Bridgewater Review

Volume 1 | Issue 2 Article 7

Dec-1982 Book Reviews Hugo D'Alarcao Bridgewater State College

Charles F. Angell Bridgewater State College, [email protected]

Nancy L. Street Bridgewater State College, [email protected]

Recommended Citation D'Alarcao, Hugo; Angell, Charles F.; and Street, Nancy L. (1982). Book Reviews. Bridgewater Review, 1(2), 15-18. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol1/iss2/7

This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. BOOK REVIEWS

It is in this first part that Schell introduces "fundamental origin of the peril of human the major theme of the book: the threat of extinction by nuclear arms lies not in any The Fate of extinction of the human species. The point particular social or political circumstances is made that - of our time but in the attainment by mankind The Earth as a whole, after millenia of scientific - although scientifically speaking, progress, of a certain level of knowledge of there is all the difference in the world the physical universe," he comes close to between the mere possibility that a By Jonathan Schell paralleling the theological concept of holocaust will bring about extinction original sin, and precludes the possibility Alfred A. Knopf, N. Y., $11.95 and the certainty of it, morally they that political or social changes can eradicate are the same, and we have no choice the nuclear peril. With such simplistic but to address the issue of nuclear arguments he nears joining the bandwagon weapons as thqugh we knew for a of the antiscience. certainty that their use would put an lthough nuclear weapons have been After we are presented with a series of end to our species. A with us for 37 years and isolated voices negative arguments we are left with the have been warning that we were on an This moral equivalence of nuclear war somewhat contradictory and tantalizingly accelerated course towards annihilation, and its worst consequence underlies most vague conclusion that "the only kind of only recently have large numbers of people of the arguments presented throughout the solution ... is a global political one." throughout the world realized the imminent book. Schell then embarks upon a lengthy danger and begun to take political action to The first essay, "The Republic of Insects exploration of the moral and philosophical avert a catastrophe. and Grass," is an excellent, concise significance of the extinction of the human The consciousness of the threat posed by explanation of the nuclear weapons threat. species. At this point the book takes on the the nuclear arms race was sufficient to Unfortunately in the rest of the book the aspect of a medieval theological treatise. mobilize people into the beginnings of a author abandons his journalistic objectivity Long and convoluted disquisitions on political movement. For such a movement and takes on the role of philosopher. As a extinction may have some intellectual value to become effective, however, an consequence, his arguments are weak with but are out of place in a serious examination understanding of the nature of the threat serious flaws. of a crucial contemporary problem. and its causes must necessarily follow the The second part, "The Second Death," The second part is a well-written instinctive perception of the danger. begins with the argument that since nuclear discussion of the concept of mutually Recently several books have appeared weapons are a product of scientific assured destruction (MAD). which attempt to provide this discovery and since once a scientific fact is Having done his best to convince the understanding and to chart future courses established it cannot be unlearned, nuclear reader that the problem of nuclear weapons of action. One of the most popular of these disarmament will not erase the threat. This has most serious consequences and is is Jonathan Schell's, The Fate ofthe Earth. fatalistic approach denies the existence of insoluble by social or political means, Schell This book, which first appeared in three social and political free will and implies that in part three, "The Choice," attempts to consecutive issues of The New Yorker, social decisions are based on what is present a solution. His solution, briefly, is to consists of three independent parts. possible rather than what is desirable. eliminate national sovereignty and "create a The first part, "A Republic of Insects and With statements such as the political means by which the world can Grass," is a careful and thorough examination of what is currently known or predictable of the effects and consequences of a full-scale nuclear war. Based on governmental and scientific studies, interviews with scientists, pronouncements of government leaders, and the tragic experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Schell presents compelling evidence that the dangers we face are real with drastic consequences. He forcefully demonstrates that concepts such as limited nuclear war, survivability of a nuclear attack, reasonableness of civil defense, and economic recovery from a nuclear war, are dangerous myths whose reality exists only in the words of political demagogues. He considers the possible causes of an outbreak of nuclear war and gives a serious and objective presentation of its medical, ecological, and global consequences. "1 Loue a Parade" from Boston Street Scenes By Tom Knudson, Associate Professor of Physical Education 15 arrive at the decisions that sovereign states His accommodations, we learn from the previously arrived at through war." This is novel's opening pages, extend even to like saying that the cure for cancer is Charlie Stavros who now works as Harry's immortality. It is not a solution whether one Rabbit is Rich chief assistant and whose affair with Janice believes such a nationless world to be has been covered over by the events of the desirable or not. Its achievement is a larger intervening years. Harry has had to make and harder task than removal ofthe nuclear his peace with Charlie because Charlie danger itself. Moreover, it is not a solution By John Updike knows how to sell cars; he has connections. because it avoids the questions that must be Alfred A. Knopf, $13.95 answered before a real solution is found, Yet, Harry has connections, too. As he questions such as: What are the social drives his tomato-soup red Luxury Edition political, and economic reasons for the ever Corona through Brewer, Harry comments increasing stockpiling of nuclear weapons to himself on all that he knows about this by the superpowers? What real function do eaders of Rabbit Redux will recall Pennsylvania town, which after three novels the nuclear arsenals perform? R how, at the close of that novel, Harry has become for the reader nearly as Angstrom -- unemployed, his home des­ distinctive in its landmarks, businesses, and Schell's many references to troyed by fire and a girl dead in the ashes -­ people as Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha. social/psychic nls suggest that nations face lay beside his wife Janice in a motel bed what is essentially a psychological problem. Brewer mingles old factories and hard­ Such a statement as "a society that and tried to sleep. His life had come working blue-collar labor with concrete and apart. Janice had just returned, hoping to systematically shuts its eyes to an urgent glass offices and leisure-suited business­ work out a reconciliation with Harry after peril to its physical survival and fails to take men. As America has changed, Brewer has her ~ffair with Charlie Stavros, her father's any steps to save itself cannot be called changed, and Harry has accommodated 'chief sales representative' at the used-car psychologically well" implies that the social himself to this simultaneously old and new and political health of a nation depends lot. Nelson, their son, has judged his father place with its present demands and past responsible for the death of the runaway upon its psychological stability. Ifsuch is the obligations. girl, Jill. In the motel room, "long and secret assumption, the elimination of national No one, it seems, judges Harry's past as a burrow," Harry finally sleeps. sovereignty would be somewhat akin to harshly now. A decade's passing has effaced collective psychoanalysis. Ten years later, Updike has once again the disasters and dislocations of all the brought Rabbit out of hibernation, in his deaths: his infant daughter, his parents, The author's thesis might be best mid-forties, a paunch around his middle, Fred Springer, Coach Tothero, Jill the summarized by his choice for a title. In and dwelling with his wife and mother-in-law runaway, Skeeter. The dead, however, Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary we at the Springer family home on Joseph occupy Harry's thoughts as he wonders find: Street. For now, as 'chief sales how they would regard his life. Throughout fate . .. the principle or determining representative' for Springer Toyota, Rabbit, the novel these ghosts from Rabbit's past cause or will by which things in with the timely help of the 1979 oil embargo, appear ". .. and beyond them there are general are supposed to come to be is peddling Corollas almost as quickly as myriads, whole races like the Cambodians, as they are or events to happen as they can be displayed on the lot. His that have drifted into death. He is treading they do ... whatever is destined or marriage with Janice hasarrived at a plateau on them all, they are resilient, they are decreed ... final outcome . . . a of mutual tolerance, if not affection. Nelson cheering him on, his lungs are burning, his predetermined state or end. is away at Kent State. Only life in his mother­ heart hurts, he is a membrane removed If the intention of the author was to in-law's house grates on him, but since from the hosts below, their filaments caress provide some guidance to the infant nuclear Bessie Springer still controls a half share of his ankles, he loves the earth, he will never disarmament movement he might have the Toyota agency, Rabbit has managed to die." Accommodated to others' deaths, chosen a different title since, as Norm accommodate himself. Rabbit still runs from his own. Chomsky says in his book Toward a New Cold War, "- the drive towards ... eventual nuclear destruction is the result of human decisions taken with human institutions that do not derive from natural law and can be changed by people who devote themselves to the search for justice and freedom."

Hugo D'Alarcao Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science

"Telephone Booths" from Boston Street Scenes By Tom Knudson, Associate Professor of Physical Education 16 Two additional accommodations remain Even among his friends, Harry feels country clubs, modish restaurants and unmade; two more judgments have been left discomfort which becomes more acute as trendy shops are as much a part of Brewer, suspended. Coincidentally, both assert the novel develops. Golf with Ronnie Maine as they are of Brewer, Pennsylvania. themselves on the same day. A young Harrison, Webb Murkett, and Buddy Updike immerses us in theAmerica we cope couple from the farm country around Inglefinger at the Flying Eagle Tee and with and, if we're lucky, master everyday. Brewer come to the lot shopping for a Racquet Club at first anchors Harry in his The noise and movement, the activity and Toyota. The girl, in her late teens, reminds new social positions. But, at one point, "in opportunity are present for those lucky Rabbit of the daughter he might have had by pursuit of such happiness, Harry feels guilty, enough, and Rabbit is lucky enough -­ Ruth, his mistress of long ago who had out on the course as the shadows lengthen, everything he touches seems to turn to gold moved to the country and married a farmer. in the company of these three men, who u to take advantage of them. Rabbit very quickly finds himself believing away from their women loom as boring as Broken lives surround us as well, and that the young man with the girl is not they must appear to God." Webb and his lives, if not broken, desperately trying to suitable for her, and the girl as she leaves, young wife Cindy, Buddy and his girlfriends, hold together. Too much movement is inquires whether Rabbit had ever been a and Ronnie, whose wife, Thelma, it turns wasted, too much activity merely frantic, "famous' basketball player," telling him out, adores Rabbit, all seem to be chasing too much opportunity false. Harry, by the " 'you just have that look.' " And so, something -- youth, novelty fulfillment -- that time we leave him, has grown more throughout ihe novel, Rabbit wonders Rabbit realizes is no longer theirs to be reflective and more hopeful. Though Harry about this possible daughter and what he caught. has at one point thought that "the world might belatedly do to atone for his neglect We live through a summer with Harry, keeps ending but new people too dumb to and to replace the dead infant, Becky. through Nelson's return and entry into the know it keep showing up as if the fun's just Arriving home from Springer Toyota, Toyota business, his arguments, spurred by started," alone in his own home at the end, Rabbit learns that Nelson will be returning resentment, with Harry, and through his infant granddaughter "in his lap, his from Kent State or, as it turns out, Nelson's marriage with Pru and the birth of hands, a real presence hardly weighing Colorado, where his summer job has fallen . the granddaughter. Nelson is a "twerp" and anything, but alive," Harry understands he through. News of the addition to his has his "heart's desire, a granddaughter uhis domestic arrangements fills Rabbit with u another nail in his coffin u his." anger and indignation over having not only The novel's ambivalence is accom­ to accommodate Nelson at the house but Broken lives surround us modated but left in soft focus. Perhaps not perhaps at Springer Toyota as well. Harry as well,and lives, if not for long. We have learned in these early senses that Nelson -. that "twerp" -- is autumn weeks that Updike's Henry Bech is coming home to cajole his way into the broken, desperately trying back. I suspect that Rabbit will return to family business by recalling for his father to hold together. usher us into another sharper age. how the Springers made a place for Rabbit e. F. Angell when he was down and out and how they Associate Professor of English had an obligation to provide a place for Nelson. The son's return rekindles Harry's a nasty, manipulative one at that. Harry anger against Janice: "It was his wife's fault. learns how little he can tolerate his son, not The entire squeezed and cut-down shape of because Nelson's life in many of its details his life was her fault; at every turn she has recapitulates Harry's, but because Nelson been a wall to his freedom." refuses to fight back. In perhaps the novel's most touching scene, Harry and Nelson are Wealth Thus, in the opening pages of Rabbit Is driving in the Corona to the lot a few days Rich, we see that Harry's life is something before Nelson's marriage, and Harry, trying and akin to the Toyota Corona he so much to help his son, tells Nelson to get away, not enjoys driving. Necessity has brought him to to let the women encircle his life. Nelson Poverty this Japanese car, fi1led with sporty extras, remains sullen and refuses to go; he is afraid. but even these cannot overcome the fact It is at this moment that Harry understands By George Gilder that for Rabbit the interior is cramped, the he has done for Nelson all he can. seat confining. Movement in the car is Basic Book, Inc. $14.95 awkward and Harry, the once graceful And, late in the novel, Harry finally athlete, is disturbed by awkwardness and journeys to visit Ruth, to see whether his inability to move freely. there's anything he can do for her. Like him, Behind Rabbit's anger is the ghost of she has grown old and fat. She turns him inorities and women appear to have Skeeter, the angry young black of Rabbit away, having made her life for many years run aground on the shoals of without him. The girl, she tells him, is not M Redux who, Rabbit has learned from a America's economic i1ls. As President their daughter; Harry doesn't believe her newspaper clipping, has been shot by Ronald Reagan made clear to the nation in nor do we. But Ruth's life -. and her Philadelphia police. For Harry, with Skeeter his. inaugural address, he "did not take the daughter's u wi1l go forward without Harry. dead, "a certain light was withdrawn from oath I've just taken with the intention of As Rabbit says goodbye to Ruth, "both the world, a daring, a promise that all would presiding over the dissolution of the world's know, what people should never know, that be overturned." Nonetheless, "with him strongest economy." Rather, Reagan they wi1l not meet again." dead, Rabbit feels safer." This ambivalence proposed that all "must share in the carries through the novel: the urge to Rabbit is Rich is about an infectious productive work of this 'new beginning,' " accommodate and soften past judgments America. Its details, its milieu surround our and all "must share in the bounty of the pressured often by the desire to break clean own lives. The car agencies, the fast food revived economy." Reagan then announced and be free. franchises, suburban subdivisions, arriviste submission of his radical economic policy to

17 the Congress with the assertion that the condition for a productive America is that of enormous power over men," adding that policy must pass both the House and the the working male (major breadwinner), women have "a deep and inexorable Senate--virtually intact. married to a woman who at worst earns power." Almost simultaneously with President "mad" money. This working male is ideally According to Gilder, males must balance Reagan's inauguration a book appeared by encumbered with a mortgage and several this power. He sees the marketplace as a George Gilder -- the Title -- Wealth and children. This combination of work, debt way of "being made equal by society." Males Poverty. This book created a furor in the and children works in tandem with "faith." neither give nor receive adequate spiritual media as some perceived the relationship When this idyllic situation occurs, the male, nourishment. To compensate, males create between Reagan's economic policy in inspired by his responsibilities and his a society which gives them superiority, arid general, supply-side economics in veneration of the womb, tends to work though it may be. This is a terrible state of particular, and Gilder's "theology of wealth harder, longer and more innovatively. affairs. Gilder's masterwork, this citadel of and poverty." Gilder's theology for supply­ Ultimately, this formula will assure a new economic enlightenment and productivity, side economics consists of a variety of high in American productivity. this lengthy explanation of supply-side arguments for "faith, family and For her part, the woman (if she is true, economics and dazzling rationales for production," with frequent forays into the and Gilder indicates she might not always be racism, sexism, exploitation and revered reproductive role of women in so) will care for the home, the children, the discrimination in America proves to be a tale society. The book could aptly be titled The community and the church. If required, she woven for a winter's night to allay a small Garden of Eden Revisited, or, in the will be available for "secondary" work. The boy's fears. vernacular, Eve Bites the Apple--Again. continuing faithfulness of the husband to his True, America is in economic trouble; The author of Wealth and Poverty is not affairs and the faithfulness of the wife to her social problems mount. Americans are an economist. Gilder has, however, written affairs indicates the strength of their feeling the effects of this latest economic other works including Visible Man, a study participation in the Capitalist/Christian panacea and its attendant mythology. When of poverty. The methodology of Wealth and union. If the communicants endure, life worsens for all persons (with the Poverty appears to be historical, anecdotal, America can continue to be "the world's exception of that legal fiction, corporations and to an extent, analytical. To accomplish strongest economy." as persons), perhaps Americans will reflect the creation of his theology, Gilder employs Given Gilder's attitudes about women, on motivations for radically harmful and a persuasive rhetorical style - his rhetoric his almost mystical reverence for the womb mythologically deficient theories for is laced with biblical allusions and language. and his concern for black men, one economic and social change. Wealth and He utilizes this strategy to develop two hesitates to label Gilder either a racist or a Poverty provides a starting point for themes: one, the biblical precedent for his sexist. Gilder's theories are derived from reflection. economic dogma; and two, his case against biblical mythology and are, I think, even the concept of discrimination in consistent with the contemporary social, Nancy Lynch Street America. Simply put, Gilder believes that political and legal fictions flourishing in Assistant Professor of women, given their role in the reproduction America in this decade. For me, Gilder Speech Communication of the species, are by nature superior to makes explicit that which is implicit in the men. Hence, to allow women into the culture. marketplace, except as an auxiliary work Further, I think that Gilder fears women, force, is to add insult to the initial injury. believing them to be earth goddesses Answering the charge that "Capitalism is incarnate. In an earlier essay on social morally vacant," Gilder's major themes of inequality, Gilder says that "males are the wealth and poverty are grounded in the sexual outsiders and inferiors." He then principles of work, family and faith - a neat asserts that "Women, in fact, possess fusion of capitalism and Christianity. As Gilder says, "Capitalist production entails faith - in one's neighbors, in one's society, and in the compensatory logic of the cosmos. Search and you shall find, give and you will be given unto, supply creates its own demand." This "sequential logic" allows Gilder to develop his theories of wealth and poverty. Wealth can only be attained through the correct functioning of work, faith and family. Poverty, on the other hand, is arrived at through the incorrect functioning of these elements. Through a series of examples and statistics, Gilder warrants his claims by describing the condition of single men (they earn less, work less hard than married men). He further documents his case by reviewing the plight of the black man in America (they are deprived of work by feckless black and white women, as well as the federal government). Consequently, one "Two Different Worlds" from Boston State Scenes. By Tom Knudson, Associate Professor of Physical Education consistent vision emerges: the ideal

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