Only in America

MICHAEL BISHOP

On Wings of Song, by Thomas M. Disch. Bantam Books, 359 pp., $2.25.

AS I WRITE (LATE DECEM- ber), our nation's President- elect (the inspiration in the late 1960s for both an irreverent California poetry magazine and a dazzingly disorienting story by English writer J. G. Ballard) must wait less than a month before appointing his wife Sec- retary of Interior Decoration at the White House, while bril- liant ex-Beatle and brutally X'd-out human being John Lennon (the Egg Man whose quirky imagination hatched hundreds of hummable mel- odies and a dozen or so ideal- istic crusades) has now had in- timate communion with non- existence for exactly sixteen days. What a strange, strange juxtaposition, the impending inauguration and this latest shocking death. Only in America. In On Wings of Song, his most successful novel to date, Thomas M. Disch has envision- ed a day-after-tomorrow Amer- ica in which the election of Ronald Reagan and the murder of John Lennon have credibly grotesque analogues. Indeed, I would argue that Disch's mor- dant imaginings of our short- range future (a period appar- ently encompassing about fif- ulations of its protagonist—in selves out of their prisons of the entire social fabric of Iowa teen years on either side of this case, a young man from flesh through song. Harnessed and the other Farm Belt "police the turn of the next century, al- Iowa named Daniel Weinreb— to an apparatus designed to states," where one can be jailed though Disch refuses to hand us in his quest to become an Artist. catapult the singer's noncorpo- for distributing newspapers a calendar) are no more gro- Daniel wishes to enter the real essence into space as soon containing ads for flight ap- tesque than what we have actu- bright East Coast world of bel as the necessary mental, emo- paratus. The fictional under- ally endured since 1960. Unlike canto, to realize his talents as a tional, and (probably) soulful goders derive their dramatic a great deal of "" singer. However, his ulterior conditions have been met, the credibility from a gamut of all- (a publisher's category that motive is an obsessive, not-to- candidate begins to sing. If the too-real religious fundamen- Disch has always made subor- be-gainsaid desire to "fly," an performance enables the singer talists in our national history. dinate to the demands of his aspiration for which Daniel to achieve "escape velocity," out Today these fundamentalists art), this novel does not pretend seems to lack an essential je ne into the ether s/he flies, an invis- are only too well represented by to be either predictive or cau- sais quoi that could perhaps be ible "fairy" whose abandoned Jerry FalwelPs "Moral Major- tionary. Rather, through wry called "soul." Indeed, although body lies slumped and uncon- ity," that Bible-thumping con- and canny projections, it de- Disch himself deliberately re- scious in the machine that has sortium of down-home believ- scribes — and by describing, sists doing so, the entire thema- boosted the flight. ers who so lately devoted them- satirizes—the of tic thrust of the novel virtually Against this new human selves to the presidential candi- America in which many of our demands that we apply the label capability (or, rather, latent dacy of Ronald Reagan, and prevailing national attitudes "soul" to this elusive quality. human capability which who have also recently been up and certainly our political ones "Flying," in Disch's subtly twentieth-century technology in arms over the sale of bongs, have already imprisoned us. askew, day-after-tomorrow has finally given a spectacular clips and other apparatus used On Wings of Song is a America, is a bonafide out-of- outlet), Disch places the fanati- to faciliate getting high in this parodic Kiinstlerroman; that is, body experience accessible only cal ideology of the "undergod- America. 38 a novel detailing the trib- to those who can take them- ers." This group's views color For Disch's undergoders, as THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED

for Falwell and his more-soul- former in our unending na- in her quest for an earthly City in many ways a more personal ful-than-thou cohorts, flying tional minstrel show—becomes of God and Free Enterprise, is document, for it concerns itself constitutes just about as hei- a phoney. Initially, as it happens, the victim of an uncompromis- with the strivings of the artist in nous a vice as mortal flesh can he does so against his will. To- ing religio-political ideology; a where both God and aspire to, even worse than jitter- ward die end, however, when he Daniel himself, in his quest for art have become political com- bugging and almost as bad as has become a celebrity, his fairydom, is the victim of a modities. draft evasion. This implacable phoneyhood becomes a kind of demonstrably realizable aesthe- To this end, On Wings of hostility, Disch's omniscient underscoring of the status of tic ideal—others, after all, have Song comments on the Ameri- narrator informs us through the American artist as nigger, at gone there and come back—be- can predicament by exaggerat- Daniel's sensibility, has quite a least in the eyes of those whose yond the compass of his own ing its salient stinks and savors simple and logical cause: principal deity under God is ambition. A kind of fruitcake (the way a caricaturist makes a "If there were souls, they Free Enterprise. The undergod- nobility informs the behavior of pomaded Pikes Peak of Rea- were not made of the same ap- ers of Disch's America, for both these people, but the gan's pompadour or a mop of prehensible substance as fairies, example, are devoted to Free major weight of Disch's sym- hair and a pair of owlish glasses and all the theories about the Enterprise—as long it's not the pathy undoubtedly comes down of John Lennon's dour face) and soul that had been concocted enterprise of flying. Unfettered on the side of his scrupulously then by leaving us to walk about over the centuries were proba- flights of artistry offend the sen- apolitical protagonist. The in this cattywampus future as if bly based on the experience of sibilities of such people. So, dur- doing of unsuccessful art, in the it were real. Often the degree of the rare, fortunate individuals ing a recital in the auditorium of pursuit of something higher, is tilt away from our 1980-81 real- who'd found their way to flight the Amesville High School, a nobler than the doing of suc- ity seems minute, utterly incon- without the help of a hookup, former member of the Ameri- cessful murder. And saner, too. sequential. But we stagger any- like the saints who had floated can Spiritual Renewal Party (the The ambiguity of the ending, way, surprised again and again while they prayed, and the yogis undergoders' political wing) however, is intentional, for by the vividness with which of India, etc. Such was the rises and shoots Daniel just as Disch never opts for simplistic Disch has rendered our present theory of people who had he has finished singing an origi- answers or tidy resolutions. His provincialism, conformity, com- flown, and their outspokenness nal composition entitled, fit- primary allegiance is always to mercialism, frivolity, intol- was one of the reasons that fly- tingly, "Flying." the artful revelation of the erance, and narcissism. And, ing and everything to do with it Daniel has been in harness complexity of every human act. finding the tang of truth even in were the focus of such distress during this performance, and As in Camp Concentration this bitter vintage, we giggle a and hatred among the under- the novel concludes on a subtly and 334, Disch has extrapo- little as we stagger, giggle ner- goders, who had to believe in ambiguous note. Has he at- lated an oppressive, soul-de- vously and try to find a hand- the soul and all the rest of that, tained escape velocity or merely stroying tomorrow from so- hold. since what else was there for faked its attainment? (Here at cial phenomena recognizable On Wings of Song is a major them to look forward to except the end of On Wings of Song, today. Camp Concentration, accomplishment of American their hereafter? The poor, be- Disch seems to be asking a simi- which installs Lyndon Johnson's letters. It is as outrageous as the nighted sons-of-bitches." lar question about his success as Secretary of Defense, Robert S. inauguration of the costar of So does religious conviction novelist.) The fact that Daniel McNamara, in the Oval Office, Bedtime for Bonzo and as translate into political intoler- has performed before the sprang from the still unresolved heartbreakingly shocking as the ance. Disch's "fairies" are railed hometown folks as a phoney— turmoil of the Vietnam War. A murder of the man who lately against with as much moral an Al Jolson black man—gives collection of skillfully inter- told us that it was "Cleanup conviction as were the people to credence to the reading that his woven stories centered on -a Time." whom, only yesterday, we deri- final death-defying leap into the Manhattan public housing Only in America.... sively applied this same term. ether, signaled by the dials on prroject, 334 took its impetus An interesting feature of On his hookup, is likewise a lie, an from an outcry against the 's novels include Wings of Song is the way in elaborate sham. If so, many of "welfare mess," an outcry Eyes of Fire, A Little Knowledge, which it spotlights the ma- those in Daniel's audience have whose lingering echo is still au- and Transfigurations, which was chinery of our most hallowed nevertheless rewarded parts of dible here at the headwaters of published in paperback by Berkley national bigotries by casting the his meretricious performance the 1980s. This newest novel is Books in December. objects of our persecution in with applause. Does the shad- new, often ironic, guises. In ad- ow of a genuine art therefore dition to "fairies," for instance, flicker in what he has given Disch gives us "phoneys" ("from them? Like John Lennon, the French, faux noirs"): whites Daniel Weinreb has occasion- COMING who dye their skins darker col- ally wondered if his pretensions ors to avail themselves of some as an artist have really entitled SOON IN LR of the hard-won advantages ac- him to so much unreflective cruing to blacks in urban areas adulation. And like John Len- where they comprise major- non, he dies because of who he ities. This kind of satire cuts is and, even more important at two ways, inflicting surgically the end, what he represents to The Taxpayer's Blues precise wounds on bigots and others. dissemblers alike. In the Farm Though Disch pillories the George Gilder's Belt, where phoneys do not mindset of the zealot who has exactly proliferate like wheat shot Daniel (by having her Wealth and Poverty or corn stalks, the authori- recite in her defense the Pledge ties assess stiff fines against those of Allegiance, on whose words Reviewed who are trying to pass, and the novel eloquently, ironically, one must wonder about such closes), he dius also exposes his people's motives as well as hero as a poseur who has won A Tribute to about the fatuousness of their commercial success without persecutors. ever reaching that indefinable Robert LeFevre In the novel's final section, fullness of soul which alone can Daniel Weinreb — like a per- trigger flight. Daniel's assassin, 39 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG MARCH 1981 ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED

pies" as well as his s;aleability. But if Heinlein does not de- sequies to anyone else. Accord- Elite liberation And it seems entirely possible liver on his major plot premise ing to Heinlein this makes them that The Number of the Beast, — who are the green-blooded a "gang of rugged individu- Heinlein's latest novel, will get monsters, what do they want, alists." / think it makes them re- BILL BIRMINGHAM this year's as and how can they be destroyed semble nothing so much as a that novel "which best ex- — he does deliver, and very gang of five-year-oJds squab- presses the values of libertari- nicely, on his minor premise: a bling in a sandbox, and about The Number of the Beast, anism." Whether it deserves it is by Robert A. Heinlein. Faw- tour of the universes. Some of as much fun to watch. Eventu- another question. them are much like our own but ally the most strident character cett Columbine books, 511 The novel certainly gets off to diverge at some point in his- bullies the rest into obedience pp., $6.95. a promising start, and in the tory: Gay Deceiver stops in one and the story resumes, until the Expanded Universe: The best pulp-magazine tradition. universe where the British Em- folks from Time Enough for New Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein gives us a Mad Scien- pire rules Mars (a Mars, that is, Love arrive and have to be Heinlein. Grossett & Dun- tist and his Beautiful Daughter with air and oceans) like Injah, taught who's boss all over again. lap, 582 pp., $12.95. —his very words, down to the and grows cannabis magnifica Too bad Heinlein indulges in caps—and quickly hooks them martia there — for medicinal this sort of thing when he could IN 1975 THE SCIENCE FIC- up with one of his patented purposes only, of course! be slaughtering green-blooded tion Writers of America, which polymath heroes: Zebadiah J. Other universes are com- villains instead, which was al- annually hands out awards (the (for John) Carter, a mightily pletely fictional — although ways his forte. "Nebulas") for the best science thewed, independently wealth- Heinlein's "pantheistic multi- Back in 1965 Ace Books re- fiction of the year, inaugurated y engineer, space pilot, swords- person solipsism" assumes leased something called The the Grandmaster Nebula "for a man and soldier of fortune, them to be just as real as our Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein, lifetime of accomplishment in with a wonderful extrasen- own—such as Lilliput, the Land an omnium-gatherum of his science fiction." With all the sci- sory talent thrown in for of Oz and the universe of Hein- science fiction not elsewhere ence fiction writers in the coun- good measure. The M.S. has lein's previous novel, Time available in print. Naturally the try to choose from, the SFWA devised a "continua craft," Enough for Love, whose loose new edition, which includes gave the first Grandmaster which can travel in two extra ends get wrapped up here. Heinlein's post-1965 writings Nebula to Robert A. Heinlein. dimensions of time, giving our Readers with different literary plus some items the first book Science fiction fans hold him in heroes access to (66)6 — tastes than Heinlein's might find passed over, is called Expanded equally high esteem; Heinlein 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,- this part of the book tough Universe. Expanded it is, to has been Guest of Honor at 171,949,056; the real "number going (especially the last chap- about three times the size of the three World Science Fiction of the Beast," according to Conventions—a record—and Heinlein — parallel universes. he's won four Hugos (the fans' Naturally, there must be villains The notion that Heinlein expresses award for the year's best SF) — in such a piece, and Heinlein which was a record at the time gives us an entire race of libertarian principles is even harder he won the fourth of them, and double-jointed, horned her- a record he would probably still maphrodites with hemocyanin to support when his work is hold if he hadn't written so little (i.e., green ichor) instead of in the last fourteen years. As for hemoglobin in their veins. And examined as a whole. the readers (who are not to be they'll stop at nothing to annihi- confused with SF fans), Hein- late the M.S., his wife, the B.D. ter, which is sort of a science- original. The new SF is unin- lein has sold over eleven and a and her new (pg. 35) husband, fiction with real SF spired (a Boys' Life story; a half million of his books, every young Zeb Carter. The only op- characters, who- flit by with short-short from a defunct one of which is still in print. tion is to flee; so our four heroes only the merest wisps of iden- SF magazine; a fan magazine Perhaps his most famous novel, install the interdimensional tification) , and others might get trifle Heinlein wrote free and Stranger in a Strange Land, even drive in Zeb's car, which also dizzy from the fifteen-universes for which he was only slightly found favor with the hippie flies (the action takes place -in-seyen-days pace. But it does underpaid), but there's some movement in the Sixties. twenty or thirty years in the fu- keep the story moving, if not in interesting general fiction here, (Another of the novel's admirers ture), hook it up to the car's the direction the author prom- including Heinlein's first mys- was Charles Manson... but let autopilot, a computer which ised. tery story and, believe it or not, that pass.) I am told that Hein- answers to the name of Gay De- The Number of the Beast has one of a series of girls' stories. lein is still plagued by aging ceiver, and escape, one jump two other flaws, one major, one The heroine of this story, he hippies who come to his Santa ahead of an atom bomb, among minor. The four principal reveals, later appeared in his Cruz, California, home de- the ten thousand trillion trillion characters take turns as the nar- juvenile Podkayne of Mars, manding to "share water." Ac- universes. rator, which would be all right changing her name and her cording to my informant, Hein- Unfortunately for those except that, as is the case with planet of birth in the process. In lein turns his garden hose on readers who were expecting a most of Heinlein's characters, my opinion she lost a great deal them. mighty blood and thunder epic, they all sound alike. This is only when she moved. Heinlein also has his parti- we never see the villains again. a minor annoyance, however, More to the point, Expanded sans in the libertarian move- In fact, at the end of the book, since the publisher has thought- Universe contains large quan- ment. "One can hardly hand a our heroes, who have ostensibly fully printed each narrator's tities of Heinlein's nonfiction: copy of a libertarian journal to been running for their lives for name at the top of the page op- an essay on science fiction for a a sophisticated reader without the last four hundred pages, de- posite his narration. librarians' journal; two pro- apologizing for the imitation cide that on second thought More annoying is the endless disarmament essays written Heinlein drivel" therein, a they may have gotten all excited (well, it seems endless) bicker- shortly after World War II; a prominent libertarian com- over nothing. The three or four ing over who gets to skipper pro-H-bomb polemic from plained a few years back. bombs, conventional and nu- Gay Deceiver. Each character 1958, which must be read to be Things have changed somewhat clear? The heavy-handed hints insists on the most abject and disbelieved; an article on How since then; but every one of the that St. John the Divine knew mindless servility from the to Survive World War III which handful of libertarian book- more than two thousand years others whenever he or she is doesn't mention fallout; two stores sells Heinlein, citing his of theologians ever suspected? captain, yet (not unsurpris- travelogues of the , 40 "explicitly libertarian princi- Who cares? ingly) will not grant similar ob- one of which appeared in the THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED