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ON MORAL FICTION

Name: ON MORAL FICTION
Author: John Gardner
ISBN: 0465052266

by John Gardner ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 1978

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The essence (which is all you need) of this profound and petty essay appears in 1978's Pushcart Prize collection (p. 220)—and an indisputable essence it is: what Arthur Miller so eloquently demands from drama, novelist Gardner demands from fiction—that it seek "to improve life, not debase it," that it "ought to be a force bringing people together, breaking down barriers of prejudice and ignorance, and holding up ideals worth pursuing." Who would argue with that?—or with Gardner's fervent defense of the model to be found in Homer, Dante, and Tolstoy: "the gods set ideals, heroes enact them, and artists. . . preserve the image as a guide for man." The pettiness and problems set in, however, when Gardner analyzes "what has gone wrong in recent years" with fiction and criticism—and in his formulas for how-to-do-it-right. Blaming the Freud-Sartre-Wittgenstein philosophical constellation for generating a cult of despair and nihilism, Gardner excoriates the writers who play games, manipulate, wallow in "texture," or ignore "eternal verities" for current causes—and he scorns the style-obsessed critics (his characterization here is caricature) who praise them. But, as Gardner disposes of one novelist after another—Walker Percy, Bellow ("sprawling works of advice, not art"), Didion, Heller, Updike—one gets the feeling that he's a bit too intent on eliminating the competition and that he's unable to see a moral lesson in any book that makes its point implicitly, indirectly, "accidentally," or with humor. (This suspicion is confirmed by the fact that Gardner's full praise is reserved for Fowles' Daniel Martin, which wears its lesson-in-living-ness on its sleeve). Narrower still—though fascinating—is Gardner's notion that True Art (the phrase becomes an incantation) can only be produced one way: "One begins a work of fiction with certain clear opinions. . . and one tests these opinions in lifelike situations," using an almost mystical "intuition" (the True Artist is heavily romanticized throughout). But, excessive and self-limited as Gardner's "rules" for moral fiction may be, they do illuminate the lousiness of much of today's writing, they do remind us of the viability of some centuries-old models, and they will provoke a good deal of healthily furious literary fisticuffs.

Pub Date: April 19, 1978

ISBN: 0465052266

Page Count: 238

Publisher: Basic Books

Review Posted Online: March 29, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1978

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ON WRITERS AND WRITING
by John Gardner

- BOOK REVIEW
STILLNESS AND SHADOWS
by John Gardner

- BOOK REVIEW
GILGAMESH
translated by John R. Maier & edited by John Gardner

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- SEEN & HEARD
Salinger Focus of NYPL Exhibit

- SEEN & HEARD
NYC Mayoral Candidates Name Favorite Gotham Books

- APPRECIATIONS
Holden Caulfield: Forever Young

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.