Only in America

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 "science fiction" 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 United States 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 society 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 Michael Bishop's novels include Wings of Song is the way in elaborate sham.

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