It has become a tiresome subject, and I feel more than a little perverse
bringing it up. Still, there is more to
be said-much more-so let me be-
gin. American fiction, the genre, is
in a muddle. I specify "genre" be- cause the problem does not have to do so much with the individual works, which are various and often excellent, but with the form itself. And to contain the generalizing impulse, if only slightly, I will specify still further: It is the American novel that is in a...
Frank B. Gibney
n his pioneering work on the Medi-
terranean world in the age of
Spain's Philip 11, historian Fernand
Braudel claims that the Mediterra-
nean region lacked any unity apart
from that "created the move-ments of men, the relationships they imply and the routes they follow.. . . The whole Mediterranean," Braudel continues, "con- sists of movement in space. Anything enter- ing it-wars, shadows of war, fashions, techniques, epidemics, merchandise light or heavy, pr...
by FvaMk B. Gibney
I n his pioneering work on the Medi- terranean world in the age of Spain's Philip II, historian Fernand Braudel claims that the Mediterra- nean region lacked any unity apart from that "created by the move-ments of men, the relationships they imply and the routes they follow.... The whole Mediterranean," Braudel continues, "con- sists of movement in space. Anything enter ing it--wars, shadows of war, fashions, techniques, epidemics, merchandise light or heavy,...
was born in New Haven, Connecti-
cut, scarcely a year after World
War 11 ended, a child of the G.I.
Bill that financed my father's edu-
cation at Yale. Soon afterward my
parents moved to California, taking me along at the tender but obliging age of two years. My earliest memories therefore hang on Pacific horizons-glimpses of beach cliffs from toddler's eye-level just above the back seat of a 1940 Ford.
Westward movement was to become the constant of my life, a journey ever far- ther in...
Frank B. Gibney
n his pioneering work on the Medi-
terranean world in the age of
Spain's Philip 11, historian Fernand
Braudel claims that the Mediterra-
nean region lacked any unity apart
from that "created the move-ments of men, the relationships they imply and the routes they follow.. . . The whole Mediterranean," Braudel continues, "con- sists of movement in space. Anything enter- ing it-wars, shadows of war, fashions, techniques, epidemics, merchandise light or heavy, precious...
hat can a mere writer writer can deal only with the externals or say about Mozart? Mu- superficialities of a musician's achieve- sic is the art that takes ment. The Life of Mozart has been delin- over from words when eated far too often, sometimes with melo- words prove inade-dramatic falsehoods. The truth is mostly quate, and I've spent banal and has a great deal to do with much of this bicentennial year trying to de- money. I set up for myself a dialogue be- vise a verbal approach to Mozart...
certain tricky questions arise from time to time in literary circles. No one knows who first asked them, and they of- ten seem a pointless game. For instance: Would you, as a writer, continue to write if you ended up on an uninhabited island and it seemed that no one would ever read your work? Many writers answer: Yes, of course I would, I don't need a reader, I'm my own reader, I'm incapable of not writing, I am my own source of inspiration, no one should come between me and God, and so forth....
The world of thought is both-
ered and bewildered about ideology: the world of educa- tion above all. Distortions of the vantage point, such as Eurocentricity or linear logic,
it fears, invalidate everything that histori- ans, critics, even scientists have ever done or may ever do.
In seminars the word acts like a si-lencer. It can bring rational debate to a stop, and the fear of its use can inhibit criti- cal debate even before it begins. Softened, at times, into vague, emollient talk about...
Reviews of new research at public agencies and private institutions
-
. "National Guard: Peacetime Training Did Not Adequately Prepare Combat Brigades for Gulf War."
U.S. General Accounting Office, P.O. Box 6015, Gaithersburg, Md. 20877. 55 pp. No charge.
(GAO/NSIAD-9 1-263)
Since the mid-1970s, the U.S. Army has been critically de- pendent on its reserves. Not only was the Army Reserve given vital support responsibil-ities (e.g., transportation) but Army National Guard combat units...
urb, and the hus- the fragmentation band-wife arch- of civic life and itectural team of the radical eco-Andres Duany nomic segrega-and Elizabeth tion that have ac- Plater-Zyberk are companied sub- at the forefront. They see the urban sprawl. ~mericans long postwar suburbs as a grand ex- for community, the authors say, periment gone awry, ruined less and they could have it. The fu-consumers and developers ture, they suggest, does not have than by the ignorance of local to be imagined so much as re-...