FICTION/67 esting stage direction-clearly re- cussion of his major films on God, ration of love for life." And, par- flected in the film itself. As the death, mortality, and the human ticularly since it doesn't make me bishop's pathetic, bedridden aunt condition. When he left God for laugh much, and is filled with such lifts her hand with great effort and Freud and psychology it did not preachy and mawkish speeches, I lays it on the hot paraffin lamp, an seem relevant. But now that he has am inclined to think that this is action which leads to her horrible changed sides and gone over to what Bergman feels the film really death, Bergman writes as follows: "love," hedonism, and all that, and is. Which compels me, for my part, There is no counsel for the de- decided there is a real enemy again to state that I do not for one sec- fense, who, orally or in writing, (curiously enough, the same God- ond believe in this joyful, loving has a mind to plead Elsa Bergius's ridden people he once professed to Ekdahl family. I do not believe cause. She is repulsive, she is rot- admire), I find myself thinking Uncle Gustav Adolf's wife is de- ting, a parasite, a monster. Her again of the freely confessed polit- lightfully amused at his persistent part will soon be played out. She ical enthusiasms of Bergman's adultery. I don't believe the lame is a loaf that hasn't risen in the youth. There were at that time servant-mistress is generously em- world's batch and it is no use many young men in Germany who braced by the family. I don't believe wasting pity on such an utter thought "parasites" and "failures" Helena Ekdahl's late husband be- failure. were totally unworthy of human came lifelong friends with her Jew- So amid all the loving, and car- pity, and these young men wore ish lover. I don't believe in the ing, and joyful hedonism, a poor death's heads on their caps and Jewish lover. I want to know what invalid burns to death. But we marched to the orders of Heinrich he ate at Christmas. I don't believe must '"waste no pity" on such a Himmler. Think on't. one word of this "love" glup that repulsive creature because she hasn't runs from one end of the film to risen in the world's batch, because AN intelligent critic, David Brud- the other. When Ingmar Bergman her part is played out, because she noy, has made a respectable case talked to me of God and death I is a failure. that Fanny and Alexander is a respected him despite his past Now the reader will have noticed comedy. And I certainly agree with political sympathies. But now that that, having mentioned Bergman's him to the extent that if you are he's prattling on about love, and youthful fascination with Hitler's to enjoy the film at all you must gentle smiles, and fruit trees in Germany at the beginning of this find it comic. But Bergman himself bloom, I think something in him essay, I dropped it during my dis- tells us that the movie is a "decla- has snapped.

Fiction

Cozzens Repossessed Joseph Epstein

I N WHAT century did he live?" tory of modern American literary Various are the reasons a novelist asked the graduate student reputations, James Gould Cozzens's can fall out of fashion and favor. in literature to whom I mentioned has provided one of the fastest dis- First among them is that he was that I had been reading the novels appearing acts of the past fifty overrated in the first place, and of James Gould Cozzens. "In what years. In a few decades Cozzens has that the natural readjustment of century do you?" I was tempted gone from a Book-of-the-Month initial enthusiasm has a dampen- to reply, but I didn't. I didn't, be- Club main selection and Time cov- ing, even deadly, effect. Then again cause to do so, along with being er subject to the misty never-never it may be that his work speaks mean-spirited, would also have land-never in print, never taught only to the time in which he wrote been unfair. After all, in the his- in universities-of such faded liter- it-such, for example, seems to me ary figures as James Branch Cabell, the case with Sinclair Lewis. Or Zona Gale, and Joseph Herges- our author may write altogether JOSEPH EPSTEIN, the editor of the Amer- too plainly, providing few of those ican Scholar, is COMMENTARY'S regular heimer. It has happened before, fiction critic. A new book of his essays, but never, I think, quite so quickly enticing difficulties in interpreta- The Middle of My Tether, will be as in the case of James Gould tion and opportunities for class- published later this year by Norton. Cozzens. room demonstration that seem to 68/COMMENTARY SEPTEMBER 1983 set flowing the salivary glands of book entitled Just Representations: The second reason an exemplary certain academics. Or he may have A James Gould Cozzens Reader, biography was required, at least if no powerful champions among the but his biography is no more likely it were to succeed in helping to re- critical establishment. Or, as with to alter Cozzens's reputation than suscitate Cozzens's reputation, is the later John Dos Passos, his pol- his anthology did. Although often that Cozzens himself presents an itics may go against the grain of just in its judgments, and sympa- enormous biographical problem. his age. Or, for a combination of thetic to its subject, Bruccoli's book This is that he apparently was not the above reasons (excluding the sorely wants artfulness. Jeffrey a lovely man. Certainly he offers a first), he may not capture the fancy Hart, reviewing it in the National distinct difficulty for the eulogist. of the intellectual class, which may Review, suggests that Bruccoli, be- Of the love of the laughter of chil- hold his very popularity against cause he combines criticism and dren, of ardor for good causes, of him; this for a great many years biography, resembles Samuel John- kindness toward contemporaries, to was a serious problem for Charles son; he does so, I fear, to the extent reverse the old eulogistic pattern, Dickens. The more one adduces that I resemble Magic Johnson. James Gould Cozzens showed none. reasons for the fall in literary repu- Bruccoli works all too quickly, is For a simple Cozzensian sentiment, tation, the more does it seem extra- too slapdash. In mid-career he has allow me to quote Professor Bruc- ordinary that any literary reputa- already written and edited more coli, who writes: "Dogs, he com- tations below that of Tolstoy en- than thirty books. Like that dopey mented, were a satisfactory sub- dure at all. joke about how do you feed a nine- stitute for children, providing am- But with James Gould Cozzens, hundred-pound gorilla, to which ple cause for worry without promis- even though a number of the rea- the answer is, very carefully, so to ing filial ingratitude." But such sons I have noted apply, the chief the question of how Professor Bruc- misanthropy, in Professor Bruc- cause of the fall of his literary rep- coli produces so many books, the coli's pages, isn't understood-it is utation can be found with real pre- answer is, not very carefully. Which merely reported. cision. Like an eclipse of the moon, is a roundabout way of saying that it can even be dated. It occurred James Gould Cozzens: A Life "I WOULD like to be able to boast in January 1958, when COMMEN- Apart is very far from being the that this biography is a labor of TARY published an essay by Dwight exemplary work of the literary bi- friendship," Bruccoli begins his bi- Macdonald entitled "By Cozzens ographer's art that was needed in ography. "But James Gould Coz- Possessed." To say that this essay this case. zens claimed he had no friends. I was an attack is not to begin to It was needed for two reasons. honored him, and he endured me." catch the flavor of it. It was a toast- First, Cozzens was a born writer His father died when he was six- ing, a roasting, a pasting, a lam- who published his first novel at teen, and the two great figures basting, a drawing and quartering the age of twenty and who, as is in Cozzens's life were his mother, -well, you have to imagine a death true of nearly all born writers, can who in a doting way was devoted to by broad-ax and tweezers. Not since hardly be said to have had a real him, and his wife, Bernice Baum- the St. Valentine's Day Massacre life away from his desk. To be sure, garten, an important literary agent has there been so efficient a piece of he had parents, went to schools,- with the firm of Brandt &cBrandt work. I for one was put off by it had love affairs, married, served in and the one critic whose advice he from reading Cozzens for a full the army; but his writing, and how valued. Otherwise he was by and quarter of a century. he came to write the books he did, large friendless, and only small ex- Since Dwight Macdonald's at- are the essential things. Especially aggeration need be found in his tack, Cozzens has had his small are they essential in the case of Coz- answer, at age thirty-nine, to a band of followers-a little Cozzens zens, who, as I shall attempt to questionnaire sent him by the edi- club of sorts. But no powerhouse show, was a writer of stark, really tors of the reference work, Twen- critics have been among its mem- quite dark views. How such a writ- tieth Century Authors: er came to see the world and its bers. Nor has the pendulum of lit- My social preference is to be left erary fashion swung back enough workings as he did is the crucial alone, and people have always to allow Cozzens a second reading. question. Here, alas, Professor seemed willing, even eager, to For years now he has been cate- Bruccoli stands fairly mute. Instead, gratify my inclination. I am more gorized in cliches: he is a novelist for the most part, he tells us that or less illiberal, and strongly anti- who speaks for power and privilege; Cozzens wrote first one novel, then pathetic to all political and ar- his work resembles that of Louis another; how these books were re- tistic movements. I was brought Auchincloss; he is admired only ceived by critics and reviewers; and up an Episcopalian, and where by conservatives of the National what their sales figures were. He I live the landed gentry are Re- Review stripe. This, then, is where greatly appreciates Cozzens, but can publican. I do not understand mu- only offer respect where intellec- sic, I am little interested in art, things stand. and the theater seems tiresome tual penetration is wanted. Possi- to Now a biography of Cozzens writ- me. My literary preferences are bly, as a character in By Love Pos- for writers who take the trouble ten by Matthew J. Bruccoli* has sessed claims, "None of us, perhaps, to write well. This necessarily ex- appeared. Himself a long-standing knows any of us very well." But this member of the Cozzens club, Pro- is a possibility no biographer can * James fessor Gould Cozzens: A Life Apart, Bruccoli earlier produced a even for a moment entertain. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 343 pp., $15.95. FICTION/69

cludes most of my contemporaries as it is consistent that yet another on their love of theory in a world and I think I would do well to character, told of this bit of name- where there are too many variables skip the presumptuous business calling, responds: "My personal ob- for any human mind or theory to of listing the three or four who servation is that Jews behave as take proper account of. Things, in strike me as good. I like Shake- well as other people; and you can Cozzens's novels, are as they are speare and Swift and Steele and trust them just as far-which isn't and must be dealt with as such- Gibbon and Jane Austen and Hazlitt. saying much." Cozzens was too real- conditions and not theories interest istic a novelist not to use material him. Cozzens, like George Orwell, If Bruccoli's biography has negli- of this kind, too intelligent to pre- has a certain talent for facing un- gible standing as a work of art, it tend that anti-minority feeling was pleasant facts; unlike Orwell, he does nonetheless provide its subject not a part of the small-town New seems almost to relish unpleasant a valuable service. This is to free England life about which he fre- facts; and those unpleasant facts Cozzens from the black cloud of quently wrote, and too interesting that give him the most pleasure bigotry under which, in a reigning a writer to be disqualified for his are the ones that knock the pins liberal political atmosphere, his having done so. In his defense, after out from under theories of human name has fallen. In his novels, having read Bruccoli's biography, behavior. make no mistake about it, minority one can say that Cozzens had a fine The more impressive of Cozzens's groups do not come in for a gentle impartiality, having no love for novels fall well outside the main- ride. Of the Irish Catholics, for ex- any particular group, his own in- stream of modernist fiction. He does ample, a judge in By Love Possessed cluded. As for the Jews, that oldest not go in for wild invention. In a remarks: of old arguments will have to serve: mature James Gould Cozzens novel Seventy years ago-and even his best friend, his only friend in a cause has effects, effects ignite thirty years ago, the number of fact, his wife, was a Jew. further causes, which in turn light people still around whose atti- up other effects. If you happen to tude had been formed seventy As IT stands, then, readers who believe that this is how life works years ago was great enough to come to Matthew Bruccoli's biog- -as, it happens, I do-then James make them a majority-the term raphy of James Gould Cozzens are Gould Cozzens may be for you. If "Irish Catholic," at least to this likely to depart as they arrived: you don't, then perhaps you would community, meant the base and either convinced of Cozzens's genius do better to consider the problems obscure vulgar. Few had anything or convinced of his meanness. It of modern reading in the novels of that could be called education. have been worse. Their mostly low standards of could, of course, Italo Calvino or set off on a tour living-all they could afford-re- A psychologically minded biogra- of ancient Egypt with Norman sulted in objectionable habits pher would have found in the work Mailer. and manners. Politically, they of Cozzens meat and drink and a were a troublesome mass vote at full trolley of sweets for dessert. I SPOKE of a mature James Gould the disposal of their own highly For example, sex, though never Cozzens novel, for there are also purchaseable politicians. Relig- abundant in his novels, almost al- less mature and even immature iously, they seemed to be the will- ways carries with it the pleasure of James Gould Cozzens novels. Among ing dupes of their priests, of a an iced drink in a blizzard; it is un- the latter are the first four novels superstition to the Protestant failingly a reminder of humankind's he wrote, between the ages of twen- mind corrupt and alien.... biological limitations. For this rea- ty and twenty-eight, and of which In the middle of the same novel, son, sex in a Cozzens novel often he himself spoke slightingly. I have the lawyer Julius Penrose, whose comes to seem the mating of beasts not read these novels, but to judge highly neurotic wife is contemplat- -more frequently a low than a from the passages quoted in Bruc- ing conversion to Catholicism, high point in the conduct of hu- coli's biography, they richly possess launches an attack on the Church man affairs. the most prominent mark of the in which he sets out its attractions No novelist has the full range of too-soon-published young novelist: to the guilt-ridden and misguided. literary weapons in his arsenal, and lush overwriting in the service of Is this Cozzens talking, ventrilo- Cozzens is not an exception. Al- extreme self-indulgence. Excluding qually, through his character? Dif- though he has wit, which is dis- these first four novels, Cozzens ficult to say. But what can be said is played in his formulations and in wrote nine others that he cared that Julius Penrose's feelings about the merciless observations on life sufficiently about to want to see re- the Catholic Church are thorough- made by his intelligent characters, main in print. If one reads them ly consistent with his belief that it he is otherwise fairly humorless. Ly- in the order in which they were is part of the difficulty of being hu- ricism, similarly, is foreign to him. written, as I have recently done, a man to live with uncertainty and He has an anti-intellectual bias, novelistic career unfolds before one, with many mysteries unsolved. and the one character in all his in all its interesting missteps, back- Another character in By Love works against whom he takes out steps, and final striding forward. It Possessed refers to "typical Jewish after unstintingly is an intellectual, also demonstrates that James Gould lawyer tricks." The tricks turn out a writer for little magazines, serv- Cozzens, this lonely figure with his not to be tricks at all, yet, again, ing as a public-relations officer in dark views, achieved something it is perfectly consistent that the the army in Guard of Ho.nor. His very impressive. character thinks as he does-just case against intellectuals is based One could not, I think, have 70/COMMENTARY SEPTEMBER 1983 foretold how impressive it would But before setting up the central hams, biscuits, and preserves from be from the first of these nine crisis in the novel, Cozzens provides the food department. A false man novels, S.S. San Pedro (1931). This a portrait of the town of New Win- Friday shows up, whom Mr. Lecky is a slight book about a large event ton in the full range of its social kills with savage incompetence at -the sinking of an ocean liner that classes, its local politics, its preten- close range with a shotgun. ships water and eventually goes sions. This supposed novelist of The descriptions are powerful in under during a furious storm. power and privilege is very hard on their precision, but what is Cast- Though no great shakes, the novel the Bannings, one of the town's away about? Is it an allegory of -novella really, since it runs to upper-crust families; and easily the man's essential loneliness? Is it only 85 pages in my paperback edi- most admirable character in the about man's technological inepti- tion-is obviously the work of a book is a telephone operator named tude? His unfitness for the modem serious writer. In a bit of puffery May Tupping, whose husband has world? I don't think we can quite written for the Book-of-the-Month been paralyzed by a hunting acci- know, for the allegory is not clearly Club News Christopher Morley dent and who herself faces life with realized. Yet the critics were gener- spoke of "the beautiful crispness stoical acceptance. The crisis of the ally pleased, citing Castaway as very and decision of [Cozzens's] prose." novel is resolved not because right Kafkaesque, which ticked off Coz- "Beautiful," I don't know; "crisp- is on Dr. Bull's side-we never learn zens who hadn't ever read Kafka. ness," maybe; but "decision," a whether it is or isn't-but because Nearly twenty-five years later, Irv- word I have not seen before used Henry Harris, the town's political ing Howe, speaking for the modern- to describe prose, seems to me very power, sees the resolution of the ist lobby in American criticism, good. For all its shortcomings, this issue in Dr. Bull's favor as a useful wrote an attack on Cozzens in novel by a man in his late twenties way of infuriating Mrs. Banning, which he nonetheless had kind is written with decision-a word I which it gives him pleasure to do. words for Castaway, going on to read to mean disciplined authority. The novel closes on a note of some- regret that after it Cozzens "be- If S.S. San Pedro is thin and a what forced affirmation, a paean to comes a quite conventional novelist, bit awkward, Cozzens's next novel, the vitality and survival powers of either uninterested in or unable to The Last Adam (1933), like a Dr. Bull by a woman who has been use the 20th-century advances in young man coming into his matur- sleeping with him for years and technique." (Interestingly, Castaway ity, is both more filled-out and whose closing words of half-grudg- was perhaps alone among Cozzens's more confident. The crisis at the ing admiration are: "The old bas- novels to be taught in American center of The Last Adam is a ty- tard!" universities. The reason for this is phoid epidemic, which may or may Written by a man of thirty, this not far to seek. All those obscuri- not have broken out because of the is a work of considerable artistic ties, all those unresolved difficulties incompetence of the town's physi- coolness: objective, neatly dis- -such things fill classroom hours.) cian and health officer, George Bull, tanced, socially perspicacious. If a In fact, Cozzens did return to a country doctor filled with preju- comparison is wanted, I should say "conventional" literary techniques dice and strong opinion who knows that The Last Adam is Sinclair in his next novel, Men and Brethren that life's major datum is death: Lewis without the malice. Because (1936), which is about a crowded the malice-"See what swine these Discouragement, to feel day and a half in the life of an death's small-town certainty; exasperation, to know people are!"-is missing, Episcopal priest. Ernest Cudlipp, the fatuousness of resisting such The Last Adam can still be read to- who is vicar of a Manhattan church, an adversary-what was the use day with genuine interest, while is a no-nonsense Christian for whom of temporary evasions or difficult the novels of Sinclair Lewis can the niceties of doctrine are of no little remedies when death simply only be read for historical interest. great interest: "You either have the came back and came back until capacity to apprehend the great it won?-moved him more than Castaway (1934), Cozzens's next spiritual truths, which are universal any personal dread of extinction, novel, is intended as a modern and invariable, or you haven't." or compassion for those stricken. Robinson Crusoe. Instead of strand- The stricken, beyond Ernie Cudlipp is less a saver than a help, were ing his chief character on an is- beyond needing help. During the patcher of souls. He arranges an last forty years, fully a hundred land, Cozzens places "Mr. Lecky"- abortion for a parishioner who has human beings had actually died he is never referred to otherwise- become pregnant in an adulterous while he watched. He couldn't re- in a deserted modern department affair; he attempts to soothe a fel- call one who gave signs of mind- store. We are never told how he got low priest defrocked for making ing much; they were too sick or in, or why the store is deserted. homosexual advances to the young; too badly hurt to care. If they What we are presented with is Mr. he permits a death-bed conversion were conscious enough to know Lecky's paranoia and his painfully to Catholicism of a woman dying that they were alive, pain blurred inept attempts at survival. He of cancer. He is a man over whose their view; they saw no good any- builds a fort composed of furniture where. They eyes no wool can be pulled. He were not given peace irt front to regret a lost future; they were of the men's room, he knows about human depravity, beyond desiring anything. In its equips himself with rifles and am- about the worm of human malice, melancholy way, the flesh, ma- munition from the sporting-goods and about just how far sweet rea- ligned mortality, took tender care department, he dresses himself from son, noble disinterestedness, and of its own. men's ready-to-wear, he eats canned the assumption of good will can FICTION/71

take one in defeating either. Yet he and he certainly does not share the were not first-rate abilities handi- also knows that "sometimes people exalted valuation most modern nov- capped by laziness, but second-rate, will be amazingly kind, amazingly elists place upon its inviolability." by no degree of effort or assiduity generous, if they possibly can." He This is true enough, and yet one to be made the equal of abilities tells a friend, a woman who is with- wonders if Cozzens wasn't correct like Bonbright's." out religion, Suppose I were to say to turn away from the modern nov- The question of what to do with that it isn't especially desirable for elists' preoccupation with the self. his life presses upon Abner Coates you to be happy-in the sense of By now, of course, our novelists when, during the week of the mur- having things suit you, instead of have given us a bellyful of the self. der trial, he is offered a place on spending your life trying to arrange One thinks here of all those Mailer, the county ballot for district attor- things to suit someone else." Styron, Roth, and Bellow novels in ney by the local political boss. He Certain qualities that will mark which the hero, modestly disguised wants the job, even needs it, since Cozzens's major fiction begin to and made to seem on the whole he plans to marry and will require emerge in Men and Brethren. The winning, is so obviously Mailer, additional income, yet the political respect for work, for one: of the Styron, Roth, or Bellow. One boss is a man he instinctively dis- defrocked priest, cut off from his wonders, indeed, if the time hasn't likes and to whom he is extremely profession, Ernie Cudlipp thinks, come to shelve the self. After Ask wary of becoming beholden. Now "He had nothing left, he stood for Me Tomorrow Cozzens did, and in the truly conventional American nothing, he was nothing." For an- never returned to it. novel we know how this problem other, there is the preference for would be resolved. Our hero would, dealing with day-to-day reality- WITH The Just and The Unjust after much agonizing, retain what "Realists," Cudlipp thinks, "are the (1942), Cozzens entered onto his he thinks of as his integrity, turn only people who get things done"- major phase. This novel, whose down the offer, and perhaps go into over the penchant for the theoreti- time span is a week, centers around legal-aid work where he will up- cal. The observations in this novel a murder trial in Childerstown, the hold the rights of the downtrodden. are very sharp. "As far as Ernest seat of a New England county. Its Not, however, in Cozzens. could judge, the really valuable principal character is Abner Coates, The trial grinds on. A very thing which Doctor [Karl] Barth a man six years out of Harvard Law strong sense emerges of how the did seem to offer was a conception School, an assistant district attor- law in its daily operations works of religious truth which allowed ney, and the son and grandson of which I, for one, find fascinating. modern-minded young priests like county judges. Its method is one Irving Howe, for another, finds this Wilber to recover that sustaining, Cozzens will use in his next two same quality, as reflected in By snobbish ease of mental superiority, novels: an event takes place in a Love Possessed, tiresome and all loved long since, but, fifty or sixty limited time frame, but the book too American. ("The American re- years ago, lost to the clergy for a regularly weaves back into the past spect for technology becomes in while." If the novel has a flaw, it is through flashback, amply mixing Cozzens an unconcealed admiration its lack of density. Things happen action and observation. A portrait for the man who uses his mind for too fast; more-in the way of de- is provided of a town and its insti- precise utilitarian ends and who is tail, of accounts of motivation, of tutions, in their full social and impatient with other ideas about completion of character-is wanted. professional texture. In this in- the value of thought." Whose Yet in the career of James Gould stance the trial of two men for thought? That of literary critics, no Cozzens Men and Brethren marks a murdering a drug dealer is the doubt.) Throughout the book flows true step forward. event, but the underlying question a stream of observations that, is what Abner Coates will do with whether one agrees with them or ONE step forward-one step back. his life. It is an interesting ques- not, are of a kind that need to be Ask Me Tomorrow (1940) is Coz- tion chiefly because in Abner confronted. Abner, for example, zens's one attempt at an autobio- Coates Cozzens has created an in- thinks: "Criminals might be vic- graphical novel, and it is a sad teresting young man. tims of circumstances in the sense botch. It is based on a season in Abner Coates may not know that few of them ever had a fair Europe in which Cozzens served as what to do with his life, but he chance; but it was a mistake to the tutor for the son of a rich does reasonably well know himself. forget that the only 'fair chance' American family. The Cozzens He knows, for example, that he they ever wanted was a chance for character, Francis Ellery, is an un- doesn't have a first-rate legal mind, easy money." Or, as the current dis- pleasant young man filled with having been taught this lesson in trict attorney remarks to Abner: himself, and of no great interest to law school by a classmate who "Theory is where you want to go; anyone else, who becomes entangled showed him what a top-quality practice is how you're going to get in his own youthful thoughts: "Re- legal mind really is: "What he did there." coiling in disgust from human be- not know, what Paul Bonbright, In the end the murderers, who ings, you had to recoil, in another among others, showed him, was that are guilty, get off with a sentence disgust, from your own recoiling. those abilities of his that got him, of second-degree murder, having ... " In his attack on Cozzens, Irv- without distinction but also with- been shown misplaced mercy by a ing Howe noted: "He is not much out much exertion, through all pre- jury that failed to ur lerstand the concerned with the idea of the self, vious lessons and examinations, requirements of the law. This, 72/COMMENTARY SEPTEMBER 1983

though, is how it goes; justice is no during World War II. It is about it probably never crossed Gen- exact science. Abner accepts the what nowadays would be called eral Beal's mind that they could place on the ballot to run for dis- "crisis management." One crisis oc- be glossed, that books had been trict attorney. ("Resist this horrid curs in the novel over segregation written to show that Country was nonsense," says Father Cudlipp in on the base, as does another crisis a delusive projection of the in- Men and Brethren, "about being connected with civilian relations, dividual's ego; and that there were true to yourself.") He will worry and a men who considered it a final crisis has to do with the part of intelligence about his personal integrity to admit that when drowning of paratroopers during a Honor was a hypocritical the occasion social arises. Meanwhile, he field exercise owing to incompe- sanction protecting the position will get on with a job of serious tence. This is a novel with a cast of a ruling class; or that Duty work. As his father, now half-para- of roughly fifty important charac- was self-interest as it appeared lyzed after a stroke and on the rim ters. A work of more than six- when sanctions like Honor had of death, tells Abner in the novel's hundred pages, it has a plot too fantastically distorted it. In his closing passage: intricate to summarize. Suffice it to simplicity, General Beal, ap- say that the book gives us a most prised of such intellectual views, ". . . In the present, every day is would convincing portrayal of the way a probably retort by begging a miracle. The world gets up in the question; what the large institution hell kind the morning and is fed and goes is run, filled with of person thought things like to work, and in the evening it detailed knowledge about a vast that? comes home and is fed again and range of military jobs and human perhaps has a little amusement types. BUT the intellectuals finally got and goes to sleep. To make that Much of the action in Guard of their own back at Cozzens when possible, so much has to be done Honor takes place among field- and he published By Love Possessed by so many people that, on the general-grade officers. Now a bird (1957). I do not mean to imply a face of it, it is impossible. Well, colonel or a major general, especial- every day we do it; and vendetta-intellectuals waiting in every ly if he is a regular army day, come hell, come high water, officer, is, hallways for nine years. It was we're going to have to go on as every college graduate knows, a merely that almost everything doing it as well as we can." fascist. Cozzens, who wasn't a col- Cozzens's work stood for went "So it seems," said Abner. lege graduate, apparently came against the grain of the ideal type "Yes, so it seems," said Judge away from his time in the army of the intellectual. As an example Coates, "and so it is, and so it without knowing this. Even though of that ideal type made flesh, one will be! And that's where you he much disliked being in the army, can hardly do better than the late come in. That's all we want of what he did come away with was Dwight Macdonald-a man with a you." reinforcement of his view that, as Abner perfectly matched set of radical- said, "What do you Colonel Ross, the novel's main in- want of me?" intellectual political and literary telligence, puts it: "A man "We just want you to do must opinions and a devastating wit into the stand impossible," Judge Coates said. up and do the best he can the bargain-and perhaps now is with what there is." Men who know the time to look at his roundhouse Somewhere between Ask Me To- their job and do it are the men attack on By Love Possessed. morrow and The Just and The Un- Cozzens admires. First, however, a bit of back- just, Cozzens's work, it seems to me, There is also a running gunfire ground must be supplied. Even acquired that quality essential to against intellectuals in Guard of though Cozzens had won a Pulitzer the best novelists yet perhaps not Honor. "Few ideas," one character Prize, no earlier novel of his had finally altogether to be understood. reflects, "could be abstract enough scored a true success, either com- The quality I have in mind is to be unqualified by the company mercial or critical. With By Love gravity. Gravity is not a question to they kept." Another says: "If there Possessed, he had hit the bestseller which contemporary literary criti- are differences of opinion, I think gong, and hit it with a sledgeham- cism often addresses itself. Among most of them are differences that mer. The novel was weeks and weeks living writers, I would say Alek- always arise between those who atop the bestseller list, a movie sale sandr Solzhenitsyn has it; so, when have to deal with fact, and those and a Reader's Digest condensation they are writing well, do V.S. Nai- who are free to deal with theories." had been made, a Time cover story paul and Saul Bellow and I.B. And, finally, another character, a done, and critics both provincial Singer. John Updike and Gabriel magazine editor in civilian life, and metropolitan had lined up to Garcia Marquez do not, and Nor- though no great lover of the mili- praise the novel. In other words, man Mailer never will. Gravity de- tary and its ways, feels himself Cozzens was ready to be savaged. rives from a serious literary mind, Here it must be said that By Love . . obliged unencumbered by the cliches of the to admire a simple, Possessed is not unlimited Cozzens's best per- day, at work on serious matters. integrity that accepted formance. as the law of nature such ele- It is an extremely am- vated concepts as the Military bitious novel, and too much of the Guard of Honor (1948), the novel ambition goes into its style. The for which Cozzens won the Pulitzer Academy's Duty-Honor-Country, convinced that novel attempts to be a comprehen- Prize, has gravity in just those were the this sense. only solid goods; that everyone sive account of the various permu- It takes place during three days on knew what the words meant. tations of love-from adolescent an Army Air Force base in Florida They needed no gloss-indeed lust to the complexities of marital FICTION/73 love to the love of parents for speak of the novel itself, something phrase, Tomish characters in the their children to the pure love of rather odd happens. If one has read novel), and anti-feminism, Macdon- a sister for her brother-and how it oneself, one begins to realize that ald finds two reasons that account in these various forms love wreaks Macdonald either did not read it for the success of the novel. It suc- havoc on any plans to get through very carefully or that he came to it ceeded with the critics because life with order and reason as one's blinded if not by malice then by there was "a general feeling that guiding principles. Dealing with a the passion for polemic. He informs Cozzens had hitherto been neg- universal theme, Cozzens thought us that Arthur Winner, Jr., the lected and that he 'had it coming to forge a universal style. In the novel's principal character, is a prig to him,' " to which there is perhaps attempt to bring this off, he often -and, worse, that Cozzens doesn't some truth. And it succeeded with twisted his syntax, worked in quo- know he is a prig, which is the the public because "it is the latest tations from great authors, and greatest sign of ineptitude in a episode in The Middlebrow Coun- trotted out a Latinized vocabulary novelist. But Macdonald is quite ter-Revolution." Middlebrow- of often arcane words. mistaken here. Arthur Winner, Jr. Macdonald's vocabulary knew no The effect is all too frequently is indeed a prig but a prig by in- more dampening phrase than this an air of pomposity and portentous- tention. It is the whole point of one. The way Macdonald saw it ness. To what extent this ruins the Cozzens's novel to show that Ar- was that Cozzens's work was part novel-it certainly doesn't improve thur Winner, try as he may, cannot of "The Novel of Resignation." He it-is another question. The late live his life in the kind of order that was resigned to taking life as it was; Alexander Gerschenkron, an eco- a morally priggish man would wish. he was hopelessly given to "matur- nomic historian who also adjudi- Through the action of the novel ity." There was no idealism in Coz- cated the dispute between Edmund Arthur Winner is reminded of one zens, no radical thrust to argue Wilson and Vladimir Nabokov of his sons, now dead, who was a with and change life. In this he over translating Pushkin, once told kind of bad seed, whom no amount had caught the spirit of the age. me that, in Russian, many of Dos- of teaching, no amount of punish- Similarly, Irving Howe, while con- toevsky's novels are so wretchedly ment, could straighten out. Later ceding that Cozzens had been con- written as to be very nearly un- in the novel he is made to realize sistent in his vision over the years, readable. Gerschenkron did not go that an adulterous affair he had noted that "It is the weary Zeitgeist on to say that he failed to read with the wife of a friend was that has finally limped round to them. But if your sensibilities are known about all along to this him." And, more explicitly polit- so fine that stylistic lapses put you friend-and in this there is further ical than Macdonald in his attack, irretrievably off, then many a pas- humiliation, further destruction of Howe concluded: "And, indeed, a sage in By Love Possessed will priggishness. civilization that finds its symbolic seem to you like downing a Pepsi Macdonald goes on to say that embodiment in Dwight David Eis- with a meal at Lutece. And yet the Cozzens's "characters often speak enhower and its practical guide in concern with style can, it seems to brutally, for example, not because John Foster Dulles has been well me, be carried too far. Dwight Mac- they are supposed to be brutes, but prepared for receiving the fruits of donald was fond of quoting Buf- because their creator apparently the Philosophy of Limit. It is a fon's old maxim, "The style is the thinks this is the way men talk." civilization that, in its naked and message," but Macdonald's message, He then cites two samples, one graceless undelusion, deserves as its as near as I can make it out, came from an aging lawyer named Noah laureate James Gould Cozzens- to no more than that it is better to Tuttle and another from a physi- Novelist of the Republic." have a nice style. cian named Reggie Shaw. The sam- Now here is an interesting piece ples are brutal, true, but what Mac- of damnation. Cozzens has created THERE is no want of style in Dwight donald doesn't tell his readers is a novel-indeed a body of work- Macdonald's attack on By Love that the lawyer is on the edge of that requires attack because it fits Possessed. Still, it seems to me one senility and the physician, having in with the spirit of the age, which of those essays in which one's plea- seen so much that is horrendous in is perceived to be loathsome. On sure will be destroyed if one actual- life, has lapsed into alcoholism. "No these same grounds it makes a cer- ly reads the author being discussed. reason is given for any of these on- tain amount of sense to knock off Macdonald begins by mentioning slaughts," Macdonald writes, "aside War and Peace until we have world the enormousness-to him, the enor- from the fact that all three recipi- disarmament and pack away Moby mity-of the success of Cozzens's ents are women; this seems to be Dick until we have finally managed novel. He then cites examples of Cozzens's idea of manly straight- to save the whale. the praise the book has received, from-the-shoulder talk. Curious." It Macdonald and Howe may have finding quotations that go especial- is curious, all right. It makes one disliked Cozzens's style but what ly gushy. They were even, it turns wonder: was Dwight Macdonald they really hated was what they took out, nuts about it in the provinces. asleep at the wheel, or instead con- to be his message-or, to use the If you know the intellectual signals, centrating on running someone grander term, his vision. They read by now you ought to know that over? him as a novelist in support of the there is already a great deal to be After scoring blows against Coz- status quo, surely no good thing to suspicious about. zens for anti-Semitism, anti-Negro be. He reminded readers of human But when Macdonald comes to sentiment (there are, in the current limitation when what Americans 74/COMMENTARY SEPTEMBER 1983 needed to be reminded of was hu- dition and would like Winner to truth, could displease nobody. Of man possibility. His novels, with write his will for him. When Win- course I know now that, to all their insistence on the role played ner asks how he is feeling at pres- who have things to sell or the in life by illness, bad luck, poor ent, he says he is rather like the emotional need to write for or character, biological urgings, death, man in the cartoon who has fallen against things, such an attitude's simply were, when you got right down to from the skyscraper and who, when infuriating. it, not only anti-liberal but in the passing a window from which peo- It was the wrong age, Cozzens came profoundest sense counterrevolu- ple look out at him in shock, an- to learn, for writing about things tionary. In these purely political nounces, "All right so far." There as one saw them. terms, Macdonald and Howe were is a joke Justice Holmes would probably right. have adored. He would also have As RECOUNTED had no difficulty understanding an- in Matthew Bruc- coli's pages, James Gould Cozzens's BUT other character in By Love Possessed I do not want to make By last years were wretchedly sad. His Love Possessed sound all message, who says that "Freedom is the knowledge of necessity." wife died before he did; he stopped all vision. In fact, if cumbersome writing, he even stopped reading in style, it is. nonetheless a most IN HIS biography Professor Bruccoli ("no longer writing," he noted, in carefully constructed work of fic- writes: "In the eyes of the Left a comment only a writer would tion. (Even Howe allowed that Coz- Cozzens was the spokesman for the understand, "Why read?"). Cancer zens was a "craftsman.") The con- enemy. Indeed, he was the enemy." of the spine claimed him ten days catenation of character and event There can be little question that before he was seventy-five. Before is persuasively worked out with an Macdonald's essay, backed up by he died he wrote to his publisher, intricacy and fine discrimination that of Howe, brought down Coz- William Jovanovich, "In clear fact that could only have been achieved zens's reputation-and brought it work of mine's all out of season." by a high literary intelligence. Coz- down hard. The hyenas having He was right. The anthology of his zens realizes his vision not through done their work, the maggots now writing and critical appreciations preaching but through plot. This crept in. The signal had gone out; that Professor Bruccoli put togeth- vision is compelling because he has it was now understood to be OK to er in 1978 sold a total of 2,488 taken great pains to get his facts have at James Gould Cozzens. And copies in cloth and paper. No seri- straight, because he makes his char- have at Cozzens's next two books, a ous reevaluation of Cozzens's work, acters complex yet clear, and de- collection of stories entitled Chil- which this book was intended to scribes experience wih a richness dren and Others and a thin novel of stir, ever came about. and unpredictability that show a his late years called Morning Noon In a more just world, James minute fidelity to life. As Arthur and Night, everyone did. He was Gould Cozzens would be accorded Winner, Jr.'s law partner says in now known as the novelist with a volume in the Library of Amer- By Love Possessed, "Happiness, bad style and bad politics. He was ica, the recently established series Jonathan Swift admonishes me, is the spokesman for the ruling class, of American classics for a general a perpetual possession of being well- the novelist,:of power and privi- audience. It would include his nov- deceived." The burden of Cozzens's lege. Cliches, like bad news, travel els The Just and the Unjust, Guard major fiction is to undeceive us. fast. of Honor, and, yes, By Love Pos- If Cozzens resembles any major When a young critic to whom sessed. But although two volumes American figure, it is Justice Cozzens had been friendly warned have already been published of the Holmes. Like Holmes, Cozzens did Cozzens that he had just written an work of Jack London, and others not wish to blink unpleasant facts attack on his social conservatism in are no doubt in preparation for about human nature. Like Holmes, the New York Times Book Review, Sinclair Lewis and (the early) John Cozzens admired the strength of the Cozzens responded that he intended Dos Passos, I doubt very much if puritanical tradition while remain- no social or political message in his the present editors and their advis- ing himself agnostic. Like Holmes fiction: ers plan to include Cozzens. The again, Cozzens felt that all lies, even injustice here is, or ought to be, lies for the putative good of hu- My only aim and interest is to try to present as exactly as I can obvious. Yet I suspect Cozzens manity, were still lies. In the mid- would not be much surprised; dle of By Love Possessed, a black people and events as they appear to me. When young, I admit that about injustice, in literary criticism man comes to Arthur Winner, Jr., I imagined such painstaking dis- and in much else besides, he knew to tell him he has a bad heart con- passion, and concern for simple a very great deal. THE TOP OF THE LINE FROM TRANSACTION BOOKS A BAKER'S DOZEN IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS STRATEGIC MILITARY SURPRISE Klaus Knorr and Patrick Morgan ISBN: 0-87855-912-4 (paper) 1982 350 pp. S14.95 THE SOVIET VIEW OF U.S. STRATEGIC DOCTRINE Jonathan Samuel Lockwood ISBN: 0-87855-467-X (cloth) 1983 175 pp. S19.95 OUR CHANGING GEO-POLITICAL PREMISES Thomas P. Rona ISBN: 0-87855-897-7 (paper) 1982 360 pp. S9.95 NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS B. Thomas Trout and James E. Hart, editors ISBN: 0-87855-900-0 (paper) 1982 320 pp. $12.95 U.S. POLICY AND LOW-INTENSITY CONFLICT Sam C. Sarkeslan and William L. Scully, editors ISBN: 0-87855-851-9 (paper) 1981 224 pp. $9.95 INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM Benjamin Netanyahu, editor ISBN: 0-87855-456-4 (cloth) 1982 383 pp. S29.95 ISBN: 0-87855-894-2 (paper) S9.95 THE POLITICS OF DEFENSE CONTRACTING: THE IRON TRIANGLE Gordon Adams ISBN: 0-87855-457-2 (cloth) 1982 465 pp. $39.95 ISBN: 0-87855-012-4 (paper) 1981 S15.00 THEORIES AND APPROACHES TO INTERNATIONAL POLITICS Patrick M. Morgan ISBN: 0-87855-791-1 (paper) 1981 304 pp. S9.95 THE DYNAMICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY Natalie Kaufman Hevener, editor ISBN: 0-87855-347-9 (cloth) 1981 375 pp. S39.95 THE VIETNAM TRAUMA IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY Paul M. Kattenburg ISBN: 0-87855-903-5 (paper) 1982 354 pp. $9.95 SOVIET DECISION-MAKING IN PRACTICE Yaacov Ro'il ISBN: 0-87855-267-7 (cloth) 1980 540 pp. S22.95 POLICE, MILITARY AND ETHNICITY Cynthia Enloe ISBN: 0-87855-302-9 (cloth) 1980 179 pp. S14.95 STRATEGY AND POLITICS Edward N. Luttwak ISBN: 0-87855-904-3 (paper) 1982 328 pp. $9.95 Order from your bookstore or prepaid from: Transaction Books Department 11- Rutgers University * New Brunswick, NJ 08903 I