language is not just onecapacity among others, I cannot say that I eat. I sleep. Ispeak. Speaking is not just one ability among others. It isthe ability of expressing all the other capacities by themeans of signs. All the potentialities, all the abilities, allthe modes of behavior can be expressed in language, andmore important, the relationship of the other goes throughlanguage. Even the exchange of desires. The desire has tobe expressed, to be said. But your second question ismore important.SB: Right, what is now the crisis in language?PR: I should say that the problem is to preserve themultiplicity of users of language. 1 am fascinated by thefact that language works at so many different levels inordinary life, it’s an instrument of signalled commu¬nication. And you have the scientific use of language, thepoetic use of language. One of the tasks of the future is topreserve the amplitude of the modes of the uses oflanguage. In a sense, this was one of the preoccupationsof late Wittgenstein, when he spoke of language games: topreserve the plurality, thee omplete range of languagegames, each working in its own way. For example, wecannot substitute scientific language for ordinary lan¬guage, because ordinary language relies on the polysemyof our words, the flexibility of language, sensitive to theinfinite varieties of contexts. So, to preserve contextualvalues of our words presupposes a kind of language thathas, thanks to its polysemy in each context, the samewords meaning something different. And the task ofscientific language is to reduce this polysemy in order tomake a universal language — one sign, one meaning. Butit works only for the sake of a limited — I should evensay, an insulated — ordef of discourse, which is just forthe purpose of reconstructing reality in mathematicalterms and so on.SB: The dream of symbolic logic...PR: Yes, yes, yes. Symbolic language, a well constructedlanguage cannot replace ill-constructed language thatworks perfectly for the sake of ordinary communication.You have the poetic language that preserves the polysemyand, as someone said, in poetry the words mean as muchas they can. For us inside of language, it must mean onlywhat is required by the axiomatics.SB: Let’s address the third part of our question now. Thetask before us seems to involve the reinvigoration oflanguage, the recapturing of a symbolic depth and complexity, to rethink language. Now how is this to beaccomplished, given the massive problems posed by theassimilation of language, as with everything else, to theimperatives of technological culture?PR: When I spoke of the fullness of language, I had theinview that the fact that the basic symbols and myths of our culture constitute the heritage. That is to say. I am notin the position of repenting everything, the word has beenalready said before me. and then. I speak of the fullnessof language in the sense that what has been said in thegreat cultural past, has not yet been nor ever will be.completely exhausted. We can mean always more. And itis a source that can be expanded indefinitely.SB: With Benjamin and Holdorin you point to thesubversive power of language. “We must.” you say,“enclose literature within a world of its own. and breakoff the subversive point it turns against the moral andsocial orders. We forget that fiction is precisely whatmakes language a supreme danger.” At one level we canappropriate language through language by using languageas the subversive power that it can be. Literature asfiction is not besides reality . It nourishes reality, and also,as you said, it’s a sort of critic of reality because itliberates potentialities of existence that have been prohib¬ited. inhhibited. or even destroyed So there is the workof rehabilitation of potentialities forgotten, lost. So I seeliterature not as a decoration of life, but rather as arestoration of life.SB: Let us turn now to our last topic, the ability to love.You speak of “a new orientation to desire, a new capacityfor enjoyment Men are not masters of their power to liveand enjoy when it is destroyed by prohibition and libidinalconflicts.” What we need then, with psychoanalysis andSpinoza, is a re-education, a rehabilitation of our desires.PR: Yes. you see, 1 am afraid when the topic is aboutlove, because I always thought that it’s either too easy ortoo difficult to speak about. Either it’s real, or it's sosecret that it’s impossible to say anything But we couldspeak at least of compassion and this is form more andmore of a concern, maybe because I have been linkedwith so many dramatic events in my own life. If in thepast my problem was that of guilt, my problem is nowmore the victimization that is going on through history 1am appalled by the amount of suffering that there is in theworld, and so many innocent victims, and we have noright to consider them as culprits, and maybe there aremany more victims than culprits. But at least to addressoneself towards the other as a victim, a potential victim,is to express compassion for what has been prohibitedfrom expression and deprived from fulfillment, whichneeds our tears and our help. But that presupposes that weovercome the egoisti: complement of desire, and even thesadistic complement of desire, to liberate the recognitionof the absolute value of the other, and maybe this is love.CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986 EndRicoeurPut the pastin your future!LIVE IN AN HISTORIC LANDMARKThoroughly renovated apartments offer generous floor space com¬bined with old-fashioned high ceilings. 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Instructor is ChengYang Borchert, Sr. Lecturer in Chinese.For further information, call 493-6420CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986 Spruce Up Your Smile foriGraduation S |Por New Job c 1or Summeror Summer Job L i1or the Beach 1or ?? ALDavid Itzkoff, DDS752-78881525 E. 53rd St.Suite 604Turning the Tideby Noam ChomskyChomsky’s incredibly terse writing makes the discuss¬ion of Central America in his Turning the Tideimpossible to summarize. The book is a brief yetcomprehensive and readable treatment of the U.S. war inCentral America. It also relates the war to a number ofbroader issues (see companion article, this page).Chomsky focuses primarily on Nicaragua and ElSalvador, though also discussing other countries in theregion, particularly Guatemala. He opens with thumbnaildescriptions of life in the U.S. sphere of influence — the“miseries of traditional life’’ (a euphemism borrowedfrom Jean Kirkpatrick), and the terror used by the U.S.and its clients to keep Third World victims fromrebelling. He then turns to the economic and historicalbackground which helps explain why the use of terror isso systematic an element of U S. policy towards the ThirdWorld.In reviewing Chomsky’s discussion of Nicaragua, it iseasier to reverse his order, giving some history beforelooking at the society which Reagan is trying to destroy,and the terror his contras use against its people.The first major U.S. attack against Nicaragua occurredmore than a century ago, in 1854, “to avenge an allegedinsult to American officials and the millionaire CorneliusVanderbilt.” according to Chomsky. More recently.Marines invaded Nicaragua in 1909, and occupied thecountry almost continuously until 1933. Before the U.S.left, it created a National Guard under the corrupt Somozadynasty. The Somozas ruled for 46 years. Eventually.Somoza’s brutality and his attempt to monopolize thenation's wealth undermined his support across the board,even among business elites.President Carter tried to maintain Somoza’s U.S.-trained N ional Guard in power, even when it was clearthat he c uldn’t save Somoza himself. Despite Carter'sefforts, both Somoza and his National Guard wereoverthrown by the Sandinista Front for National Liber¬ation in July. 1979.To his credit. Carter did provide some aid to the newgovernment. As Chomsky points out, however, most ofthe aid was in the form of loans, and it was a fraction ofwhat the U.S.-installed dictator destroyed, with U.S.-supplied weapons, while trying to stay in power. More¬over, much of the pressure for this aid came from U.S.banks, which were afraid that the new regime couldn’thandle the debts it inherited from the dictator it over¬threw.Carter’s “last-ditch effort to pay off US banks,” Chomsky notes, “is now described as proof of USmagnanimity.”The Sandinistas did not engage in large scale executionsof former National Guard members (in fact, they abol¬ished the death penalty). These ex-National Guardsmen(Somocistas or contras) began to reorganize on theHonduran border. By 1981, the United States wasfinancing attacks by these forces against Nicaragua.Reagan may have initiated these attacks because hefeared the dramatically different direction in which theSandinistas were taking Nicaraguan development. “Infantmortality,” Chomsky points out, “fell so dramaticallythat Nicaragua won an award from the World HealthOrganization.” In addition, literacy improved sharply,and a significant land reform program was carried out. Inall, Nicaragua “made the most impressive gains of anyLatin American nation in the Quality of Life Index of theOverseas Development Council, based on literacy, infantmortality and life expectancy.”The alternative to U.S. dominance suggested by theseimprovements may have made the Reagan Administrationuncomfortable.Of course, Reagan can’t go on T V. and tell theAmerican people that we’re attacking Nicaragua becauseits successes might inspire other Third World countries tothrow off U.S.-backed dictators. The Reagan Administra¬tion has therefore leveled a number of charges against theSandinistas, which it claims justify its attacks.There are, of course, problems with the Sandinistas’rule, which the Reagan Administration has been able toexploit, such as press censorship and mistreatment of theMiskito Indians. However, given the far worse conditionsunder U.S. supported governments (see below), it is clearthat Reagan’s claims are made with extraordinary cyni¬cism. A broad view of U.S. policy towards the ThirdWorld (and even European countries like Greece) makesit clear that U.S. policy makers, including the ReaganAdministration, don’t care about treatment of Indians,press censorship, democracy, or living standards (seecompanion article).Another Reagan charge — that Nicaragua poses amilitary threat to its neighbors and the United States — isabsurd, considering the relative size of Nicaragua (oneone-hundredth the population of the United States) and themajor attacks in the reverse direction: from Honduras andCosta Rica into Nicaragua, by the contras which the U.S.funds. A secret State Department report, quoted byChomsky, even worries that Nicaragua will get along toowell with Costa Rica, noting that “an effective rationalefor urgent U.S. military supplies could be dissipatedsomewhat if there are no further attacks and press stories focus on mediation and lessened tensions.”The hypocrisy of the Reagan Administration shouldn’tsurprise us. At the outset of U.S. involvement in W.W.II, for example, U.S. government planners noted, inprivate, that “formulation of a statement of war aims forpropaganda purposes is very different from one definingthe true national interest.”If the “true national interest,” as seen by the ReaganAdministration, includes the destruction of Nicaragua asan example, then the contra war is serving its purpose.Chomsky describes the effect of the war on land reformand health care, noting that “the US war in Nicaragua has... largely overcome these unique successes ... exactly asit was intended to do.”Reform, in fact, is a specific target of attack for thecontras. Former contra leader Edgar Chamorro describeshow the contras “arrive at an undefended village,assemble all the residents in the town square and thenproceed to kill — in full view of the others — all personsworking for the Nicaragua government, including police,local militia members, party members, health workers,teachers and farmers.”Contra sadism is almost unimaginable. While the U.S.press rarely describes contra atrocities, the foreign press,Chomsky notes, “has been less circumspect.” TheManchester Guardian Weekly, for example, describes acontra attack in which “the men had their arms broken,their testicles cut off. and their eyes poked out. They werekilled by slitting their throats, and pulling the tongue outthrough the slit.” This level of barbarity is commonamong the contras funded by U.S. tax dollars.When Reagan says he’s a contra, we should take him athis word, and remember exactly what this means. Weshould also remember the nature of contra terror when wehear of politicians, such as Illinois Senator Alan Dixon,voting for contra aid.Contra terror in Nicaragua, however, pales in compar¬ison with the repression carried out by the U.S.-suppliedmilitary in El Salvador.The level of killing by the Salvadoran government can’teven be assessed accurately. As Chomsky points out,human rights organizations are harrassed. human rightsworkers are targetted by the deathsquads associated withthe military , and “since merely notifying the Church andindependent human rights groups of a relative’s dis¬appearance can jeopardize the whole family , statistics ondisappearances are minimal.”After a series of fraudulent elections in the early andmid 1970’s convinced people that electoral politics were(continued on page 38)Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peaceby Noam ChomskyThe role Noam Chomsky plays in the current American political scene can be graspedby considering a hostile review of his latest book. Turning the Tide. Writing in theNew York Times Book Review, Alan Tonelson. associate editor of Foreign Policycomplains that Chomsky, in exposing repressive U.S. policies in the Third World,“tends to discuss America’s material well-being as a right that is or not due us - asthough the international system we are stuck with...permits us to deal with such mattersprimarily in legal or moral terms.” Tonelson argues that U.S. policy is “best criticizedas counterproductive, dangerous and/or unnecessary,” Finding the debate on the moralissues “sterile.”This criticism should be especially interesting to U of C students. Tonelson wantsChomsky to restrict his discussion to issues which concern policy makers and those whoenjoy them. As “respectable scholars,” we, too, will eventually be expected to limit ourwork, as Tonelson wishes Chomsky would, to issues about which policy makers want tohear.The sort of thing policy makers need to know , for example, might include “howpolitically and militarily active” America needs to be, in order “to preserve itsinterests,” where “interests,” presumably, are defined by those who employ the policymaker. Morality is important only as a means toward an end. Thus, Tonelson wants toknow “what roles, if any, can moralistic and legalistic concerns play in safeguardingAmerican interests in today's state system?” Questions like this, Tonelson declares inthe best tradition of Hanna Gray-style sophistry, are “far more radical than anything inTurning the Tide. In fact, Chomsky would agree, but not for the reasons expected byTonelson.Chomsky disappoints Tonelson because Chomsky isn't writing for policy makers. Heis writing for ordinary citizens. This is key. Ordinary citizens, unlike policy makers, willpotentially care about morality. Chomsky describes government goals and policies whichwill shock most Americans.In reviewing Chomsky's argument, it is impossible, here, to give his extensiveevidence—the most important and interesting part of his book.Chomsky opens by exposing the U.S. government's lack of concern for human rightsand living conditions in the Third World and elsewhere (see companion article for theCentral American case). Instead, Chomsky argues, U.S. policy is guided by what hecalls the Fifth Freedom—an ironic reference to the Four Freedoms of World War IIrhetoric. “Roosevelt spoke of Four Freedoms,” Chomsky writes, “but not the Fifth andmost important: the freedom to rob and exploit." He quotes, among others, prominantTruman Adminstration official George Kennan who argued that the main concern ofU.S. foreign policy should be “the protection of our (sic) raw materials” around theworld.U.S. government concern for “security,” Chomsky suggests, does not refer primarilyto the U.S. national territory, or even to the defense of Western Europe. Instead. U.S.desire for stability is principally concerned with maintaining a favorable investmentclimate for U.S. firms around the world.After reviewing a mass of evidence on U.S. violations of human rights in defense ofthe Fifth Freedom, Chomsky turns to the larger issue of the Cold War and the arms race.He argues persuasively that the arms race is not driven primarily by fear of “the GreatSatan,” ie, the Soviet Union.Reagan’s current plan to abandon SALT II, by the way, confirms Chomsky’s point.The Chernobyl disaster last month shows how little Soviet technology can be trusted.Given the unreliability of Soviet (and presumably U.S.) technology, Reagan's plan for anunrestricted arms race, with increasingly complex technology, and steadily reducedreaction times, means suicide for the U.S., the Soviet Union, and everyone else, in thelong run. Chomsky argues that there are two primary forces behind the arms race, whichoverrule concern for security. First, policy makers want a “nuclear umbrella” underwhich they can intervene without fear of Soviet response. Second, the arms race is aform of “military Keynesianism.” which bolsters the economy through governmentpurchases of high technology waste, and which subsidizes the rich.Policy makers and corporate pressure groups, by pursuing goals which areindividually rational, fuel an arms race which will untimately destroy human life. Eachactor alone contributes only slightly to the risk of war. Collectively, they make nuclearwar inevitable if trends aren't reversed.The mechanism is a little bit like littering. In a lecture given here last quarter,Chomsky called it “the rationality of collective suicide.”Chomsky 's argument yields a number of significant conclusions. First. Chomsky notesthat the relation between nuclear war and intervention implies that those who want topostpone nuclear war should devote much of their attention to anti-interventionism andpressure for peaceful solutions to crises in areas like Central America and the MiddleEast. However, since Chomsky locates the roots of the arms race in the structure of U.S.society, he believes that the ultimate solution to the arms race is the transformation of theU.S. social structure.For this reason, his final chapter, a review of the U.S. social and political sphere, isespecially significant. Chomsky touches briefly on popular movements in America'spast, the importance of the labor movement, the current attack on civil rights and socialprograms, and the limited popular support—despite media pretense—for ReaganAdminstration policies.Since involvement in domestic political issues is. perhaps, the crucial weakness in theAmerican left. I personally would have liked to see more on these issues. Despite theimportance Chomsky attributes to the labor movement, for example, he only devotes onepage to this critical issue. Similarly, while emphasizing the role of the student movementin the struggle against the Vietnam War. he neglects the role of the Civil Rightsmovement, which both shook people’s trust in the government and increased theirconfidence in their own ability to shape their society. By neglecting these powerfulmovements, Chomsky risks portraying the public primarily as victims.Chomsky does, however, see people as independent and skeptical of the powerstructure. Quoting a Times/CBS poll which found that 49% of the American public“thought the government was run by a few big interests looking out for themselves', ”Chomsky notes that “half the population holds beliefs that are regularly castigated as'Marxist' or ‘left wing’ in the mainstream media and scholarship.”These beliefs, we should remember, are acted on in a thousand ways every day: inconversations with friends, resentment and poor performance on the job, labor unionactivity, and withdrawal from electoral politics—a withdrawal which reflects, andtherefore exposes, the lack of choices in American elections. It would have beeninteresting if Chomsky had taken more account of this everyday resistance, even if itdoesn’t take forms which we've learned to recognize from the past. Not that I'mrecommending passivity —but even passive hostility suggests to those in power the threatof active resistance when action can lead to positive change.It isn’t clear how we can best contribute to this everyday resistance to injustice.Chomsky maintains that “alternatives to existing forms of hierarchy, domination, privatepower and social control certainly exist in principle.” He also argues that “determinedopposition to the latest lunacies and atrocities must continue," but that this is “a poorsubstitute for a challenge to the deeper causes, a challenge that we are...in no position tomount at the present though the groundwork can and must be laid.”“There are not magic answers,” Chomsky concludes, “just the familiar ones: honestsearch for understanding, education, organization...and the kind of commitment that willpersist despite the temptations of disillusionment.”by John ConlonCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986 37ChomskyonCentralAmerica,ChomskyAbstractedChomskyLousyMoviesLayeredNarrative38 The Real Life of Alejandro Maytaby Mario Vargas LlosaThe Real Life of Alejandro Mayta is the first book that I have read by the Peruvianauthor, Mario Vargas Llosa. My motive for starting it was not really curiosity or anydesire to confirm Vargas Llosa's status in my own mind. I began the book for nostalgicreasons. During my early childhood, I lived a few years in Peru’s capital, Lima, but Inow remember little of that experience: the park behind our house, the markets, a coupleof friends, and some nice homes with wooden floors that were laquered a sort of orangecolor. I also remember earthquakes, slums, beggars, and, once, some deep poppingsounds coming from downtown — an attempted military coup. We didn't go to schoolfor the next two or three days, and we weren’t allowed to play outside either. I picked upMayta because I hoped, rather unfairly for the book, to find something to identifywith—something to plumb another line to my past—something to use to my own ends,regardless of the author’s intentions.Vargas Llosa’s novel, fortunately, did not satisfy my sentimental expectations: itengrossed me even though it presented a different Peru than I wanted to read about, awretched Peru. The country, like much of Latin America, suffers from great poverty,cultural lassitude, and public apathy to reform. A large number of Indian communities inPeru cannot cope with industrial pressures, and find themselves orphaned, with noidentity with the rest of the country. Politicians are corrupt and militant. Cities for themost part only intensify a national state of misery. Vargas Llosa makes his view of Peruperfectly clear in his opening pages. He describes jogging along the ocean in aneighborhood in Lima, and finding that, “It’s beautiful as long as you concentrate on thelandscape and the birds, because everything man-made there is ugly.” The narrator thenexplains how residents and garbagemen, out of laziness, dump their garbage over thecliffs onto the beach, and how men. women, and children forage alongside rats, dogs,and vultures for food. “If you live in Lima, you can get used to the misery and grime,you can go crazy, or you can blow your brains out.’’Mayta, however, is more than a 300-page exclamation of despair over Peru's socialconditions. It is a novel about the failures of one man. who acts as a seed around whichpolitical, cultural, and psychological levels condense. Ironically, like my desire to makean emotional connection to the book, it is fundamentally about reconstructing the past.The narrator, who may or may not be Vargas Llosa himself, is a writer researching hisnext book. His subject is Alejandro Mayta. a forgotten Trotskyist revolutionary; hisintention is “not a biography, but a novel.’’ The writer’s motives, however, are notentirely clear: he asks himself, “Why Mayta? Because his person and his story holdsomething ineffably moving, something that, over and beyond its political and moralimplications, is like an x-ray of Peruvian misfortune?’’ Throughout the book, hecontinues to question and explain his creative impulse, never entirely certain of himselfbut hopeful for a sound justification for writing. “If ... I succumb to despair, I won’twrite this novel. That won't help anyone. No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel issomething, while despair is nothing.”To write this novel, the narrator interviews the people who knew Mayta, in order toput together a psychological portrait and to discover the reasons behind the failure of Mayta’s 1957 insurrection in the Andes. During the course of his research, he finds notthe truth, which is somewhat beside the point, but instead many contradictory accountsof Mayta’s character and his abortive revolution. The narrator actually welcomes theconvolutions that the story takes because he is trying to sift out the literary potential ofthis unimportant bit of history: “What I use is not the truth of the testimonies, but theirpower to suggest, their power as inventions, their color, their dramatic strength.As much as Vargas Llosa's novel is about Mayta, it concerns itself more with the actof writing. Each interview is interrupted by sequences of third person narrative whichrecount Mayta’s own thoughts and experiences. The transition between these two levelsof text is often quite subtle-where the dialogue between the narrator and hisinterviewees passes into the dialogue of Mayta and others, so that one “reality seems torespond to the other—but sometimes is abrupt enough to indicate the change right away.Vargas Llosa further complicates this collage technique by introducing a third sequenceof action in the second half of his book. He invents a political situation in which Peru isgradually engulfed in war: an army of Cuban-Bolivian backed revolutionaries invadesfrom the east, while American Marines land on the western coast. The three realitiesgradually fall into a rhythm, and begin to influence each other: the narrator now lives inthe war-stricken future, while the third person sequence involving Mayta’s attemptedcoup mirrors the progress of the invasion. Finally, the book’s denouement (the interviewwith Mayta himself) reveals that we have been watching the narrator write his book. Ashe researches his novel, he creates the fiction of the third person sequence and later, ofthe war. Mayta thus chronicles the development of a creative act and the relationshipbetween the writer and his material.So who is Alejandro Mayta? The narrator, as he responds to information acquiredfrom his interviews, characterizes him as an idealistic homosexual who devotes his life toliberating the poor from their abjection. Some of the testimonies disagree; he is calledinsensitive, treacherous, stupid, and is even accused of being a CIA collaborator. The“real” Mayta turns out to be a bitter old man, tired, his revolutionary impulseextinguished after years in jail. He works in an ice cream parlor, is married for thesecond time, and has four children. When the narrator interviews him, Mayta rememberslittle of his takeover attempt. In his mind, the events of 1957 are confused with his bankrobberies of the 60's and 70's. Vargas Llosa took great care to deprive us of one trueversion of his subject. The book makes us struggle to discern Mayta’s identity, andcontinually turns in on itself to make us aware of the act of reading and the act ofwriting. Vargas Llosa does not merely report the real life of Alejandro Mayta because itis not feasible for him to do so:To report’ among us now means either to interpret reality according to our desires orfears, or to say simply what is convenient. It’s an attempt to make up for ourignorance of what’s going on—which in our hearts we understand is irremediable anddefinitive. Since it is impossible to know what’s really happening, we Peruvians lie,invent, dream, and take refuge in illusion. Because of these strange circumstances,Peruvian life, a life in which so few actually do read, has become literary.In this case, it is very worthwhile for us to listen to his “lies.”by Gary RobertsMississippi Bluesdirected by Bertrand TavernierThere’s nothing I hate more than self-indulgence,particularly when it's committed by other people. I alsohate it when people talk only about themselves. Andwhat's more. I hate art that glorifies the self. I saw atwenty-minute film one time that recorded a penisbecoming erect. Aesthetic masturbation! This stuff neverhappened in the middle ages. Art was created for God.Europe is covered with some of the most beautifularchitectural structures in the world, and we haveabsolutely no clue as to who did them. I'm not suggestingthat we suddenly turn around and start glorifying thename of God in every museum and movie house in thecountry, but something's got to happen to put a stop to allthis excessive individualism. Nobody gives a shit aboutanyone but themselves. We’re a generation of vuppyassholes. Human relations have never been worse. Makeit on your own — get to the top at all costs — instant self¬gratification — the American Way. So what am I talkingabout? It’s all connected. This is a review of a movie Isaw. I hated the movie. It was a documentary calledMississippi Blues.Bertrand Tavernier, a Frenchman from France, madethe film to glorify his name and to boost his reputation asa filmmaker with a social conscience. Can you stand it? It was supposed to be a documentary about the Deep South,but it turned out to be a boring travel film aboutTavernier's journey through Mississippi. The filmmakercouldn't keep himself and his crew out of the picture. Isuppose you could say that it was a film about making afilm, but in a documentary (what's a documentary?) thistype of self-indulgence is both artless and inexcusable.(Anyway, it’s been done a million times before. Did yousee 8V2?) A documentarist should look above and beyondhis own assumptions in order to convey the reality of theforeign element (pretentious?). Tavernier, unfortunately,couldn't get out of his own head.“Too many French people,” said one person as he wasleaving the theater.The film began with a scene at Faulkner's grave inOxford. Mississippi. But did it try to say anything aboutFaulkner, or his relationship to the South? It brieflymentioned something aobut him (mainly that he wasrequired reading in French schools). The film crew thenbegan to question the man who tended the graveyard. Hetold them what he thought about the French. Taverniersucceeded in making this man look like a redneck and afool. It was extremely condescending. Tavernier's pom¬pous description: “America is full of such backwardhicks.”This is just the beginning. There's more repulsive self- glorification further down the road. At one point their carbreaks down. For some reason they filmed the wholescene; trying to fix the car. getting back on the road. Itwas a dreadful bore. They blamed it on the fact that it wasan American car. Arrogance. I kept asking myself whycan't they just stay out of the frame of the camera?Nobody cares about Tavernier’s film crew, much lesstheir administrative and mechanical failures. Are theymore important than their subject? I learned more aboutthem than I did about the South. Jerks!“We went to the zoo today,” said a woman sittingbehing me. I hate it when people talk during films. “Wemade a wish at the wishing well. We didn't have anychange, so we wrote a check. I hope it works.”The film. Tavernier. He was very condescendingtowards blacks. The film kept implying — “wow, neato.Black people playing the blues. They're poor, but theyhave their music to keep them happy.” Romanticizingpoverty. Disgusting. Putting Blacks on a pedestal withtheir blues and gospel. That's the last thing Blacks need.Again. Tavernier doesn't explore Black culture, hemerely explores his inner romantic vision of Blackculture. A documentary' on Tavernier's mind? Great. Whycall it Mississippi Blues? Should be Tavernier Self-Impressed. Miss it if vou have the chance.by Deane Bivins(continued from page 37)impossible in El Salvador, the left turned to other types ofpolitical organization. With the overthrow of Somoza inNicaragua, the Carter Administration realized that it hadto do something to save the Salvadoran military from asimilar fate. Carter supported a military coup which putsome civilians into the government. Military repressionescalated rapidly, however, and the civilians, realizingthat they were a powerless figleaf, resigned. Eventually,Jose Napolean Duarte volunteered to provide window-dressing for military control.In November, 1980, the leadership of the politicalopposition was murdered, “helping to clear the groundfor what the U.S. press would describe as ‘democraticelections,’ ” Chomsky notes. The independent media wasalso bombed out of existence, “another prerequisite for‘free elections.’ ” Censorship is no longer necessary' in El Salvador.All this occurred with Carter Administration support.“Carter’s war was successful,” Chomsky suggests, sinceit shifted the struggle “away from the political arena,where the US and its clients are weak, to the arena offorce and violence, where they reign supreme.”With the political opposition in the cities decimated,repression moved to the countryside. The Salvadoranmilitary, with U.S. support, currently uses aerial bombingand massacre to drive the population out of zonescontrolled by the guerrillas. “Without a civilian base ofsupport,” Salvadoran Colonel Sigifredo Ochoa explains,“the guerrillas are nothing but outlaws.” Similarly, aU.S. mercenary, working for the Salvadoran government,“dismisses the news reports, which falsely describe a waragainst the guerrillas,” Chomsky notes. The reality is the“beautiful technique” of “murdering the civilians whoside with them,” this former Marine explains. The U.S.-supported war against the Salvadoran peoplehas killed tens of thousands of people, and createdhundreds of thousands of refugees. This is a form ofrelocation far more brutal than anything Reagan couldaccuse the Sandinistas of.In the case of El Salvador, both Senator Dixon andSenator Simon of Illinois support Reagan’s war. Simon,who does oppose Reagan’s support for the contras,supports the murder in El Salvador because, he claims,Duarte, who has presided over the worst massacre inSalvadoran history, is a true democrat.Chomsky s judgement of U.S. foreign policy may seemparticularly harsh. What really condemns U.S. actions, inChomsky s view, however, is his very assumption thatpolicy makers are rational, given their goals. The U.S.government understands the brutal effects of its inter¬vention in the Third World.by John ConlonCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 19860<A t ,0 j/iJl l /Wii/TI - J/l Wi O/ta i .U Wl/SWiHappy as a Dug’s Tailby Anna SwirI. HappinessHappiness, for Swir, does not represent well-being infreedom from suffering, but rather emerges from asuffering-bliss rooted in the center of a mind-bodyduality. This duality, and the painful uncertainty ofidentity which grows from it, creates a suffering whichboth encompasses this schism and eventually allows, fromit, happiness to emerge. Yet this happiness cannot existuntil the body has completely estranged the mind: thebody, when it becomes aware of its own fundamentalexistence, separates consciousness from physical pleasureand thus from self-recognition. The body sees in itself aworld where pain dissolves to the senses and the purephysicality of being transcends an awareness of self.“Our bodies have given us consolation,” (Black Poppy,‘Stephanie’s Love) yetOne must hurrybefore death comes. For by thenlike a dog jerked by its chainI will have to returninto this stridently suffering body.To go through the lastmost strident ceremony of the body.Defeated by the body,slowly annihilated because of the body. . .1 will expire in shame.(Large Intestine, ‘Antonia's Love)Time and the realization of the possibility of death in time(in itself a death within but not equivalent to physicaldeath: the complete realization of death, a sort ofmetaphysical death of intent) aggravate the recognition ofthe schism — a duality one discovers whenever submer¬sion in the physical is not complete. Consciousness doesnot allow one to wholly accept a somatic reality; themind’s self-awareness creates a separation through its fearof death and its inability to understand the body.One. Swir suggests, exists within this separation andtension of identity. All revelation emanates from itsfundamental uncertainty, and one's self-awareness, itseems, can realize the body only through a distance. Yetthis uncertainty allows one to achieve a powerful dualitywithin the schism which, through its unique inexactness,creates a higher unity within the body-mind separation:There are momentswhen I really feel more clearly than everthat I am in the companyof my own person.I stopat a street comer to turn leftand I wonder what would happenif my own person walked to the right.Until now that has not happenedbut it does not settle the question.Myself and My PersonThe inability to reconcile the mind with the body producesan intolerable yet incredible sense of self both physicaland metaphysical. Thus the mind longs to lose this self inthe body by dissolving the self in moments of completephysical joy. The mind, however, finds itself terrified ofthe concept of death and the inadequacy of sensualpleasures to relieve the pain of death-in-time. The mindwatches with disgust as the body ages and fails to renewitself. The mind tries to remain aloof, separate, to deny itsconnection with death but, as Swir states, it is jerked backto the body. The mind cannot understand its connectionand attraction with the body, and this creates an est¬rangement which exists both within the concept of deathand beyond it:Really, what do I have in commonwith my body.I touch your skin and my skin,I am not in youand you are not in me . .It’s cold here.Homeless, I tremble lookingat our two bodieswarm and quiet.. (What is a Pineal Gland, ‘Felicia’s Love )What, then, does Swir consider happiness? How canone attain peace within the schism? For Swir, happinessderives from the suffering of the duality intermingled witha larger, existential suffering. One can only achievehappiness by becoming all body or all mind — existenceand being separate and one leaves physical reality througha metaphysical death. In Happiness, Swir illustrates howthis death begins with a complete realization of the joy ofthe physical which, because of its intensity and purity,dissolves the body through its separation to the mind.Thus one escapes the duality as the body fades and themind finds itself free and alone. Yet the mind discoversthat it is paradoxically fixed within time, which becomesfor it a new body, one which does not permit a schism:I begin to scream.I am screaming. I leave my body.I do not know whether I am human anymorehow could anyone know that, screaming withhappiness.Yet one dies from such screamingthus I am dying from happiness. . . .Soon I will go.I do not shiver any longer,I do not breathe any longer.I don’t know whether I still havesomething to breathe with. I feel time’s duration,how perfectly I feel time’s duration.I sinkI sink into time.Linked to the dissolution of the body by its realizationis the concept of freedom within solitude. The bodybelongs to others as much as it belongs to the mind:others name it, classify it, and provide it with proof of itsexistence. Yet when one isolates oneself, the importanceof the body diminishes and one discovers the freedom ofbeing nothing:I am alone.I am alone and so I am nothing.What a happiness.I am nothing, so I can be everything.Existence without essence,essence without existence, freedom. . . .I am alone, I am strong.Loneliness protects me.I am alone, and so I am not,I am not, and so I existperfectly, as does perfection,diversely, as does diversity.Later, people will come. They will give mea skin, color for my eyes, sex and a name.They will give me the past and the futureof the species.(Loneliness)Solitude, by virtue of its separation, allows one todeconstruct the body to a state-within-time which permitsa myriad of existences. This partially self-imposed noth¬ing allows one to become, Swir suggests, since there is noother to define, to remind the body of its web of time andto remind the mind of its body. When the body does notmove or feel itself by feeling outside, the mind no longerperceives it and thus can create, freely, any network itwishes to assume as a body and, in this farce, escape thetrue duality by creating a false one.However, a larger, more wonderous suffering encasesthe personal, internal suffering of the schism. In fact, thisexistential suffering endows life with a beauty and amajesty strangely reciprical to the force of the pain-With my falling down I measurethe immensity of the world,how splendid the world isif one is able to suffer so.with my misfortune I measurethe happiness of the world,how lovely must be happinessif misfortune is so beautiful.Only by fallingfrom the summit into the abysscan one know the summit and the abyss,1 learnthat startling knowledge.(Head Down, ‘Stephanie's Love)Swir seems to find in this suffering a wonder outside arenewal. The nature of her wonder, however, is hard todefine. In part it derives from experience, from sufferingso intensely that she now demands the right to see.unaltered, the suffering of others and in that pain perhapsdiscover a unity or at least a wider acceptance: “Out ofsuffering joy arose,/ I have suffered, therefore I have theright/ to exist so strongly.” (Song of Plenitude). Yet in APlate of Suffering, Swir expresses now this wonder darklyturns in on itself to create a silence which freezes themystery:This morninga vast new worldis created for me,especially for me, what a luxury!The world of suffering. . . .That world was offered to meso suddenly.It is a precious and rare giftlike a noose of diamonds. I wonder at it. My handsgrow cold out of wonder.Convex eyelidsclose softlyon my eyes.This suffering, which one apprehends and internalizesthrough wonder, disconnects through the very strength ofthe existence it imparts The awareness separates itselffrom the object: one experiences this suffering so in¬tensely that one marvels at it as at an inaccessiblepossession. The wonder, then, expresses this separationwhile at the same time bridging it — one recognizes theseparateness as well as a type of unity, and this realizationsolidifies both as individual aspects of the same object.The mystery remains between the aspects and allows one,however coldly, to continue to wonder.II. The WomenSwir’s awareness of the schism derives in part from thefact that she conceives as a woman. Swir’s sense of herfemininity is fundamental to her expression — hersensuality structures the poems and encloses them in amanner similar to the body’s enclosure of the mind. Swirdoes not state this awareness as a fact or as a manifesto;she does not wear the form of women but rather revealsherself naked in a distant honesty and allows her body, ina sense her only reality, to declare itself. The very factthat she stresses a separation of body and mind neces¬sitates a view structure through the nature of that bodyand its realization by the mind. Because Swir wishes toescape her flesh while simultaneously attempting tosubmerge herself in it, she has a heightened sense of thetexture of that flesh and how it differs from that of herlovers.One cannot claim, of course, that Swir’s femininityexists only as the inevitable result of the schism. Theseparation and the sexuality are reciprocal. Yet. thisfeminine sensuality also manifests itself outside andcompletely independent of the schism; contrary to whatSwir states (see the quotation from Loneliness). she namesherself woman, defines herself by language and outlook awoman. Although others force her to see her body andthus, in a sense, provide her with a sex, the body itselfremains and the mind, in all its frustration, can speakthrough no other organ.Swir’s characteristic distance and cold objectivity ex¬clude the personal. Yet. she does not ignore experiencebut rather uses it to illustrate fundamental patterns. Infact, the center section of her book contains threesequences of poems (‘Felicia's Love,’ Antonia's Love.'and ‘Stephanie's Love), each in the voice of a differentwoman. However, these women are not individual char¬acter studies but. as Czeslaw Milosz mentions in theafterword, they function as archetypes of relationships.What one finds, then, are basic outlooks, fundamentalpaths of relating which all turn to the intense awareness ofthe body which leads to schism, and a larger, perhapsmore disturbing schism between man and woman. Rela¬tionships, Swir states, destroy themselves through theirnecessity; they lack permanence because they adhere to abasic misunderstanding arising from the difference be¬tween two self-contained bodies:With youI am other than I was with others,from my nostril to my heel.And a new otherwaits in me already.But you, when leaving me. will takea record with only one tunepitifully worn down.(You Will Not Reach, Antonia's Love *)Although the body-mind has “the elastic bravery of aflame/ which every moment destroys itself to renewitself,” (“You Will not Reach.” It is interesting to notethat this resilience seems to be inherent only in woman),this quality remains bound within the individual whilecreating the other. Yet this other, through its separationand somatic weight, can only be realized in a particularimage: one perceives a single, static other which, becauseof its dynamic nature, cannot truly exist. Yet it does exist,for a time, since the other itself perceives a correspondingstable other in the partner. Thus relationships contain attheir center a lie made glorious by necessity .Felicia presents what one might define as the “conven¬tional” archetype. One finds in her a woman who lovesdeeply because that love is a part of her just as a hand oran arm is a part of the body. She shares the space inherself, fills it with the other as the other is filled by her,and she forces herself to exist in this overlappingotherness:Every day I put on my neckthe corals of your young enchantment.I plait into my hair your tenderness.Your calmstrokes me on the head . . .Leaning overI look into your eyes.Undisturbed by thought, they reflectthe sky.(You are Warm)She feels her physicality outside herself as it intertwineswith the otherness of her partner to form a ty pe of sharedbody where thought dissolves to physical presence.However, the very sense of her body and its contact withanother cause her to become aware of the schism (seeWhat Is a Pineal Gland, quoted in part I). Yet her senseof the separation extends beyond her body-mind: sheperceives the man’s body, alien and other, as well as hismisunderstanding — in fact, the very otherness in whichshe initially immerses herself;, she slowly realizes, is notso much his physical masculinity but his inability tocomprehend her sensuality:You inseminated me and 1 gave birth to pearls.(continued on page 4 0)CHICAGO LITERARY RFVIFW-FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986 39HappinessOutofSufferingcdHC/3 (continued from page 39)Authentic pearls. Look.You look, amazed,that wealth terrifies you,you don’t understand it.You, pebble who moved an avalanche,look how resplendentis its panting glamor.Listen to a heavy hymnof falling.You, a pebble without eyes and ears.(Male and Female)She separates herself from him through the othernesswhich had originally attracted her; she begins to perceiveher lover as an object made inanimate through its inabilityto comprehend and thus speak. Her body, then, estrangesher from the physical world within which she desires toexist. Felicia finds herself alone.This solitude, however, purges her of her love andleaves her renewed, pure and empty of everythingextraneous to herself:I found strength in myself,no one will take it from me. . . .1 passed through the bathe of fire,how exquisitelyfire braces.I carried out of ita fireproof smile.I won’t ask anyone againto put his hand on my head.1 will lean onmyself.I am closed like a medieval city,a drawbridge has been raised.You can kill that citybut no one will enter it.(Fireproof Smile)Felicia’s sense of self now embraces the body-mind as acontained individuality that belongs to her. She no longeracknowledges the other as a union of two external beingsbut rather as a short, painful confrontation in which onedeludes the other into a false connection and a falseunderstanding. Man and woman are completely separateand self-enclosed, incomprehensible to each other exceptat moments of physical bliss where no communication isnecessary.Antonia, by contrast, presents a pure animal love.Questions of relationship, responsibility, and metaphysicaltheories do not concern her — she feels completely insideherself, ignoring any external reality which does notinclude her. She exists within an unrationalized primalpassion:You come to me at night,you are an animal.A woman and an animal can be joinedby the night only.Maybe you are a wild he-goat,or perhaps a rabid dog.Hard to tell in the dark. . . .But your animal bodyunderstands more than you do.It. too. is sad.And when you fall asleepit warms me up with its hairy warmth.We sleep hugging each otherlike two puppies who lost their bitch.(A Bitch)Like Felicia. Antonia has a need, initially, to complete anincompletion. Yet while Felicia satisfies herself byacknowledging the presence of the other. Antonia mustfeel him at all times upon her, in action, in a form ofphysical combat. While Felicia may represent a personmade a person through an awareness tempered bythought, Antonia expresses a pure, erotic energy, ananimalistic mysticism of an other conceived as other notthrough a separation but rather through a clash, animpossible connection.That is not to say she lacks an awareness of her energy;in fact, Antonia more than any other archetype realizeswhat she represents. Yet she does not give the image ofherself, as Felicia does, to another, but rather guards itwith a selfish passion while demanding a completesurrender of the other:You are jealousof the rapture which you give mefor I betray youwith that rapture.You give it to me as a vein of a springand it explodes inside meinto a river.The river carries mewhere you reach no more,toward the paradisesyou will never experience,never understand.We sing our love songsin different languages,we are strangers, enemies.Your body is only a tool of rapturefor my bodywhich is so much morenoble.I will not drown in you.I want you to drown in me.My laughing egoismis my weapon and an adornment of my nakedness. my lifebelt.(Love Separates the Lovers)The impossibility of relationship, here, does not derivefrom an inability to understand the fundamental differenceof the other, but rather from the refusal to even allow thepossibility of misunderstanding. Antonia is so completelyherself that only she can be the other for herself: herintensity of existence forbids all equality, all correspond¬ences. She recognizes the underlying difference betweenthe sexes and constructs her personality from thesedifferences. She refuses to allow her lover to take part inherself. She exists, even in her animal passion, isolatedand alone:Tonight I am going to sleep aloneon the bedclothes of purity.Alonenessis the first hygienic measure.Alonenesswill enlarge the walls of the room,1 will open the windowand the large, frosty air will enter,healthy as a tragedy. . . .Do not come anymore.I am an animalvery rarely.(I’ll Open the Window)Her awareness of her difference, of her completeotherness, easily turns to a disgust of her lover. Herinability to offer herself becomes, for her, a symbol ofwoman and a shield against man. She stresses Felicia'sassertion that at the center of any relationship exists afundamental understanding, yet Antonia adds to this abitterness mixed with a distrust of man. Yet she distrustshim as a queen distrusts her subjects: one does not sensehere Felicia's resignation and then affirmation of a uniqueself, but rather a passion closing in upon itself to create anicon of a matyr:In our womanly despairso much shame.In our loosenessso much birdsong.Your sufferingis as shameless as your body.You screamwith an infant’s frankness. ThenI feel scorn for you.All of you, unequivocal and heavy,how could you understandus, whose bodies are lightlike a burst of laughter.You don't knowthe elastic bravery of a flamewhich every moment destroys itselfto renew itself.It is in us that its resilient plenty dwells,its riches. . . .My amorous heavenand amorous hellblossom high up. You will not reach themeven if only to tear them down.(You Will not Reach)Antonia conceives woman as a sort of diety. as a beingwhose self-awareness provides an apotheosis. A woman isseparate by nature as much as by choice, and herseparation defines both her passion and the words she usesto describe the passion Antonia is so separate from theother that he becomes an object which exists within herlaughter and scorn. Yet he is a necessary object — heallows her to define her separation.Stephanie, on the other hand, presents a purity of loveand thought which grows from an innate ability towonder. In fact, wonder becomes her defining character¬istic: it allows her to achieve a child-like objectivity and apowerful innocence of determination. Stephanie is notnaive but she has found the ability to become so, toabstract herself to a happiness which exists for itself. Shecan transcend:When you kissed me for the first timewe became a coupleof the youngest children of an angel,which just startedto fledge.Lapsed into a silence in mid-move,hushed in mid-breath,astoundedto the very blood,they listen with their bodiesto the sprouting on their shoulder bladesof the first little plume.(The Youngest Children of an Angel)The innocence provides her with a tremendous power: shebecomes aware of herself, as Antonia and Felicia do, butStephanie’s awareness encompasses rather than severs,includes rather than separates. Stephanie loves becauseinnocence in its purest form is love; she knows no betterand thus does not need to know better. She is content withherself because her femininity demands nothing from heroutside of a simple self-awareness. While Felicia andAntonia struggle with the meaning of woman/individualand how their inherent characters define themselves,Stephanie merely exists without creating questions. Feliciastates “I am other,” Antonia “I am woman, you are theother,” while Stephanie professes “I am.” That is not tosay Stephanie does not realize her .sexuality, but rathershe leaves it alone: Antonia deifies herself and Feliciaseparates herself but Stephanie merely gazes at herself.When she becomes aware of her own cruelty, she looks“at it, astonished/ as at a beast from the depths of the oceaf>,” (From the Depths of the Ocean) and has thepower to eliminate it whereas the other women wouldhave incorporated it as a reason for separation.In fact, her innocence-objectivity allows her to conformto the demands of the other. However, she does notsubmit out of weakness or even necessity but because herpurity permits nothing else:You cultivate me as your own fixationand as a rare cactus.You attend to itwith admirable fervor.You are a trainer.You kneel before me,this is the way to trainsomeone for sainthood.I am supposed also to become a seraphwith six wingsand to give you a mystical happinessas the cows give milk.I try as I can,I sweat and puff up,my eyes start out of my headfrom effort.I walk obedientlyin the dog collar of your adoration.(I Sweat and Puff Up)Stephanie recognizes the impossibility of the demands aswell as their suppressive, idolatrous nature. Yet, becauseof the completeness of this realization, she achieves itwithout effort and without a loss of freedom. She is, inmany ways, exactly what others force her to be; yet,because her purity accomplishes this without resistence,she remains totally herself and wholly contained withinher own naive vision. She cannot change preciselybecause she can change so easily.Yet why does she choose to end her relationship whenshe has not been estranged by specific definitions ofsexuality? Perhaps she realizes that her innocence itselfseparates her, the very innocence which allows her todescend to an other rather than be that other. She becomesthe lie that Felicia discusses — Stephanie, by her nature,can only be real to herself while assuming the status ofimage for the other. She becomes, for her lover, andobject of adoration, an inanimate work of art that oneworships. Though she accepts this as inevitable, sherefuses to choose it, and she renews herself, as the othertwo women have done, through solitude:My very, very dear, I must part with you.I must go awayand again I will be alone.I will take away my body entangled with yoursin the embrace of sleepy happiness.It won’t be easy. They two grew into oneand will defend themselvesagainst that rift,as do two animals faced with death.Terrified, stupid and beautifulthey will struggle as if for lifeto keep their privilegeof night.I must reject you, my love,though you need me.and go where nobodyneeds me. . . .No human asks me for it.and yet I must do it.(I Must Do It)Stephanie chooses without a definition and without aconscious realization of separation: she acknowledges themisunderstanding inherent in a relationship and freesherself from it since her innocence, once adorned,solidifes to an idol in which she is not present. Stephaniecannot remain because she is, in essence, no longer there;she chooses separation because she has always been,through her wonder, separate from her image and thusfrom the relationship.III. Happy as a Dog's TailSwir's happiness separates her in much the same wayas Stephanie’s innocence isolates her from the other. Thishappiness negates by presence — it becomes, after therelationship dissolves, the other. Yet this other exists in away a person cannot: it isolates and contains a personwhile defining a space in which that person moves. Thehappiness, Swir states, emanates from its very nothing¬ness, and she describes this quality (as well as providing asummary for the concept as a whole) in the title poem ofthe collection:Happy as something unimportantand free as a thing unimportant.As something no one prizesand which does not prize itself.As something mocked by alland which mocks at their mockery.As laughter without serious reason.As a yell able to outyell itself.Happy as no matter what,as any no matter what.Happyas a dog's tail.(Happy as a Dog's Tail)Her poetry, become other for herself, can only becomeother for the reader. One discovers in Swir's verse not somuch a mirror but an echo, a resonance with the outside.One finds an image of the absence of image, the other ofan other.by Michael Sohn40 CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986iTHE FREEDOM CHARTERThe Freed*tm Charter unanimously adopted jt j'Congress ot the People. held in Kliptown. nearJohannesburg. on J5 and 2b June. 1955.V\e, the people of South Africa, declare for all ourcountry and the world to know:—that South Africa belongs to all who live in it. blackand white, and that no government can justly claimauthority unless it is based on the will of all the people;-that our people have been robbed of their birthrightto land, liberty and peace by a form of governmentfounded on injustice and inequality.—that our country will never be prosperous or treeuntil all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equalrights and opportuntics.that only a democratic state, based on the will of allthe people, can secure to all their birthright withoutdistinction of colour, race, sex or belief:And therefore, we the people of South Africa, blackand white together — equals, countrymen jnd brothers -adopt this Freedom Charter And we pledge ourselves todrive together, -paring neither strength nor courage, untilthe democratic changes set out here have been won1 hr people shall govern!Every man and woman shall have the right to vote forand to stand as a candidate lor all b»xlies which makeslaws.All people shall he entitled to take part in theadministration ot the country:The rights ot the people shall be the same, regardless ofrace, colour or sex.All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councilsand authorities shai! be replaced by democratic organs otself-government\ll national groups shall have equal rights!There shall he equal status in the bodies ol state, in thecourts and in the schools lor all national groups and races.All people shall have equal rights to use their ownlanguages, and t<> develop their own tolk culture andAll national groups -hall be protected by law againstinsults to their race and national pride.The preaching and practice of national, race or cof The people shall share in the country 's wealth'All apartheid laws and practices shall be set asideThe people shall share in the country’s wealth!The national wealth of our country. the heritage of allSouth Africans, shall be restored to the people.The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the hanks andmonopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownershipof the people as a whole;All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assistthe well-being of the people.All people shall have equal rights to trade where theychoose, to manufacture and to enter a)) trades, crafts andprofessionsThe land shall he shared among those who work it!Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall beended, and all the land redivided amongst those who workit. to banish famine and Ijnd hungerThe state shall help the peasants with implements, seed,tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers.Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all whowork on the land:All shall have the right to occupy land wherever theychoose.People shall not be robbed ot their cattle, and forcedlabour and farm prisons shall be abolishedAll shall he equal before the law!No one shall he imprisoned deported or restrictedwithout a fair trial.No one shall be condemned by the order of anygovernment official.The courts shall be representative of all the people.Imprisonment shall be only lor serious crimes againstthe people, and shall aim at rc-education, not vengeance.The police force and army shall be open to all on anequal basis jnd shall be the helpers jnd protectors ot thepeopleAll law- which discriminate on grounds ot race, colouror belief shall be repealed\ll shall enjoy equal human rights!The law shall guarantee to a!I their rights to speak, toorganise, to meet together, to publish to preach, to>rship jnd to educate their children.The privacy ot the house from police raids shall he protected by lawAll shall be free to travel without restrict urn fromcountryside to town, from province to province and frdlflSouth Africa abroad.Pass Laws, permits, jnd all other laws restricting thesefreedoms, shall be abolishedThere shall he work and security!All who work shall he tree to form unions, to electtheir officers and to make wage agreements with theiremployers.The state shall recognise the right and duty of all towork, and to draw full unemployment benefits:Men and women ot all races shall receive equal pay forequal work.There shall he a forty-hour working week, a nationalminimum wage, paid annua) leave, and sick leave for allworkers, and maternity leave on lull pay for all workingmothers.Miners, domestic workers, farm workers, and civilservants shall have the same rights as all others whowork.Child labour, compound labour, the lot system andcontract labour shall he abolishedThe doors of learning and of culture shall he opened!The government shall discover, develop and encouragenational talent for the enhancement of our cultural life:All the cultural treasures of mankind shall he open toall. by free exchange of books. ideas and contact withother lands.The aim ot education shall be to teach the youth to lovetheir people and their culture, to honour brotherhood,liberty and peace.Education shall he free, compulsory, universal andequal tor all children:Ffighcr education and technical training shall he openedto all by means of state allowances and scholarshipsawarded on the basis of merit:Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state educationplan.Teachers shall have alt the rights of other citizens.The colour bar in cultural life, m sport and in educationshall be abolishedThere shall be houses, security and comfort!All people shall have the rights to live where theychoose, to he decently housed, and to bring up theirfamilies in comfort, and security.Unused housing space shall he made available to thepeople:Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and noone shall go hungry.A preventive health scheme shall be run by the slate.Free medical care and hospitalisation shall be providedtor all. with special care tor mothers and young children.Slum- shall be demolished, and new suburbs builtwhere all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields,creches and social centres;The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shallbe cared tor by the state.Rest leisure and recreation shall be the right of all.Fenced locations and ghettos shall be abolished, andlaws which break up families shall be repealed.S*»uih Africa shall be a fully independent state, whichrespects the rights and sovereignty ot nationsI here shall he peace and friendship!South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace andthe settlement of jll international disputes by negotiationnot war.Peace and friendship amongst all our people 'hall besecured by upholding the equal right- opportunities andstatu- of allThe people ot the protectorates - Basutoland. Bcch-uanjiand jrxJ Swaziland -hall be free to decide torthemselves their own future.The rights ot all the peoples ot Africa to independenceand selt-government shall be recognised, and shall be thebasis of close cooperation.Let all who love their people and their country nowsay. a- we say here“These freedoms we will fight for. side by side,throughout our lives, until we have won our libertv!Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movementby Mary BensonAs South Africa seems to rro >e steadily towards acomplete blood-bath, there remains incarcerated inPoHsmoor Prison, Capetown, one person who might stillbe able to avert that disaster. That person is NelsonMandela, the most prominent leader of the undergroundAfrican National Congress (ANC), now about to enter histwenty-fifth year of imprisonment. During this period theSouth African people have neither heard his voice norhave been permitted access to his speeches or writings.Yet, the older generation’s allegiance to Mandela hasremained unshaken; and, for the younger generation,which has never heard or seen him, Mandela has becomethe symbol of the hopes and aspirations of South Africa’sblack peoples.Mary Benson’s book is a first attempt at a politicalbiography of Mandela. As such it is certainly verywelcome coming, as it does, at a time when the Reaganand Thatcher Administrations consistently vilify Mandelaand the ANC as communist stooges. Benson begins withMandela's childhood in the Transkei when he was beinggroomed to become Paramount Chief of the Transkei“reserve.” He escaped from this uncongenial future in1941 and arrived in Johannesburg where he began tostudy law and joined the ANC. Shortly afterwards, alongwith Anton Lembede and several others, he founded theANC’s Youth League which played a crucial role intransforming the ANC’s program from one of passiveprotest to a concerted challenge of white supremacy.The Youth League emphasized “orthodox Africannationalism” and argued against any cooperation with“Coloureds.” Indians, and whites committed to thestruggle against apartheid. Mandela gradually movedaway from this position and embraced, instead, the non-racial strategy that characterized most of the ANC. Heplayed a crucial role in the formation and maintenance ofthe Congress Alliance—between the ANC and “Col¬oured,” Indian, and white congresses—that organized thefamous Defiance Campaign of civil disobedience in theearly 1950’s. In 1955 all of these organizations, alongwith the South African Congress of Trade Unions,participated in the Congress of the People which adoptedthe Freedom Charter (reprinted herewith) which laterbecame the keystone of ANC policy. For these activitiesMandela, and one hundred and fifty-five others, wereindicted and tried in the Treason Trial (1956-60) andeventually found not guilty. During this period he met andmarried Winnie Madikizela, later to become one of themost important leaders of South Africa’s liberationstruggle.Then came the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 and thebanning of the ANC and the splinter Pan-AfricanistCongress (PAC) which had seceded from it in disagree¬ment over its non-racial policies. In the wake of Sharp¬eville the ANC made the critical decision to adopt apolicy of sabotage of military and economic targets inorder to put pressure on the apartheid regime. OnDecember 16. 1961, Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), the“Spear of the Nation,” was launched. Mandela, ascommander of MK. went underground, travelled toEurope and throughout Africa, including Algeria, wherehe underwent a short military course. Returning to SouthAfrica. Mandela was almost immediately captured, thanksto a police informer. Shortly thereafter, thar.ks to anothersuch informer, the entire MK leadership was captured inthe Johannesburg suburb of Rivonia. They were allsentenced to life imprisonment in the trial that followed.The chapters of the book dealing with these events are thebest: they quote Mandela's speeches at the trials at lengthand provide remarkable insight into his political beliefsand the political agenda of the ANC.The final chapters of the book deal with Mandela’s decades in jail. These, unfortunately, are scanty in detailand somewhat uneven. There are occasional slips: Man¬dela could not have—or, at least, should not have—mourned the death of an old comrade. Yusuf Dadoo, inthe late 1970‘s since Dadoo only died in 1983. The NobelPrize for Bishop Tutu was announced for Stockholm, likeall such prizes, and not from Oslo. Part of the problem,here, as Benson realizes quite well, is that it is difficult, ifnot impossible, to assess the life of a person who cannotcommunicate freeiy. and is in jail. Therefore, gaps in thenarrative are only to be expected. However, the slips,including the ones mentioned above, cannot be attributedto these difficulties. Benson attempts to give a history ofthe political developments in the struggle during thisperiod. Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign, and its rolein reintroducing South Africa to the political con¬sciousness, is noted. Yet. the formation of the Congressof South African Trade Unions, one of the most por¬tentous developments inside South Africa, is not evenmentioned. It is hard to understand such choices.In spite of such problems, as a biography of Mandela.Benson’s book remains quite competent. However, itattempts to be not only a political biography of Mandela. but also a history of the ANC (if not of the entireliberation struggle—it is not clear to what the “Move¬ment” in the title refers). In its latter capacity it leavesmuch to be desired. The book is not particularly careful infollowing the development of the ANC ideology. Itsimply glosses over the deep ideological differences—thatbetween non-racial democracy and “orthodox Africannationalism"—that led to the formation of the PAC. Itdoes not even attempt to analyze'the factor, including theANC’s failures, that led to the formulation of the BlackConsciousness philosophy in the late 1960’s which, muchmore thatn the PAC, presnted a viable alternative to thenon-racialism of the ANC. Finally, it does nothing toexplain the somewhat sudden resurgence of the ANCinside South Africa since 1983. so much so that BlackConsciousness (and its associated organization, the Na¬tional Forum) appears to be a spent force today. These areall important questions, and any reasonable history of theANC must treat them in adequate detail. Next January theANC will celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of itsfounding. On that occasion it would be particularlyappropriate if such a history could be presented.h\ Sahotra SarkarAmerica in Europeby German ArciniegasAmerica in Europe covers 400 years of the develop¬ment of Western history and philosophy in 250 pages.The book is thus necessarily a survey, a broad overviewrather than a detailed text, but it succeeds because itassumes a basic knowledge of western history on the partof the reader (one is not frequently stumbling over datesand political trivia); and because Arciniegas's illustrativewriting conveys images colorful and effective enough thata paragraph can invoke pages worth of associations.Arciniegas’s project is to show how the discovery ofAmerica fundamentally changed Europe by stimulatingscientific and philosophical enlightment For example, theconfirmation of the idea that the earth was round, and thatanother continent, instead of an abyss of demonicmonsters, lay across the ocean, encouraged furtherscientific inquiry and provided the basis for the work ofCopernicus and Galileo, among others. Darwin goes toSouth America and the result is The Origin of Species.“It was the death knell to many old ideas. Doubtgrew...” writes Arciniegas.Philosophical speculation about the nature of the idealrepublic was sparked by the sudden existence of a newcontinent which for the Europeans had no real history ,was a 'clean slate' and a testing ground for their ideas.More’s Utopia, "the theoretical antecedent for modernsocialism” according to Arciniegas, was conceived inlight of the new possibilities presented by the Americanlandscape The notion of the ‘noble savage’ — the manliving out of society in nature, free and possessed ofnatural rights and inherent dignity — must have a closerelation to the European contemplation of the circum¬stances of the American Indians.America brought Europe out of the mystiesm and intellectual and cultural stagnation of the 'dark ages.’ Theprofound influence of America in this period (roughly1400-1850), can be seen in the vastly new values thathave come to be recognized. Science has overthrownblind belief,’ ideals of participatory government havetaken the place of feudal heirarchy, and concepts ofinherent nobility and aristocracy have given way to thoseof fundamental equality of worth and rights. For Ar¬ciniegas. America was the catalyst of this change.Reading America in Europe is a pleasure because ofits cinematographic scope. flavorful writing, and inclusionof such anecdotes as the reaction of the European nobilityto curiosities from America such as the potato — “it wasdiscovered that they were good for pigs. People gavethem disparaging names," and chocolate, which “wassaid to be an aphrodisiac. Moctezuma would drink it froma golden cup at the end of his banquets, and then call inhis wives. Richelieu recommended it as a way tomoderate the vapors of the spleen and to overcomecholera and bad humor."Arciniegas is from Columbia. It is easy to fall into thegeneralization that many Latin American writers use theirlanguage more colorfully but consider the followingexcerpts and decide if this is a cultural or individualaspect of Arciniegas’ writing. Describing the new spirit ofconquest and exploration that came after the voyages ofColumbus and Vespucci:"A desire to appropriate the land, the water, theair, awakened dormant unrecognised ambitions.Balboa arched into the Pacific until the water wasus to his knees and took possession of it in thename of the king of Spain."On the influence of discovery on thinkers of thetime:"For Copernicus, it was essential to have lived at the time of Columbus and Vespucci. In 1492 he is anineteen year old student at the University ofKrakow . In 1513... he directs himself to LidzbarkCastle, where his uncle the bishop lives. At nighthe looks at the stars. The only news that commandshis attention is that which concerns Vespucci. Heloses himself in the study of cosmography . Now hecan finally construct a solid system to explain theuniverse and reduce to fantasy every bit that he hadbeen taught at Krakow."“In the margins of Columbus's copy Imago Mundi(an account of travels in Asia by Pierre D’Ailly)appear 898 notes in his own handwriting. On somepages, the annotations overwhelm the text. D'Aillygently pushes him into the ships."In the Preface, the author writes. “Many are the bookswritten about the influence of European thought onAmerica, y et there are none to speak of on the oppositephenomenon: the impact of America on European thoughtand history ." 1 do not think this is true. Although thismay not be as completely ignored idea as the authormakes out. the influence of the discovery of America is asignificant and interesting study. That America in Eur¬ope presents many aspects of this most interestingrelationship and still reads smoothly and with colorgranting one the privilege of being able to skip trivia forthe w ider significance of the American phenomenon, it isquite unusual for the genre of history books and provesquite worthwhile.German Arciniegas was born in Bogota. Columbia in1900 and has had a long career as a journalist, historian,diplomat, publisher and politician in South America. He isthe author of over twenty books and currently lives inBogota.by Christina VoulgarelisCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986 41PoliticalBiographyofNelsonMandelaNewHistoryThe University of Chicago Bookstore’s“We’ll sell our own grandmothers”Summer SaleGENERAL BOOKSSave 50% on a new selection ofslightly hurt paperbacks justreceived!Save up to 80% on a wide range ofnew publishers’ remainders:• Art Books• Children’s Books• Literature and others!Springer-Verlag special Physicssale continues to June 30. 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This is not to suggest that the worklacks precision as a translation, but rather that Tedlock isattempting something far more complex—a translationacross chasms of time, language, culture, and structure ofrepresentation. Three dimensions of interpretation arerequired in translating this text because the oldest versionsof it arc recorded in visual images rather than writing perse; Tedlock adds a fourth dimension of translation throughtime, by involving himself with the extant culture of theQuiche Maya, the native Guatemalan descendants of theculture which produced the Popol Vuh. As Tedlock putsit, the work is translated in conjunction with “the ancientknowledge of the modern Quiche Maya.”Pop- means mat. the suffix -ol is equivalent to theEnglish -ness; Vuh means paper or book. Popol suggestsa mat on which a council or common assembly met; hencetranslations of the term Popol Vuh include “commonbook,” “council paper,” or, Tedlock's choice, “councilbook.”The Popol Vuh or Council Book of the title actuallyrefers to a mythical book — a magic book used fordivination by the first human beings, according to thestory. The text that Tedlock is translating here is asixteenth century transcription, in both Spanish and aSpanish phonetic rendering of the Mayan language. Thetranscription records a retelling of the Popol Vuh by threelate Quiche lords, who feared that Spanish colonialdomination would erase the history of their empire. ThePopol Vuh of these three Quiche lords was both part oftheir oral culture (apparently it was sometimes sung) andalso part of their literature, recorded in classical Mayanhieroglyphs and also in much classical art. Whether theirPopol Vuh was the actual magic book, or (like whatsurvives today) a retelling of some of the stories from andabout the magic book, is impossible to discern. In anycase, the surviving fragments of classical hieroglyphspresent a major formal difficulty for western academia.They are not simply “primitive writing,” but actually aradically different framework of representation in whichpictures and words are not really different things. Forinstance, what looks like a fairly complex picture to uscan be read like a sentence; also, strings of symbols thatmight look like simple abstracted glyphs to us havedistinct and significant visual composition. Furthermore,the organization of visual/verbal elements encodes com¬plex astronomical information. Because many of thenarrative elements of the text are vehicles for thetransmission of scientific data, the contemporary' readermight make the mistake of thinking that the mythology ismerely contrivance. It is more probable that the dis¬tinctions we make between science and religion are notapplicable to the this text; it is about both.This text must also be understood in the context ofSpanish colonization and the often violent missionaryrepression of the Mayan religion, that threatened theQuiche way of life at all levels, at the time that thistranscription was made. Certain oblique references to thereal Council Book suggest that the mythical text may havestill have been around at the time of transcription, but thatit was being hidden from the Spanish:We shall write about this now amid the preachingof God, in Christiandom now. We shall bring it outbecause there is no longer a place to see it, aCouncil Book...There is the original book and ancient writing, buthe who reads and ponders it hides his face...The contemporary Quiche Maya live in the mountain¬ous regions of southern Guatemala; their religion is acurious hybrid (like those of*so many of the native Southand Central Americans) combining Christian posturingwith far older ritual. Their social structure continues toinclude the traditional figures of midwives, matchmakers,mother-fathers, and daykeepers: figures whose roles areoriginated and explicated within the text of the PopolVuh. The role of the daykeepers (both men and women) isto interpret the calendar and address questions andproblems of the community, by observing astronomicalevents and performing calendric counting rituals. DennisTedlock derives a great deal of his credibility from thefact that he is a trained and initiated daykeeper (althoughhe is a North American academic). He credits his teacher,Andres Xiloj, with providing invaluable insight, andgreatly assisting in the translation. In this sense Tedlock’sacquaintance with the contemporary Quiche Maya cultureleaves an indelible stamp upon the work.Tedlock. who is clearly knowledgable in his field, isquite forthcoming with details about the process andbackground of his translation, as well as about thecomplex history of the text. His essays are exhaustive; hisphotographs of the contemporary Quiche and his draw ingsof classical hierolglyphs are fascinating; his protractedglossary and index to pronunciation are very helpfulNonetheless, the Popol Vuh itself is somewhat in¬tractable. The book narrates the creation of the world andthe animals, the adventures of gods and heroes, and (aftera couple of abortive attempts) the creation of people, andfinally the foundation of the Quiche empire. The narrativefollows more or less linear time, but occassionally breaksin’o an odd. descriptive present tense:This is the great tree of Seven Macaw, a nance, andthis is the food of Seven Macaw. In order to eat thefruit of the nance he goes up the tree every day.Since Hunahpu and Xbalanquc have seen where hefeeds, they are now hiding beneath the tree ofSeven Macaw, they are keeping quiet here, the twoboys are in the leaves of the tree. ..It almost suggests that the transcription Tedlock translates Hunahpu and Xbalanque sacrifice a victim temporarily while the Death Lords look on.is a fairly direct description and interpretation of thehieroglyphs.Questions of grammer aside, the book is difficultbecause one is aware of great gaps of meaning in theusage of words. What does it mean, for instance, to havecharacters named Seven Macaw, Pus Master, or Cele¬brated Seahouse, while others are named Xmucane orMahucutah, and still others are named Don Juan de Rojasor Don Cristobal? Words are used very differently, andenigmatic names are just one example of this. Simplyrendering the Mayan terms into English is insufficient toexplain their significance. The glossary should be somehelp here, but it isn’t; Tedlock uses the space totechnically justify his translations instead, which I, as ageneral reader, found frustrating. One would wish thatTedlock’s notes were included within the text, rather thanin an imposing section in the back; one would also wishthat the notes concerned themselves a little more with thatidiosyncracies of the verbal images. One senses that thereis a real poetry and pace to the language that Tedlockchooses, but it’s difficult to enjoy because one is socaught up in trying to keep a grip on what’s happening.These are the frustrations of the text; however, it iscertainly not without rewards. The moments at which anepisodic narrative clearly emerges and one realizes howtruly bizarre these stories are—how very different they arefrom the western (Greco-Roman) mythological tradition— these are the passages that justify the reader’s labors.One striking story from the creation sequence involvesthe creation of a race of people made of wood, calledManikins. The gods (or elements, who are not reallydeveloped as characters in the way we would expect)decide to kill the Manikins because they have failed toworship and remember their creators. So they turn alltheir household objects against them—everything becomesanimate—the dogs want to eat them, the tortilla griddlesand cooking pots want to throw them into the fire, thegrinding stones want to grind them. When they try toescape, the roofs of their houses collapse, trees throwthem off, and caves close up in their faces. Their facesare smashed and they become monkeys. The imagery inthis sequence is wild, but the structure of the story isfamiliar enough that one can relate to it with a minimumof confusion.Another memorable story involves the heroes Hunahpuand Xbalanque, who. after many trials and victories, arekilled in the kingdom of Xibalba. Xibalba is a kind ofunderworld, but it is conceptualized as being accessible bya road through distant valleys. Hunahpu and Xbalanquearrange to come back to life, and they disguise themselvesas vagabonds, traveling through Xibalba and entertainingpeople with their tricks and dances. The Xibalbansparticularly liked tricks in which they would set a houseon fire, and then restore it; or sacrifice one another, andDavita’s Harpby Chaim PotokDavita Chandal grows up the daughter of ardent NewYork communists during the 1930’s. Her home buzzeswith the politics of her parents. Long late-night meetings,followed by songs, keep her from falling asleep at night.Continuous changes of residence, prompted by herparents' identification as political outcasts, deny her whatmight have been the relative peacefulness of neighborhoodlife. Most significanly. her father's work in Spain as ajournalist during the 1936 civil war. and his death in thebattle at Guernica, infuse Davita’s childhood with anunwelcome level of turmoil.Her parents, however, have maintained a few closerelationships with people of less political orientations;these people open a new avenue to Davita. Her father'sChristian missionary sister, and her mother’s OrthodoxJew ish friends and relations offer to Davita an approach tolife that differs profoundly from that of her parents.Christianity, in its prayerful appeals to a protective andcaring God. and Judaism in its conscientious devotion todomestic ritual, defy the political in their common questfor tranquility in the daily life.Chaim Potok sensitively chronicles this transition inDavita's girlhood, from the politics of her crumblingfamily to the religion espoused by the community aroundher. Judaism specifically. More broadly, he explores theconflict between the domestic and the political elements oflife.Ballantine Books, in its back-cover summary, wouldlike its potential buyers to think of this book as a narrativeof one girl’s embracing of religion as the panacea to theturmoil of her parents: “Davita. unexpectedly, finds inthe Jewish faith that her mother had long ago abandonedboth a solace to her questioning inner pain and a test ofher budding spirit of independence...Life’s elusive pos¬sibilities for happiness, for fulfillment, for decency,become as real and resonant as the music of the smallharp that hangs on her door,” croons the publicist. then bring each other back to life. They perform the heartsacrifice, the method used throughout the text for sacrificeof one’s enemies, in which the victim's heart is tom outand displayed.The lords One and Seven Death, kings of Xibalba, hearof the remarkable vagabonds, and insist that they comeperform for the royal palace. One and Seven Deathcommand the pair to sacrifice a dog, and then bring itback to life; next they have them set the palace afire, thenrestore it. Finally, watching the two sacrifice each other,the lords reach a blood-drunk frenzy:And this is the sacrifice of Hunahpu by Xbalanque.One by one his legs, his arms were spread wide.His head came off. rolled away far outside. Hisheart, dug out, was smothered in a leaf, and all theXibalbans went crazy at the sight. So now, onlyone of them was dancing there: Xbalanque. “Getup!” he said, and Hunahpu came back to life. Thetwo of them were overjoyed at this—and likewisethe lords rejoiced, as if they were doing itthemselves...Finally the lords insist on being sacrificed themselves.Hunahpu and Xbalanque are only too happy to oblige -only they forget to bring them back to life. In this way theheroes avenge their own deaths as well as the death oftheir father.Clear differences between Xibalba and any kind ofwestern underworld are apparent here—the mortality ofthe death-lords, the consequent conquest of the death-kingdom, the reincarnation of the heroes (who. after all.are pre-human) all attest to a different conception of deathand “hell.”In fact, one bit of Quiche wisdom that Tedlock passeson in his introductory' essay, suggests a world ofdifference:What most worries day keepers about people fromEurope, and specifically about missionaries, is thatthey confuse the Earth, whose divinity is equal tothat of the celestial God, with the devil. Asday keepers put it. “He who makes an enemy of theEarth makes an enemy of his own body.”Perhaps nothing impresses more about this text than thesense of difference and ignorance that one gains from it;the cultural values of the Popol Vuh seem entirely strangeand remote to us. This brilliant but difficult book oughtnot go up on the shelf next to Homer and Virgil until weunderstand it a great deal better, and a lot of scholarlyresearch, criticism and analysis has to happen before wewill. Tedlock's book is a step in the right direction, andone would hope that it is only the first of many books onthe Popol Vuh intended for the general reader. The textclearly merits a good deal more attention than it has up tillnow received.by Stephanie BaconThankfully, Chaim Potok proves to be more sensitivethan his advertisers. Davita. in her shift away from thepolitical sophistication of her parents, is obliged toconfront the stifling insularity of a patriarchal religiousstructure. If she is to accept a certain degree of innerpeace associated with daily prayers in the synagogue, shemust also accept the indignity of being placed behind acurtain along with the other women. While her parents'concerns had precluded domestic peace, the religiouspursuit challenges Davita as a woman, an insult shechooses to endure, and to negotiate.This conflict in Davita's life, well described by Potok.operates in the university environment as well; I find itaffecting my daily life. The domestic concern and thepolitical concern, in the most general sense, are often atodds with each other, even in the comparatively staid lifeof the college student. Do I go marching for divestmentwhen I have to prepare for a quiz in chemistry? I knowmy opinions, and my political duty (as I've defined it),but I also know the warm feeling I derive from success inmore immediate, more “concrete” academic pursuits;Needless to say, my fingers are more often wrapped abouta pencil than they are clenched into a fist.Potok’s treatment of Davita succeeds in large partbecause he resists the temptation to reduce her life toallegory when considering the larger conflict that hasshaped it. The conflict between the religious and thepolitical elements looms large in Davita’s girlhood with¬out making her seem any less human or less natural. Herfew direct “observations” of this conflict remain encasedin childish language, as one wants them in a novel.Other writers, such as Sinclair Lewis in The Jungle,reduce their characters to pawns for the sake of id¬eological argument; the resulting work is as much apolitical/social treatise as it is a novel. Potok. however, isa storyteller first, and a good one at that. He doesn’tcompromise his characters in order to iron in his points.Davita's Harp succeeds because it remains Davita'sstory.by Stefan Kertesz CDOcz>CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6 1986 43CLASSIFIEDADVERTISINGClassified advertising in the Chicago Maroon is$2 for the first line and $1 for each additionalline. Lines are 45 characters long INCLUDINGspaces and punctuation. Special headings are20 character lines at $3 per line. Ads are not ac¬cepted over the phone, and they must be paidin advance. Submit all ads in person or by mailto The Chicago Maroon, 1212 E. 59th St.,Chicago IL 60637 ATTN Classified Ads. Our of¬fice is in Ida Noyes Rm. 304. Deadlines: Tues¬day & Friday at 5:00 p.m., one week prior topublication. Absolutely no exceptions will bemade! In case of errors for which the Maroonis responsible, adjustments will be made orcorrections run only if the business office isnotified WITHIN ONE CALENDAR WEEK ofthe original publication. The Maroon is notliable for any errors. This unusually meticulous one bedroom condonear the U of C has many extras: Halstondesigner carpeting, copper metallic levelorblinds, new outlets and switch plates; a por¬table dishwasher, and particularly good fix¬tures with dimmers. The assessments are $241a month and the taxes are $600 per year. 1400E. 55th Place. Unit 405 South URBAN SEARCH337-2400.Ownership of this "F" townhouse allows veryaffordable living in Hyde Park. Heating billsfor a three bedroom house are a low $60. permonth and there's a lovely paneled playroomin the basement, too! All the work in thistownhouse has been done-you can just move inand enjoy! Parking is manageable becausetwo parking spaces come with the house. 1440E. 55th. $115,000. URBAN SEARCH 337-2400.4br, 2 Bath Condo avail June 30. Rent w optionto Buy. Large, sunny rooms. $850 w/ht 684-5030.SPACEAPARTMENTS AVAILABLEStudios, one, two & 3 bedrms some lake viewsnear 1C, CTA & U of C shuttle, laundry,facilities, parking available, heat & water in¬cluded. 5% discounts for students. HerbertRealty 684-2333 9-4:30 Mon. Fri. 9-2 on Sat.Large 1-Bedroom Coop. Top Floor, 5 Rooms,Excellent Condition, Good View And Lots OfSunlight, Borders University, $27K, 955-6789.Wanted-Professional Couple or Ind. to rentlovely co-op apt in East Hyde Park. Elegant1920's high rise building; extremely secure. 2BDR, 2 bath, full DR, new kitchen. Lakeviews, hard wood floors, furnished or un¬furnished $875. June 1.962-7725, 947-8108.Do you want a lovely condo near your office?This three bedroom condo is located at 5602Blackstone. It has two very tastefully donebaths. The sunroom off the living room is adelight. There are matching leaded glassmotifs in the diningroom and sunroom. Laun¬dry chores are easy because there is a laundryroom adjacent to the kitchen. URBAN SEAR¬CH 337-2400.Live so close to Orly's that you can eat lunchthere anytime! This three bedroom condo is aHyde Park bargain for $59,900. Enjoy a formaldiningroom with a built in hutch! Goodbuilding with rotating parking space. 1653 E.55th Street. URBAN SEARCH 337-2400.Attractive vintage coach house apt. Near cam¬pus, 4 rooms, fireplace, modern kitchen.Suitable for 1 or 2 adults. 324-5116.This lovely coop near the U of C is much largerthan a usual studio. There are four distinctareas if you count the kitchen. You may pur¬chase an indoor parking space from the coopnext door. A gardening plot is also available.The floors are lovely and the plaster is smooth.The assessments are a low $117. per month andthat includes your taxes. Only $20,000. 1520 E.59th St. URBAN SEARCH 337-2400. Two Bdrm. apt. avail June is near 52nd & Kim-bark. $550 heat incl. Quiet bldg. 684 5030.For Rent: Univ Park Studio Condo. Quiet,light, airy. Avail July $380/mo. Call 241-6646.Summer sublet lbr Apt near campus midJune-mid-September 500 mo, negotiable. Call288 6697.Townhouse 4br 2Vi b a/c sec. syst. yard sum¬mer or year round rent $1250^mo Call 493-0543.LOCATION HUGE OWN BATH YEARLEASE + + and only $196/mo 1-bed in 3-bedapt one block from campus Call Robert or Pam684-2352.SUMMER SUBLET: Spacious, furnished 2bdrm. 54th & Harper— near Co-op, Harper. Ct.and 1C Laundry facilities. Day & evening busroutes. June 15-Sept. 8. $540 -(-electric. Rentnegotiable. Call evenings. 643-7228.SUMMER SUBLET: Fully furnished,spacious Two-bedroom, 58th and Kenwood.Dishwasher, Air conditioning, laundry inbuilding. Available Mid June thru August.$1,400 for summer Call (415) 321-9493.Non-smoking woman (preferably vegetarian)wanted to share 2-bdrm apt. Beautifully keptcondo on quiet shady street, 56th Kimbark$275/mo. 4- utilities FALL OPTION Call 643-8444 today!SUNNY 1 BR APT-quiet secure ctyd bldg.Close to campus, ldry fac, wood floors. Subletmid-June, cont. with Oct. 1 lease. $490/mo. 955-7280 eve. 962-3012 day.SUMMER SUBLET1 bdrm. apt. near 55th & Cornell on c routeUtilities incl. Laundry facilities. $300 Callbefore 9a.m. or try later. 643-0163.Summer or yearround rental. Farmhousevicinity lake Geneva, acreage. Furnished, 3bedrooms, study. 75 miles Chicago. Ideal vacation, sabbatical, weekend retreat. Rentnegotiable. 733-0818, 414-248-1802.lbdr in 2bdr apt 6/1 (flex)-9/30. 9th fir goodview breezy. Near co-op, 1C, buses, theater.$265/m prefer mature graduate student 955-3030.Quiet spacious 2-bdrm 2-bath available now,overlooks fountain at Univ Park 798-7764 eve.Univ pk condo 55th&Dorchester. 1 br subletavail 6/20. AC, hi security. $500. 684-2888.CALL (312) 855-10884marian realtyinc. □3Studio and i BedroomApattments AvailableIn the Carolan— Students Welcome —On Campus Bus Line5480 S. Cornell684-540044 7 1 Bdrm. in 3 bdrm apt. open Oct. 1, Subletavail, for summer overlooks lake, free heat,Laundry in bldg. Near shopping, on bus route5180/mo. 4- elec. 684-4651 anytime.LINCOLN PARK SUBLET gorgeous huge 2-bdrm to share w/my sweet F. doctor-roomie.Avail. Aug 15-Sep 15 $330 incl. all. Naturallycool Sunny, classy, perfect locat. near Clark &Fullerton, buses, bars, park, zoo, lake, ETC!Lovely garden & sunroof. Paid parking avail.549-6551.DR. MORTON R. MASLOV ^OPTOMETRIST•EYE EXAMINATIONS•FASHION EYEWEAR(one year warranty on eyeglassframes and glass lenses)SPECIALIZING IN• ALL TYPES OFCONTACT LENSES•CONTACT SUPPLIESTHE HYDE PARKSHOPPINO CENTER1510 E. 55th363-6100APARTMENTSFOR RENTGRAFF &CHECK1617 E. 55th St.Spacious, newly-decoratedlarae studios and onebedrooms in quiet, well-maintained buildings closeto campus.Immediate OccupancyBU8-5566 SPEND THE SUMMER IN BED. 2 bedroomsin 3-bedroom apt: one room with big bed; otherroom spacious and pretty, with normal bed.Sunporch, laundry. Safe 3rd floor on 54th andEllis: on D bus route. Woman preferred. Falloption. $200 (heat included just in case). 2883882.SUBLET/RELET: Lg 1 BR apt 57 & Md avail7/1 (poss bef)-10/l $434/mo. Univ bldg CallBrian: 2-6364 (D), 363-6350 (E).Newly remodeled 2 3 br avail in June un¬furnished 2 block from both library rent $380 &$600 Interested Call Ed at 241-6854 aft 4pm.2 Room Newly Remodeled Studio BasementApt. Vicinity CO-OP Shopping Center $220.006/15 or before Perfect Quiet Student UnitAdults NO PETS 764-2493 or 525-3373.SUMMER SUBLET: 2 bdrms in spacious, ful¬ly furnished 3-level townhouse. 3’/2 baths,patio, air conditioning, laundr facilities, largekitchen. Rent & dates neg. 54 & Hyde Park.Call Susheela 955-8916.2 rooms in 5- bed apt. avail. June 15 Sept 30.Lots of space, light. 2 bathrooms. Smokerswelcome. $169 8. 179. 643-6080.56th & BLACKSTONE Great Summer Sublet! 2rms avail, in gorgeous 3 bdrm apt. fully fur¬nished. Mid-June to mid-Sept. females, nonsmokers preferred. $200/mo, negotible Call324-8984.Room in sunny apt 57 & Kimbark. Female,non-smoker. Summer/Fall option. $184 mo.Avail 5/15 Sheila, 684-5498, 421-5429.Sublet with option to renew lease in Sept - sun¬ny, spacious 2 bdrm apt on campus bus line.Good security $550/mo. Available end of June924-0282.Furnished two bedroom apt. 955-7083. Furnish¬ed room w/kitchen privileges 955-7083.Female, non-smoking roommate wanted toshare room in 4 bdrm apart $130/m 753-3751Rm309.Two bdrms in a 4 bdrm apt, excellent location2blocks to reg, wall to wall carpet, livingroom, two bathrooms, large kitchen, laundryin bldg, air-cond, summer sublet or full yearRent: $150/moeach, call anytime: 288 1326.Large luxurious 1-br apt overlooking lake. Indoor parking 24 hr security. Supermarket hlthclub pool dry cleaning laundry rm in bldg.Stove/fridge/dishwasher all carpet. Profes¬sional preferred. Avail 6/1/86. $600/mo 4800 SLakeshore. Call Kathy 337-1858 after 5pm.Sublet 6/1-8/31 Large 2-bdrm near campus andhospitals. $500/mon. Furnished. Call Bill Tait962-8513 or 241-7288 eves.Two terrific campus addresses: 5724 Kenwoodhas sunporch, new kitchen, bar wood, 5612Blackstone is an all-new unit in a wonderfulbuilding. AND come see a marvelous 3bedroom, 2 bath with sunporch in good condo.Hyde Park Kenwood Realty 955-6100. Summer Sublet. $225/mo. 1 bdrm in 2 bdrm,large, frnshed apt w/ patio, bale. Incl util, useof microwave, TV, ans machine, furniture,exercise equip. 54th & Woodlawn—1 blk fromKimbark Plaza, 4 blks from Regenstein.Prefer grad stdnt. Immed occ thru Sept. 2882520.GOVERNMENT HOMES from $1 (U repair).Delinquent tax property. Repossessions. Call1-805-687-6000 Ext. H-4534 for current repo list.Unbelievably huge 3 bedroom, 2 bath withparking, 2 sunporches, and brand-new kitchenbaths and laundry with central air in EastHyde Park. Hyde Park-Kenwood Realty 955-6100.Sunny and huge two bedroom, two bath on In-gleside & 54th. Completely rehabbed and pric¬ed to sell at 45,000 Hyde Park-Kenwood Realty955-6100.Sublet June Sept: 55/Kenwood. Sunny studio inquiet building w/laundry. $300/mo. Includesutilities. Fall option. Call 346-1991. wkdays,955-0014 evenings.Quiet grad studnts: 1 rm open in 3-pern apt. Asunny unhassled place for work, near Co-op.$185 incl heat. M or F. June 15. 667-2273.RESEARCH POSITIONResearch project seeks individual with collegedegree, medical or biological background, andsome computer experience to be ad¬ministrative assistant coordinating clinicalresearch projects. Full-time permanent posi¬tion available immediately. Contact AlisonEvans at 962-1935, 10-6 daily.LELSHAVVOTAll Night Torah Study Session Beginning 11pmContinuing until Sunrise Refreshments will beserved THURSDAY JUNE 12. Hillel House5715 S. Woodlawn.DOCTHANKS YOUThe members of Doc Films wish to thank ourpatrons and advertisers for making this schoolyear one of our most successful ever, and weare looking forward to another great year inIda Noyes. Again, thanks!SPACE WANTEDNeed 2 bdrm furnished apt near campus tosublet for summer. Steve 363-2850.Wanted 2 bdrm apt in Hyde or South Shorearea. Must be able to take kids and pets.Please Call Pam daytime only 643-7183.Immediate $$$ for sublet on 57th St Call 7532101 Christina.PEOPLE WANTEDALBINOS: Male and females with ALBINISMor OCULAR ALBINISM for research study.Free eye exam by Ophthalmologist included.Contact Mike Messing at 962-1985.SECRETARYCOLORADO: Near great sk-ing at KeystoneCopper mt., and Breckenridge. Two bedroomcondo with fireplace. $40,000. Moore Realty 1800-233-3949.Perfect for the gentlemen farmer. 250 acrefarm and Victorian house in perfect conditionnear Niles, Michigan. Hyde Park-KenwoodRealty 955-6100.FOR RENT Large 2-bdrm apt summer subletw/fall option. $500 including heat 947-9179.Studio. 2>/a rms. Sunny, good location. Avail.June 30th. $375/mo. To Aug. $400/mo.Thereafter. 324-2591 morns. & eves (7-10PM).Quiet female grad student wants to share apt.with 1-2 quiet people from July/Aug on. I'vechecked out some places. If you are interested,let's team up to find & choose the place Call meASAP at 684-1477/leave msg 324-9471. We are a leading medical center,located in Chicago's Hyde Park area.Currently, we are seeking aSecretary with good typing (60 wpm),shorthand and dictaphone skills.Word processing or personalcomputer experience a plus.Must also be well organized withgood communication skills.If you're interested in a challenging assignment in a fast-pacedenvironment, please call orsend resume to:Claudia GerardHuman Resources Dept.947-4595CHICAGO OSTEOPATH 1CMEDICALCENTER5200 S. Ellis, Chicago60615equal opportunity employer m/f“I ENJOY MYCONTACT LENSES”made byDR. KURT ROSENBAUMOPTOMETRIST£ye (fane (fatten,KIMBARK PLAZA1200 E. 53RDST.493-8372 752-1253CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986Left-handed people are needed for a researchexperiment in Psychology. All volunteers willbe paid and learn the results at the conclusionof the experiment. Inquire: 588-8646 evenings.Recording For The Blind now trainingvolunteers for summer session. If you will beon campus and can spare 2 hrs a week, callBrenda or R ia 288 7077 M-F 10-3.Mature student wanted for childcare in myhome this summer. Two school-age children.324-9533.Looking for responsible mature person tobabysit part-time for 16 month old baby girl.Call 947-0323.Looking for competent squash player w/ FieldHouse privilege to teach beginner for summerCall Mel at 924-4594.Can you babysit occasional evenings this summer, providing your own transp? 55th andHyde Pk. 2 kids, 3/hr. 288 8883 after 6PMPART-TIME SURVEY ASSISTANT fordowntown management consulting firm. Mustbe excellent typist w/experience working in anoffice setting. IR B-School, Hospital Admin.Students would be ideal. 15-25 flexiblehours/week during summer. Continue part-time or full-time in Sept. $7.25 per hr. CallEllen Bernstein 782-5588.Children from 1 to 2’/2 years for languagestudy. One or two visits at your home. Call 2886099.GOVERNMENT JOBS $16,040-$59,230/yr.Now Hiring. Call 805-687-6000 Ext. R-4534 forcurrent federal list.Female sitter/companion needed for two girls— ages 14 & 10, 3 days a week 8/16—9/15 phone799-9199.EMPLOYMENT WANTEDStudent's spouse with B.S. in Management andskills in computer seeks a summer job.Part/full time. Call 363-3292 or Chao at 962-7219. SERVICES Buy this: One pair of Magnaplanary TympaniT-ID One Ampzilla Amplifier (456 watts/chan-nel) One Luxman Turntable and cartridge Onevan Alseen Preamplifier One Sony FM/AMTuner Prices are negotiable, Buy more, savemore Call 962-8196 for information, ask forJeff.Furniture: Queen size bed - like new. $100Also: Dresser, night stand, lamps, sofa,tables, television. Cheap. 536-0664.FOR SALE: bookshelves, bed, desk, rocker,plants, rug. Call Nick: 469-8327."Philosophy—one big difference between menand boys is the price of their toys" Big logcabin for sale. Less than one hour away. 6bdrm; 3 baths; 2 story LR; Full basement;country kitchen-custom designed and built;private lake; 10 acres of woods; seclusion;west of Michigan City, IN., near 194. $119,000PAPPAS REAL ESTATE (local agent) KenWester 667-6666 or 947-0557.Like New Expandable Wood & Chrome Din-nette Set With 4 Swivel Chairs 241-6331 E VE.TYPEWRITER, AIRCONDITIONER. SmithCor. elec, cortr. mint cond., 8000 BTU, high eff.like new, $125. 363-0718.78 Dodge Omni 4 dr hbk 4-speed am/fm powerSteering $1200 Call D:962-8433 E :752-8904.WANTEDWanted: graduation ticket. Call Val 753-2240xl815or leave message.RIDE WANTEDRide to and from campus M-F I live at 6000 N.Austin. Will pay carfare. For info call: 9470747, x-268.LOST & FOUNDGold wedding band lost: Reward to finder. Call962-8789.JUDITH TYPES and has a memory. Phone955-4417.LARRY'S MOVING & DELIVERY. Furnitureand boxes. Household moves. Cartons, tape,padding dolly available. 743-1353.UNIVERSITY TYPING SERVICEWordprocessing and EditingOne block from Regenstein LibraryJames Bone, 363-0522PASSPORT PHOTOS WHILE-U-WAITModel Camera & Video 1342 E. 55th St. 4936700.THE BETTER IMAGE professional portraitand wedding photography. Call 643-6262.THE BETTER IMAGE, economic customframing available, fast service. 1344 E. 55th St.643-6262.TUTORING, All subjects, all ages, elem tograd schl, 300 professionals 864-8433, DrMakedon, Abacus InstituteTrio Con Brio: Classical, light popular musicfor weddings, all occasions. Call 643-5007.BABY childcare avail. Responsible, creative,exper. 684-2820.Typing services avail. All documents. CallNina, 667-5688 day or eves.Typing Typing Typing. Dissertations, lettersetc. Grammar correct. Call Elaine 667 8657.FAST FRIENDLY TYPING & EDITINGTheses, resumes, all mat'ls. 924-4449.Typing services available. All documents CallNina, 667-5688. Day or eves.Hyde Park movers serving the Hyde ParkKenwood surrounding chgo area with prideHousehold moving free packing cts del n/cfrom 12/hr. many other services. 493-9122.STRIPPING & REFINISHING Furniture orWoodwork stripped, repaired, stained, varnished, etc. Light Carpentry. Call Wood Wise363-4641.EXPERIENCED TYPING 682 6884.JUDITH TYPES and has a memory. IBM compatible. QuietWriter printer. Your disk or mine955-4417. PERSONALSFOR SALETired of Hyde Park? 1-br condo in rural/suburban area. 3blks to I.C. 28 mins to UC by trainGourmet Kitchen. Garage. Balcony. A/C Indoor/Outdoor pools. Health club. Close to golf,tennis, shopping. $38,900 Call 748 5813 leavemessage. Ruth- Good Luck next year! Send England mylove. Thanks for gently intorducing me to theadvertising busines.-CLHSue Skufca: Being of feeble mind and borkenspirit, I will you my irate customers, delin¬quent and collection accounts and my outstan¬ding management skills. Now YOU are respon¬sible for everyone's mistakes. Lucky You!Ruth.Ad Woman: Thanks for all the headaches, andthe bouts with the alka-seltzer, you must admitthough it's been real. The Office Pro.Kate: No dating the customers. Maroon policyremember!To my Little Poppy Seed:Chicago just won't be the same without you. Ishan't be able to find someone elso who canmake me so happy. Love, Mr. Cruller.It's more than a house, it's a way of life. HaleHouse, The Shoreland.NPL B-Team: It's all over! How will be copewith the real world now? I had a nightmareabout Frank last night. He was nagging me formy notes and he changed the name toSquovals. Julia, to whom do we send thepsychiatric bills? Mahogany Wench.Carole "Pelirroja" Byrd: Quiero que estemosen una isla con botellas de ron y musica calyp¬so. No classes. No trabajo. Quizas un diapodamos ser ricas y perezosas. Un abrazofuerte. La Loquita P S. Escribame!RFL: You're keeno-bosso. I like you lots. I'llmiss your abnormal behavior and I'm sureyou'll miss my hormonal imbalances. Thanksfor everything. Love, RFL P.S. How domothers know everything?MAROON AD STAFF: We made it! None ofthis would have been possible without all ofyour help and toleration. I've made reservations for all of us to vacation at the sanitarium.See you there! P.S. Jaimie thank you for theaspirin donations! Ad Woman.Dave& Erik at the Cove miss us! T & P.Terri Lee Sweet knees! Come to The Coast!Bat-The most dashing on a ski slope! SwatchBL- To lste PM early AM workouts! XOXOSlimMy fave B'view playmates- "Happy Campers"Terry E. 6 points! Thanks for letting me winDwight-"Eating another man's candy"-sendcopyBetty Be-Bop thanks for 100 bagels and 1000cokes! Your heart-breaking bundle of energy!TEENAGERS! GET RID OF PIMPLES ANDBLACKHEADS WITHOUT USING EXPENSIVE CREAMS ANDOINTMENTSTHE COM Chuck- Don't let your jeans get too baggy! LuvPLETE INSTRUCTIONS ONLY $1. PLUSSASE THRIFT-WAY, 1239 W 110th PLACE,CHICAGO, IL 60643.TURKISH CARPETS AND KELIMS! TERRIFIC PRICES. 955-1225evenings/wknds.78 CHEVY MONZA... good condition, New battery, tires, 67500 mis, $900, call Ravi 288 7752.Desk $35, Table $30, Dresser $30, $35, SleeperSofa $100 New Typewriter $200 or BO. 947-9179. To Mary Ishii: Thanks for putting up with my"poop" last Summer.Sir Helmut Von CellerlandTo my roommates: Thanks for dealing withmy many idiosyncracies, which are far tonumerous to mention. Please accept a specialapology for Helmut. Larry S.PETS4 KITTENS FREE: Call Sophia HOME: 4938130OFFICE: 407-1758. NEW YORKT1MESDelivered to your door for only 35c per daythroughout Hyde Park. Call 643-9624 today!PIANO LESSONSSUMMER PIANO LESSONS with EdwardMondello Teacher of piano music Dept. 1960-1980 Tel. 752-4485.-M-DELICIOUS-M-NUTRITIOUS-i-H-EXPEDITIOUSThe Medici on 57th delivers every menu itemfast and fresh! Try our new spinach pizza, it'ssecond to none. 667-7394.WE KNOW WHERE THEPARTIES AREWe know when the buses run. We know whattimes the films start. We know where all yourfriends live. For this and anything else youneed to know, call Hotline, 753-1777, sevendays a week. 7PM to 7AM.LIBERTARIAN PARTYVolunteers needed for ballot access petition¬ing. Must be Illinois voters. Call 663-1964.SUMMER WORKIf you can type a minimum of 45WPM or haveother office skills and experience, we have avariety of temporary office jobs to keep youbusy during the summer break. We offer tophourly rates & pay the same week. Call Reginaor Ron at Appropriate Temorary Service 7827215.WE'RE YOUR TYPEWord processing service, document retentionavailable. Please call 667-5170.NEED EXTRA MONEY?Earn $150.00 for your participation in a 4-weekdrug preference study. Involves only over-the-counter or commonly prescribed, non-experimental drugs. Minimum time required.Call 962-3560 Monday-Friday between 8:30a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Volunteers must be bet¬ween 21 and 35 and in good health. Refer tostudy KS.UNIVERSITY PARK RENTStudio for rent on top floor lake view poolhealth club parking. Near UC summer or yearlease 7/1 $449,393-1034.LASE RPR I NT IN G_Word Processing and laserwriter printing.Laser quality printing of resumes, papers,dissertations, and Macintosh files. Call Top ofthe Desk, Inc. at 947-0585 evenings andweekends for rates and quotes.SUMMER SUBLETBeautiful 3 bdrm/2 bath apt w/ huge livingroom. Kimbark between 53rd & 54th. S675/moneg. avail 6/15 thru 9/15. 947-0747 ext 213.ACHTUNG!GERMANTake APRIL WILSON'S five week GERMANCOURSE & High pass the summer languageexam! Classes meet M-F, beginning JUNE 23.Three sections; 10:30-12:30, 1-3 & 6-8PM. Cost:$225. The course is effective & often fun! Formore information & to register, call: 667-3038.APARTMENTWANTEDOne bedroom or studio wanted near campus.Must allow dog and have fenced-in backyardfor same. Call Larry at 684-6788 or 962-9555.EDWARDO'S_HOT STUFFEDDelivered right to your door! Edwardo's.- Thesuperstars of stuffed pizza. Open late everynight. Call 241-7960. 1321 E.57th. Ph 241-7960SEEKINGTREATMENTFOR ANXIETY?Selected volunteers will receive 6 weeks of freetreatment for anxiety at the University ofChicago Medical Center in return for par¬ticipating in a 3 week study to evaluate drugpreference. Involves only commonly-prescribed drugs. Participants must be bet¬ween 21 & 55 years old and in good health. Forfurther information call Karen at 962-3560 bet¬ween 8:30 & 11:30 a.m. Refer to study A.$$$& FUNPeople needed to participate in studies oflanguage processing, reasoning, andmemory. Will be paid $4-5 per session. Call 9628859 between 8;30 and noon to register.MANDARIN CHINESESummer courses. T 8. Th eves for 9 wks beginn¬ing June 24. Sun eves & afternoons for 9 wksbeg. June 29. Instructor: Cheng Yang Bor-chert, Sr Lecturer in Chinese. For info, callATTN PROFESSORS PROFESSIONALSERVICESThe Chicago Counseling & PsychotherapyCenter founded 15 years ago on a firm belief inthe worth and dignity of each person, offersempathic, effective counseling 8.psychotherapy to individuals, couples andfamilies. Loop and Hyde Park Offices. Feesflexible. Insurance accepted. Call 684 1800 for abrochure and/or an appointment.MACINTOSH UPGRADES512K...$249.120 day warranty. Housecalls 400KSony disks $1.69, 800K Sony disks $2.85.CYBERSYSTEMS667 4000HELP-SUMMER-HELPGraduate student from Spain in English willspend summer quarter in Chicago. Would liketo live with family in exchange for Spanishclasses/babysitting/light chores/occasionalcooking. Lucia 955-9771.APARTMENTSEARCHING??S.G publishes a FREE weekly housing listdescribing rooms, apts, sublets, etc Copiesare outside S.G. Office, 305 Ida Noyes.HAVE SPACE TO RENT??Place a FREE ad describing an apt., roomsublet, etc. in the weekly S.G. Housing List.Applications outside S.G. Office 305 Ida Noyes,or Call 962-9732.STUDIO CONDO SUBLETLarge studio condo available for summer at56th and Kimbark, late June till late Sept. Lotsof extras. Call 684-3704, anytime.GALA THIS SUMMERDon't despair! GALA will continue to meet tormost of the summer, Tuesday nights, 9:00, at5615 S. Woodlawn. And remember- Sunday,June 29 is the Lesbian & Gay Pride Parade.UCGALA members, enthusiasts, and alumniare invited to march together. For up to dateinfo all summer long call 962-9734 or 493-9264.Aloha.COACH HOUSEAvailable June 15, 3+ bedrooms, 2 full bathskitchen, large living/dining room, screenedporch. Near shopping, minibus routes. Rent$660/mo. Plus utilities. Call 667-8860 6-9 pm.“AUTOS FOR SALE"Does the Gov’t sell Jeeps, cars, 4x4's con¬fiscated in drug raids for under $100.00? Getthe facts today. Call 602-837-3401 Ext. S564.LEARN-TO-ROWwith the UC co-ed crew this summer. Open toall memebers of the University Community.Call Vince 962-1656 667-3260 or Victor 947-9283.GALAEnd of the year party Saturday night, June 7Evereii, Biabme!CINDY'SSERVICESCOMPLETESatisfactionGuaranteedNO JOB TOOBIG NO JOBTOO SMALL HHAT CINDY'SWE DO IT ALLGroup RatesCall753-3257—TAi Y0C*—CHINESE-AMERICAN RESTAURANTSpecializing m Cantoneseand American dishesOpen Daily 11 A -8:30 P MClosed Monday1318 E. 63rd MU4-I042Visiting prof looking for house or apt autumnqtr. Will look after pets, plants etc. Prefw/grand piano. Bill & Shirley Andrews (617)369 9017(h) (617)495 4624(0).PART-TIME TEMPORARYMature female grad student wanted to helpnew mother with light housekeeping; laundryshopping; meals. Apprx 4 hours per day fortwo weeks after baby is born- late June or ear¬ly July. $5.00 per hour. Call Karen at 643 9799.SUMMER AT HILLELHillel BBQ Thursday June 26 5:30 PM Comejoin us and plan summer activities 5715 S.Woodlawn.SUMMER FOLK DANCEFor fun, try international folk dancing anyMon or Fri of the summer quarter (starts Mon,June 23). Come to the Ida Noyes parking lot(inside if rain, etc.) Festivities start at 8:30PM, and you need no partner or talent! Ques¬tions call Tom 363-5214. Studios, 1, 2, & 3 BedroomApartments AvailableSome Nice Lake ViewsGood LocationHeat IncludedParking AvailableCALLHERBERT REALTY684-23335% Student Discounts9:00 A.M.-4:30 P.M.Monda* thru Frida*9:00 A.M.-2 P.M.Saturda*CHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6 1Q86 45ReviewsThe Malady of Death by Marguerite DurasGrove Press, 1986, 60 pp, $9.95The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite DurasPantheon, 1986, 181 pp, $6.95 (paper)The Sailor From Gibraltar by Marguerite DurasPantheon, 1986. 319 pp, $8.95 (paper)The War by Marguerite Duras reviewed by Theresa BrownPantheon, 1985, 183 pp, $13.95The Americans by Robert Frank reviewed by Dave McNultyPantheon, 1986, 174 pp, $19.95 (paper)Sweet Will by Philip LevineAtheneum, 1985, 56 pp, $5.95 (paper)Where Water Comes TogetherWith Other Water by Raymond Carver reviewed by Martha VertreaceRandom House, 1985, 131 pp, $13.95The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lemer reviewed by Justine KalasOxford U Press, 1986, 368 pp, $19.95India: The Siege Within by M.J. AkbarPenguin, 1985, 320 pp, $5.95 (paper)An Indian Dynasty by Tariq AliPutnam, 1985, $17.95Venegeance by Pranay Gupte reviewed by Sahotra SarkarNorton, 1985, $16.95Peru by Gordon LishDutton, 1986, 222 pp, $15.95Dear Mr Capote by Gordon LishScribner's, 1986, 258 pp, $5.95 (paper)What I Know So Far by Gordon LishScribner’s, 1986, 162 pp, $4.95 (paper)First Love and Other Sorrows by Harold Brodkey reviewed by Jack ClimaoVintage, 1986, 223 pp, $5.95 (paper)Let Truth Be the Prejudice by Ben Maddows reviewed by Anjali FedsonAperture, 1985, 240 pp, $50The Adrian Mole Diaries by Sue Townsend reviewed by Johanna StoyvaGrove Press, 1986, 342 pp, $17.95Against the Apocalypse by David Roskies reviewed by Bill HanrahanHarvard U Press, 1984 , 310 pp. $9.95 (paper)Time and Narrative: Volume One by Paul Ricoeur reviewed by Steve BestU of Chicago Press, 1984 , 274 pp, $12.95Turning the Tide by Noam Chomsky reviewed by John ConlonSouth End, 1985, 298 pp, $10The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta by Mario Vargas Llosa reviewed by Gary RobertsFarrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986, 309 pp, $16.95Mississippi Blues directed by Bertrand Tavernier reviewed by Deane BivinsHappy as a Dog’s Tail by Anna Swir reviewed by Michael SohnHarcourt-Brace-Jovanovich, 1986, 116 pp, $15.95Popol Vuh trans. by Dennis Tedlock reviewed by Stephanie BaconSimon & Scuster, 1986, 379 pp, $9.95 (paper)Davita’s Harp by Chaim Potok reviewed by Stefan KerteszBailantine, 1986, 438 pp, $4.50 (paper)InterviewsWith Gerda Lemer conducted by Justine KalasWith Paul Ricoeur conducted by Steve BestArticlesDing Ling: Feminism in China by Janet AfaryThe Long and Short of It by Gideon D Arcangelo and Marty MatthewsFiction & PoetryCocktails at the Royale fiction by Johanna StoyvaEvery Day by Laura HartBlack Tulips by Martha VertreaceShared Quarters and That Night in Wales by Jane HoogestraatSunday fiction by Lenette SadekConstruction Deconstruction by Anthony MayThe Rise of Bonnie Belledown by Judie Mathews 345691213141831373838.39.43.43.7311016212326.27Covtr b) Stephanie Bacon LITERARY REVIEWQ r A K ' ,T E H 1. YEditor — Gideon D’ArcangeloStaff Writers — Stephanie Bacon, Steve Best,Deane Bivins. Theresa Brown, Anjali Fedson,Stefan Kertesz, David McNulty, Jordan Or¬lando, Krishna Ramanujan, Laura Rebeck,Gary Roberts, Sahotra Sarkar, Michael Sohn,Johanna Stoyva. Ellen Streed, Martha Vert¬reace, Christina Voulgarelis.Contributors — Janet Afary, Jack Climacs,John Conlon, Bill Hanrahan, Justine Kalas,Martin Mathews.Production — Stephanie Bacon, GideonD’Arcangelo, Bruce King, Jordan Orlando,David McNulty, Krishna Ramanujan, LauraSaltz.Advertising Manager — Ruth MauriOffice Manager — Jaimie WeihrichBusiness Manager — Larry SteinThe CLR wishes to announce its new editor,Krishna Ramanujan, who will assume theposition as of the summer quarter. Further, wewould like to thank the Chicago Maroon, theGrey City Journal, and the Seminary Co-opBookstore for their help with this issue.Submission Guidelines — Deadline for thesummer issue is Sept. 1, 1986. Submissions offiction and poetry should be anonymous andaccompanied with an envelope containing theentrant’s name and adress. No more than fourpieces per author will be considered for oneissue. Enclose SASE if you want your workreturned. The CLR will not be responsible forlost manuscript, so send copies. We encourageall those submitting to get involved with thepaper. Our address is 1212 e 59th st, Chicago60637. Our office is in Ida Noyes 303 (962-9555). We welcome any letters of response.CLR Editorial Policy — A great deal of oureffort go:s into establishing an editorial policythat will be somewhat sound and consistent.We feel that the more coherent our method ofselecting original fiction and poetry, the morecomfortable writers will feel in entrusting uswith their work. If writers feel that that theirwork is being fairly and thoroughly consid¬ered, then the acceptance or rejection of it willcarry some significance. Furthermore, thereader will feel that a little more than whimsyhas gone into the choice of the work published.Decisions are made by the Editorial Board,which is currently made up of eight members.The Board is comprised of staff members whohave expressed some commitment to establish¬ing a strong voice for the paper.All work is considered anonymously. Thesubmissions are distributed among members ofthe Board for a first reading. Each person thenrecommends to the group the work they thinkdeserves further consideration. The work is atthis time presented orally, followed by dis¬cussion among the group. The Board thenmeets as many times as is necessary to decidewhich works to publish.A difficulty arises when somebody on theBoard is submitting their work. It’s no surprisethat of the people in the university communityinterested in critiquing fiction and poetry, someare writing it and may want to publish it. Toallow members of the Board to submit, andstill preserve their anonymity as entrants, theywere required to abstain from the voting andchallenged to treat their work as objectively aspossible in discussion.The plan above is the most viable we havecome up with to date, faced with the problem¬atic task of judging original work for pub¬lication. We think and hope this procedure is astep above random selection, although thequestion of process in an endeavor like this is adifficult one, and we are open ic all sugges¬tions.Copyright 1986 TCMgcj/CLR1621 E 55th StreetChicago. IL 60615(312) 241 -miOpen 7 Days' HAIR PERFORMER PERSON causes headsto turn! Do you?Family Styling CenterNOW FEATURING!'THE INDOOR TANNING SYSTEMCHICAGO LITERARY REVIEW—FRIDAY JUNE 6, 1986THET WENT Y-FIIIFTHSIPRI NIGSlTIQlRjElVV IIDIESALEFIRIIIDIA Y30 MIAIYSUNDAY8JUNE2 0 %lO F FIT OlM EMBERS°/olT O N O N - M E M B E R SO T HIL O C A T I O N SliEOIIHQHSHgH!SQOIDItmwiIDBHHBMIBianeHOESi ®BB a® DlBBlBBiaiDEM D® E1®[II![B@1510@SIBSBBISISmDISmBmiDB!IBBOEUSDBSSDIISililBBHDESBI@B0BI@8flSll0H0[§@HFOREMOST1531 East Hyde Park Blvd.CHATEAU CARBONNIEUX1982 BORDEAUX15 59750 MLKORBELCHAMPAGNE6"Vr 750 ML 955-5660BAUMWHITE BORDEAUX329 750 MLTEPUSOVETWHITE CABERNETA39Tr 75(750 MLHYDE PARK’S LARGEST IMPORTED BEER DEPARTMENT!MOOSEHEAD6-12 oz. N.R. BOTTLES349HARP6-12 oz. N.R. BOTTLES GROLSCH6-12 oz. N.R. BOTTLES3"3" DOS EQUIS6-12 oz. N.R. BOTTLES3 79SALE DA TES JUNE 5 TO JUNE 11STORE HOURS: Mon.-Thurs. 9-11, Fri. ^Sat. 9-12. Sunday 12 Noon-10— We Accept Visa & Mastercard —Must be 21 yrs. of agePositive I.D. required We reserve the right to limit quantitiesand correct printing errors.Join the FOREMOST' Wine & Imported Beer SocietySAVE ON FINE WINES & IMPORTED BEERSNON-SALE ITEMS ONLY LOVtLOVES Ofmaio m swimnMAMOEELOWIRSMAH WHO WOOLS If KINS, THEMtsntMAMontenegroMoonuommoMoscow does hot muwt m #?mmi MtAM.rmmst, mimen r p&trm. rmHOtTK STAR. rmPARDON MON AFFAIRE. TOO IPASSION Of 1.0*1• vamm or a mm wmah, nm.mm* to* mift API Of JLOVfRASHOMOW &uwmimreturn of martin guerremrt HMAm-r, rmusNALLwar&it m ittmms»MAH m TME WHIT* SUIT, THEmah who loved women, rmmwtmiowon onclemoon mmsrnms:MOHO ANMR. KLEIN«Y MCW PARTNER tvjmmmm*MtViR LET GONO WAY ro mAT A LADYNOS AMOUR. Aom sms, m omm rm mmnmm m rm a~, aPASSAGE t© MARSEILLEPtXOTEPttALfNf AT THE SC ACMOUSAUilta ti err aus •>Entry*cay. rm pa$ soad wt&zsoulevar© ms assasimm Am a hospitalcarmen ierzrrs*CAT 4. MOUCCchilly scenesOTY COVERS, CCtfMM* AAl&mCONTENTLOUP »f OZMatm a wpnwmSAMMY SOYDIARY Of fOtBtiMtttOtSOf-EST CHARM Of mta mm,dresss-si wonIShtNCHfflltiNI’SNTZCARRAtOOGALLIPOLIcm , THf C ADE ADIGRAND tUUStOMOSOCHtfS G!«i.HlAftt Of THE STAG .HEAT Of DESIREHIGH HSCLSHOTHEADif SHE SAYS YES. t DON'T SAYSAWDUST & TINSELSENSUAL MAN (DU8!W«><SERVANT. THESEVEN SAMDRt, THE ,Y OfET»|_•m man . rmACT OF AGGRESSIONoro non 'mqpnoECO MY LOVE& diamonds tsusrtTiiD)«j*oo*fra: * ssnscv* myshetLIST «E KILLED0MJNM&ICARETUt, HE MIGHT MEAD YOUCARMEN ^SUBTITLED)CHAMPIONSCHRIS? STOPPED AT EDOMTHK SPfHH? ORCSA, THE IRU8tm.fiTO CO*G€? VENTrURANDOTUNAWKtOACHAVOYAGE EM BALLWNtnf ROSEWHY SHOOT THEWILD STRAWtttR*WOMAN CALLED GOLDA ALttt dantoh {suemuoiDIRTY BUSINESSDIVADOHA no* 4 HER 2 HVStANDS ^EDITH AND MARCfiENTAE NOUSEYES, THS MOUTH, THETAMMY A ALEX tSUADT A DU88ED*f ikZMAH'b SAkl iDOiBEDifDENCH OCTf CTfVf, THECA8*iE<LAGARDEN Of FINtZt CONTTNl'SGOING PLACESGREETN ROOM, THEmATIAMCUAISANJURO*SEDUCTION Of MHW>,rmTIESC THE^pttti^SUGAR CANE ALLEY SUBTITLE©1■ MoDGL CdMGM 4HD Midgo”1349 G/ist 55th Stitg€t■ {1. l! 493-6700€CHICAGO LITERARY RF.VIFW—FRIDAY JUNE 6. 1986I