The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 116

J-l 6 THE CINCINNATI ENQUKERSonday, Dtctmber 27, 1911 'Travel' Opens New Worlds EASY TRAVEL TO OTHER PLANETS, by Ted Mooney, Farrar, Straus, GP MmgD roux, $11.95. BY JON SAARI Enquirer Contributor Easy Travel U) Other Planets, Ted Mooney's first novel, is a difficult Journey through life Growing Young Instead Of Old today. The title should not mislead the novel Is not science fiction. The planets Mooney in GROWING YOUNG by Ashley Montagu, McGraw, Hill, $12.95. vokes are metaphorical, new territories ready to be explored at some very heavy costs.

Mooney's novel has both an Immediacy and a distance that stuns the reader in the power of its lyric realism. Easy Travel has to be the sleeper of the publishing season, a novel that Is without compromise in its portrayal of complicated themes and characters. At the center of Easy Travel is the seduc tion of Melissa, a young marine biologist working on a dolphin communication project by Peter, the dolphin under study. The fact that Mooney can make Melissa's seduction believable and Inevitable establishes at the very beginning the depth of his vision and the mind hold before it loses Its ability to retain anything? Besides communication with the unfamiliar, Mooney develops the themes of exploration and the possibility of war over new geo-graphlc frontiers. The political crisis of Antarctica with its large uranium deposits and confusing territorial agreements murmurs In the novel's background.

Mooney conjures up a Vietnam of the "80s to eat away at the consciousness of his characters. Private problems and public policies seem to coalesce in a common agony. MELISSA AND Jeff are like the characters found in the plays of Lanford Wilson and Michael Weller; they are casual in their living arrangements and commitments but an ugly possesslveness arises from time to time nonetheless. Everything Is In the context of a relaxed hlpness charged by an erotic need to; explore and know. The seduction by Peter the dolphin, though, is something new, something unfathomable.

Melissa, already a complicated woman, has a personal life further complicated by her childhood best friend, Nikkl, and her mother, Nona, who is dying, bravely and stoically, cf cancer. Nikki's neurosis is "easy travel" to wherever her TWA pass will take her and whenever she feels the urge to go. Nikki's idea of birth control is abortion; she's had five and Is now tired of them but her boyfriend, Diego, the Cuban musician, violently disagrees with her. Jeff senses that Melissa is drifting into another realm of being, of something "non-human." He renews his affair with Clarice as If this will break the spell Peter holds on Melissa. The lives of these characters are a tightly clinched fist leading to a cruel knockout-a tragic end, too good to even hint at Cincinnatlan Jon Saarl is a former Bowling Green State University literature instructor with a PhD in English literature.

seriousness of his themes. Mooney's narrative magic sweeps Melissa from her life with Peter in a flooded house in the Caribbean immediately following the seduction back to her other life with Jeff in the States. The dolphin seduction Is the first of a series'of shocking MOONEY PRESENTS communication relationship to the children of earlier species rather than to their adult form. It is the adventurous and unspeclallzed nature of youth that has been passed through time to make man what he is, and not the rigid and specialized physiology and behavior of the adult of any other species. In other species growth is arrested at some point during the life cycle.

Humans are capable of growth until death. Montagu's goal is to demonstrate that the destiny of man (and of woman, who Is more even neotenous than man) Is "to grow and develop as children, rather than into the kind of adults that we have been taught to believe we ought to become." WE TEND to see primitive human societies as "childlike." But in literate societies children are pressured into maturity. We urge children to behave themselves, to conform, to "grow up." But, Montagu says that "to grow young means to grow in our youthful traits, not to grow out of or to abandon them." He then enumerates 28 traits of youth, including the need for love, the need know, the need to organize, curiosity, imagination, creativity, flexibility, resiliency, optimism, dance and song. No brief outline can explain the complexities of the theory of neoteny. Nor can it explain the importance of the Montagu's ideas about education.

There are hundreds of books which document the failures of our schools, but few which offer suggestions for improving schools as substantial as Growing Young. MONTAGU IS too "youthful" In his optimism (he is 77 years old) to waste time itemizing the failures of our schools, but he calls for sweeping changes in education and provides his with dolphins Imaginatively and knowledge-ably, drawing upon the research of Gregory Bateson and John Lilly. Mooney posits a "dolphin consciousness" rich In myth, dream and memory. One of the novel's best chapters Is the one from Peter's point of view. BY OWEN FINDSEN Entertainment Reporter Darwin's theory of evolution is not likely to collapse under attacks from creationists, but It is apparently being amended by a relatively new concept which adds to the idea of the survival of the fittest the idea of the survival of the immature.

The key to the human race, says scientist Ashley Montagu, is youth, and the goal of life is to die young, as late as possible. And the key word is neoteny, which is the process by which the fetal or Juvenile traits of ancestors are retained into later stages of individual development In other words, there were characteristics that were present only in the fetal stages or in the childhood of the ancestors of mankind that mankind retains throughout life. The skull of a fetal chimpanzee closely resembles the skull of a fetal human, for Instance, and both resem-ble an adult human skull much more -than they resemble an adult chimpanzee skull. A juvenile chimp looks more like a human than does an adult chimp. MONTAGU'S BOOK is filled with anthropological evidence of neoteny.

He traces a wide range of characteristics-Including brain size, posture, amount of body hair to show that mankind retains childlike characteristics of previous species, but it is not the comparison of biological makeup that makes the idea an important one. Neoteny applies to social and psychological behavior as well. The measure of man lies in his The other side of communicating with the unknown of what Mooney eloquently calls "the exquisite pangs of one state of being glimpsing another is the excess oi miorma-tlon, communicating the obvious, that confronts the individual every day, competing for his attention and infecting his mind. Mooney, in a phrase William Burroughs would love, calls this social phenomenon "Information sickness." It Is pervasive, a product of "mass media" culture. How much drivel can the ASHLEY MONTAGU 26 characteristics of youth as the basis for a new learning system.

"The import of Growing Young constitutes no less than an open demand on our school systems that they be consciously and deliberately redesigned to serve the developmental alms and purposes latent and accessl-ble In our children," he writes. "Teaching Itself must be reconceived, as essentially the discovery and revelation of order, rather than its barren, futile imposition." There is no need for the pessimism that seems to pervade most of the studies of the plight of modern man, Montagu says. Because of our heritage of neoteny, he believes, we are a prob-lem solving species with the vision and the power "to release the inner splendor in each of us." Owen Flndsen is The Enquirer's art and book critic. Lee In The Post-War Years LEE, The Last Years, By Charles Bracelen Flood, Houghton Mifflin, $14.95. BY JIM SCHOTTELKOTTE Enquirer Managing Editor The history books tend to leave Robert E.

Lee at the point he rode off from Appomattox and Into immortality. That Is largely because Lee Alsop Offers Warm Look At F.D.R. chose a non-controversial course of moderation, conciliation, patience and silence following the Civil War years. In the long run, that may have been the greatest gift he gave to a nation still bitterly divided. F.D.R., by Joseph Alsop, Viking, $25.

time devoid of hope; partly by his Lee lived but five years after the war. but they were five productive years. Faced with obvious belief in the essential "light ness" of his actions and their ultimate la "Light-Horse Harry" Lee-Robert E. Lee was not considered a member of the Virginia aristocracy. The real aristocrat was his wife, Mary Custls Lee, great-granddaughter of Martha Washington.

Mary was much less inclined to reconciliation with the North than her husband. One reason may have been the seizure by the federal government of her estate at Arlington. Eventually, the government awarded $150,000 to the Lee heirs after the U.S. Supreme Court declared the seizure illegal. ULYSSES S.

Grant's magnanimous attitude toward Lee continued after Appomattox. When Lee was indicted for treason by a federal grand Jury, Grant let it quietly be known he would resign from the Army in protest if Lee were arrested. There the matter died; Lee applied for a pardon, partly as an example to other Southerners, but never received it. More than 100 years later, his oath of allegiance, required as part of the pardon procedure, was found in a bundle of papers In the National Archives in Washington. Flood says Secretary of State William H.

Seward apparently gave it to a friend as a souvenir. Some souvenir. Jim Schottelkotte Is The Enquirer's managing editor and an amateur Civil War expert success. FDR invited faith because he seemed to feel not the slightest doubt about the future no matter war; no devastated financial resources and the care and support of a crippled, arthritic wife and a large family (none of his daughters married), Lee briefly thought of farming after the war, but then at the urging of friends accepted the presidency of struggling Washington College In Lexington, Va. matter depression at any time dur lng his long presidency.

ALSOP'S INSIGHTS into White House life have been unmatched in By all accounts, Lee, despite fading health the oast. (there were Indications he suffered a heart attack as early as 1863), was a resourceful and successful college president improving the school's financial health, expanding the curriculum and showing the same concern and Witness, in re White House cuisine: salads were especially deplora- adulation of the first family and their 'achievements. There is no nonsense 1 about the New Deal absolutely sending the Depression packing nor is FDR suggested as a candidate for beatification. What unfolds is a warm, but balanced tribute to a remarkable and admirable American original, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

ALSOP'S ROOSEVELT Is tough, I Machiavellian but often ingenious and flawed. And Alsop correctly avers i that FDR had guts, rational optimism and a tough obstinacy which, when melded with wlllness, a super sense of political timlmg and a remarkable astuteness in avoiding showdowns-untll a showdown would be adjudicated in his favor produced a 13-year administration unparalleled in accomplishment. Perhaps not all the were totally successful, Alsop but none can gainsay the effectiveness of their being achieved. Alsop contends that "hope" was FDR's greatest gift to the American people. Hope partly engendered by his deed's, when he came to office in a BY ROGER GROOMS 1 Enquirer Contributor Next year brings both the 100th anniversary of the birth of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the 50th anniversary of his election to the presidency.

Viking Press has risen to the occasion with an inpresslve photographic tribute which unusual for its type is well worth the price tag. What lifts F.D.R. above other such dreary compendlums is a delightful, literate, even gossipy text by Joseph Alsop, the old New York Herald Trlb-' une columnist who was a White House correspondent in the glory days of the New Deal and, as a distant relative of the Roosevelts, had somewhat more access to backstairs Information. Alsop's commentary serves as a marvelous essay on the Roosevelt career. Buttressed by a handsomely-styled book and 200 or so photographs -many unfamiliar snapshots this tribute is considerably beyond its competitors.

Alsop does not deal in bllnders-on sollcitness he had demonstrated for his Confederate veterans. Following his death, the school was renamed Washington St Lee. Lee's son, Custls, succeeded him as president oie; ror uiey lenaea to oe complicated and decorative and might even contain bits of marshmallow in their deplorable depths." And, concerning a cabinet associate: the President finally came to realize that Henry Wallace, when too far removed from a.srari&.n real AUTHOR FLOOD, a respected historian with strong area connections (he lives In Richmond, has done a comprehensive CLASSICAL SALGi ON TIIZSI 4 ALBUMS ities, was a great goose in human form." In sum, FDR is well worth its hefty Job reconstructing those last years and Lee's strong but silent role In the post Civil War period. Flood also has a reporter's talent for digging up tne good story and anecdote. For example: io price tag-ana merits a reserved place on any shelf of Rooseveltlana.

Roger Grooms is a Cincinnati tree-lance writer, high school teacher and frequent contributor to The Enquirer. Lee never did forgive George Pickett lor THE BEST OF pavaroiti the Confederate disaster at Five Forms (Pickett had gone off to a shad bake and was not at headquarters when his troops were attacked). Pickett, in turn, blamed Lee for the heavy losses of his division in the famous charge at Gettysburg. "Well," said John S. Mosby, of Of Running Spies And Monsters Give the gift Mosby Raider fame, wnen Pickett complained to him, "it made you immortal." of musk.

Despite being the son of a Revolutionary 1 i IV sc. War general and one-time governor of Virgin- vrw THE BOOK RACK 4 RECORD ALBUM 21.58 "YOUR WEEKEND" IS A GOOD WAY TO PREPARE FOR WEEKEND THOMAS HARRIS'S Red Dragon (Putnam's, $13.95) is so terrifying that It sent me creeping out of my apartment in search of a well-lighted, heavily-trafficked place to read the last 100 pages. It hereby earns a Laundry Room Award my highest praise for suspense thrillers short of cardiac arrest PAV2009 REG. PRICE $28.38 TRADI 2 for I 1M79SPRMGFELDPIKE Sprtngdal www. gaum Arm Groxbtck 104 UJCWPWROfTTl HOLY NIGHT Thursday in The Enquirer Actually, this superior thriller begins its life as a police procedural, opening with an investigation of a mass murderer who slaughters entire 8.38 REG.

$10.98 If families and does obscene things with their corpses. Although satisfying on St OS 26473OS5 26473 this level alone, with all its grim de tails etched In nice lean prose, Red Dragon quickly sheds its skin to be come a psychological thriller as well. HOFFMAN HOUSE rrn it Writing with uncanny conviction, cvckt iNioni Harris manages to crawl into the twisted mind of the psycnopatnic kin 9h jurtUAi it aoaie nawtms riire Tchaikovsky "PATHET1QUE" Symphony No. 6 er himself, revealing both the man's i pm Disc Jockey spinning oldies but aoodiei. 2 for I madness and the psychic pain bemna GIUUNI Los Angeles it.

Since Red Dragon is equally terriiy Good time for ALL OMCltxf re mm mm wwitmw ing from both points of view, inside and outside the monster's head, there illlli 59.98 REG. $12.98 Is really no place to hide. Except maybe in the laundry room. MONDAY is Meet the Band Nite. Our usual 4-8 Hospitality Hours and then meet our band who plays for your entertainment 1 I Mm BY MARILYN STASIO Enquirer Contributor Funny thing about international-r espionage thrillers In which we're positively swimming these days: No matter how exotic the locale or fantastic the plot, one thing never changes.

The spy. Novelists are more sensitive to shifts in global politics than the inter-atlonal gold market One season, all the new thrillers seem to be set in Russia and China, with the issue being secret missile silos in Afghanistan. A couple of months later, writers are hustling all their spies to Southeast Asia to track down a new drug route through the Golden Triangle. But where ever his turf and whatever his mission, our friend the spy stays true to character. He is weary, he Is cynical, and he is always determined to make this Job his last assignment.

In fact, If he ever gets out of this mess alive, he's going off to grow cabbages in some remote corner of the globe where human decency hasn't entirely died out He is, In other words, the perfect alienated hero for our modern, angst-riddled age. WHICH IS all by way of introduction to Devereaux, the hero of Bill Granger's new espionage thriller, Schism (Crown, Code-named "November Man," this disillusioned idealist suffers and broods In the best tradition of John LeCarre's introspective spies, and he measures the moral consequences of his violent deeds with as much anguish as a Graham Green character. He's Just a terrific guy. Frankly, this appealing hero doesn't have a whole lot to do in Schism, which has a less frantic plot than most spy novels. The story is good and solid, hinging on the sudden-emergence from a Southeast Asian Jungle of a Catholic missionary priest who was presumed dead for 20 years.

Once It's revealed that the missionary has been hanging onto sensitive military secrets he got as a spy for the Vatican, agents are dispatched in carloads to worm them out of him. In the old priest, Granger has drawn a full-bodied character who out-broods even Devereaux jon the moral Issue of Church involvement In International polftics. The author creates a nice air of menace about all nystcry alloy the CIA, KGB and Vatican agents skulking on the scene, and his handling of Catholic ritual and Vatican politics suggests intimate knowledge. But the action-addicted reader should be warned that Schism advances its story at a leisurely pace. Even the most violent events are so discreetly, even delicately drawn that the book often sustains Its mood at the expense of Its movement A ACTION IS paramount, however, in John Kruse's Red Omega (Random House, a breathlessly paced thriller that gains its momentum from an ingenious plot to murder Stalin at the height of his reign of terror.

Vividly set In the bleak Moscow of the 1950s, the murderous plan involves a ruthless CIA operative; the "mole" he has secretly secured in the Kremlin hierarchy; and their daring plot to dispatch Russia's paranoid dictator and seize his power. Kruse's assassin-spy, a firebrand Spanish general with old accounts to settle from his country's Civil War, Is cast in the traditional heroic mold. He's a grandly scaled lone wolf, goaded Into action by the pain from old wounds. And If his almost superhuman powers and Incredible luck occasionally weaken the book's crucial illusion of reality, the sheer thrust of the action overrides every crisis. A DAVID BRIERLEY'S Big Bear, Little Bear (Scrlbner's, $11.95) is set In the same Cold War period, but both its characters and their Intrigues get smothered in the dreary atmosphere of their Central European locale.

Although the plot stakes are high enough possible Allied loss of West Berlin to the Sovleta-the action reduces to a one-on-one manhunt, through Prague and Berlin, between a dull villain and a shadowy hero. The glum protagonist, a British agent avenging the betrayal of his en- tire Czech network, remains as much an anonymity as the faceless no-goods who are stalking him. Brlerly writes taut chase scenes with surprls-' lng twists; but despite the high style of the writing, this seems a tired book. AS HE proved In Prince of the City, Robert Daley really knows how to e. TUESDAY is Tequila Tuesday 4-8 Hospitality Hours and then from 8 to closing we feature tequila drinks and some good Mexican fun.

ucnkicfniv write an urban detective story, in nis new book. Year of the Dragon (Simon St Schuster, Daley gets his TituiitjLn i niie is vorpcraTe MMttJun IMlVlllMtT) 59.98 REG. $12.98 usually heavy mileage out oi tne police procedural genre, and throws in some fascinating sociological materi HEW YEAR'S IN VIENNA Vol. 2 Vienna Philharmonic Cranness. Do you like Dmeland Jan Music? Try our Hospitality Hours from 4.8 and enjoy Stan Piates Dixieland al to boot Jan Band.

And then 8 to closing bring vour business card and vou are in for a MAAZEL If there's one thing this novelist seems to know, It's cops. He's got their Idiom down cold, their political games time of your life. All nite Wed. mf u.ii and the sheer moral fatigue that turns so many of them so mean and Ul I IUMIIIUII I IVUIVi THURSDAY is Cheap Date Nite at Hoffman House. Are you on a budget, but still want to have fun? Bring your iiu on ur iioioiiiMcj nasty.

But Daley doesn't Just spin these familiar wheels of nis-ne reany moves them in this exciting study of aate to nottman Mouse, 2 tor I all nite Looking for good weekend entertain- big-city corruption In New York's ment? Try us on Fri. when where the action is. IAI Chinatown. Crammed witn snocxing-ly believable detail about a Chinese Mafia whose tentacles reach halfway 9- around the world, this impressively STOKE HOURS 10 AM-12 researched crime novel indicates tnat its author knows the Chinese under 9 Sun. 12 Hoofl-9 PM iRtfl KSmSSEH Mil world as well as he knows cops.

5JI 8S77 AT SURREY SQUARE, NORWOOD Marilyn Staslo is a New York based 1 IF 09CM In the Midway Motor Loda )0 f'i Gxoth Pvtr tree-lance, writer specializing rc Special Offer Expires Jan. 3rd, 1987 views ot mystery dooks. OH 772-22)0.