Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 107

Minneapolis Tribune June 15, 1S(0 11G A place for The Private Me' Taking the political pulse in the 'media age' a Jft if THE PRIVATE ME, by June and William Noble (Dela-corte Press, Sti pages, Reviewed by Joanne Von Blon "The Private Me" can be perceived as an inevitable "tick" to balance all the "tocks" of today's push toward complete openness and total sharing of feelings. The pendulum keeps moving and the Nobles have no trouble documenting their premise that privacy and reticence protection of our own private core is essential to our growth, our well-being and our creativity. "We give up too many parts of ourselves," they say, to the "words that mold us: schedule, duty, participation, openness, availability." The Nobles suggest that shyness should be acceptable and that we should treasure solitude. From an historical perspective, they point to a national legacy that elevates the individualist as well as to a Puritan heritage that encourages self-nurture. They deplore the overstructuring of our children's activities and make the Interesting point that parents today feel they must be omnipresent in their children's lives.

Because parents have taken on total responsibility for how the child turns out, they must concern themselves with the child's "inner states and latent characteristics." As a result, the child no longer has a private sphere and, more sadly, cannot even take his or her own personality for granted. The Nobles find connections between privacy and identity and between privacy and creativity. They ask how we can make the world safe for daydreaming. They look at privacy as It relates to sex (young homosexuals should not come out of the closet too soon) and sexism (a man gets away to go fishing when he "wants" to; a woman gets away only when she "needs" to). Politicians suffer, too.

Infringement of their privacy will lead, according to this book, to "the civil-servant lawmaker rather than the citizen lawmaker" as "lobbyists, constituents and the wretched overwork schedule conspire to devour them in gulps." James David Barber, author of "The Pulse of Politics." June and William Noble The reader will find predictable chapters on privacy and the news media, privacy in the family and for the single parent, and privacy for 'the aging. Finally, the authors suggest that the "crazy quilt" of far-out therapies that characterize the "Me decade" have another dimension beyond self-indulgence. They should be regarded as tools for self-discovery, for finding the private core, the Innermost me, that deserves to remain inviolable. The book suffers from too many sources and too much authority. I counted 65 persons under Acknowledgements and that many again in the footnotes.

The bibliography runs to seven pages. It's disjointed and repetitious. It made me think of that old game, "I Packed My Grandmother's Trunk." The players "put in" unrelated items from A to each one adding a new item and repeating all those everyone else had packed. Joanne Von Blon is a free-lance reviewer. Books THE PULSE OF POLITICS: Electing President! In the Media Age, by James David Barber (Norton, 142 pages, Reviewed by Marc Karson Barber's earlier pioneering work, "The Presidential Character," classified 20th-century American presidents as active or passive, positive or negative leaders.

His latest book again shows that, while classification appeals to him, It does not dilute the drama of bis material nor the color-fulness of writing rare among academics. In Barber's view there Is a pattern to 20th-century presidential contests consisting of three themes, each of which dominates a particular campaign: politics as conflict, conscience and conciliation. The sequence operates over a 12-year period and then repeats itself. His model, he states, oversimplifies and "is not hard and fast determinism." But this will not put off some reviewers Intent on parading their learning by offering evidence that the "pulse of politics" is sometimes irregular, giving off readings that may be ambivalent, contradictory and not amenable to neat classification. No Ivory tower academician, Barber does not dispassionately present data in a value-free approach.

He Is pleading for Improvement In a selection process which can produce presidents who are incapable of governing but who were adept at winning the office by responding to the nation's mood. Truman's campaign illustrates the politics of conflict as he overcame polls and incredible opposition within his party. Dramatizing bis adversary as "that no account, do-nothing Republican Eightieth Congress," his' indomitable spirit infected his audience who yelled "Give 'em hell, Harry," and that he did. Eisenhower's first campaign was the politics of conscience. The heroic general, transcending politics, crusaded on a revival of principle and character In office.

Communism, corruption and Korea ugly terms associated with the Truman era ould be swept away by the virtuous Ike whom one could trust Stevenson's 1956 campaign, dwelling on the complexity of national problems, did not project the prevailing mood of conciliation. Ike avoided partisan argument, maintaining the What Minneapolis is reading Dread in the 'Dark Room' a FICTION Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum. Melodramatic adventures of an amnesiac trying to find out who he really is. Princess Daisy, by Judith Krantz. Fight for survival in the world of glitter.

Random Winds, by Belva Plain Three generations of doctors and their families. The Spike, by Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss. Topical thriller about international relations. Based on reports from B. Dalton, Book-, teller, The Bookcase; Booklair; Book Mill; Dayton's; Donegal Bay Bookstore; Little Professor Book Center; Powers; Shlnder.

NONFICTION Thy Neighbor's Wife, by Gay Talese. Kow American sexuality has changed in our time. Free to Choose, by Milton and Rose Friedman. The Nobel laureate economist and bis wife discuss the relationship of government and the economy. Heartsounds, by Martha Weinman Lear.

Life with a dying husband. Men In Love Men's Sexual Fantasies: The Triumph of Love Over Rage, by Nancy Friday. The author of "My Mother Myself presents a collection of genital daydreams. The Third Wave, by Alvin Toffler. The changes our society is about to undergo: a pop prognosticated analysis.

THE DARK ROOM, by Carolyn Banks (Viking, 279 pages, Reviewed by Jerry Pope A bloody horror of multiple murder, the imminent threat of a repeat performance, and the possibility that the alleged killer may be the victim of a government drug experiment. These are the ingredients of Carolyn Banks' potent psychological thriller. State Department officer William Holland has slaughtered his family and then vanished. The police and FBI believe him dead, but CIA agent Amatucci doggedly follows Holland's very cold trail. Guilt drives Amatucci in his quest, for he knows that his agency had secretly tested "pharmacological stimuli" on Holland.

While Amatucci searches for him, Holland Is re-establishing himself as a family man. As Bill Thomas, he courts divorcee Carol, mother of two young boys. In Bill's disqrlented mind, he often confuses past and present, and Carol becomes indisti-guishable from his murdered spouse Jean. Just as before, Bill becomes alienated and retreats to his darkroom, creating distorted pictures of his family, and brooding. Image of the good Daddy who could kiss It and make It well.

Barber's account of the Influential, role of the media Is less original than his pulse of politics thesis, but It is a story worth telling and Is told well. The media may give a candidate favorable coverage or function as a critical ombudsman. TV is prone to present politics as spectacle and personality with an appeal to the lowest common denominator in emotions and Intelligence. The differences between candidates on issues has a low priority on commercial TV. The electorate views the candidate not as he may be but as the media portray the candidate.

Journalism's influence In politics has been evident from the nation's beginning. Compulsive dependency on TV by today's public has made the problem more serious. The use of TV political commercials and testimonials of ball players and movie stars by the 1952 Eisenhower campaign marked the ascendency of TV in politics. Nixon's Checkers Speech showed how a TV soap opera performance could be used to manipulate the viewers to the candidate's political benefit. In the 1976 Carter campaign the opinion organs became amateur moral psychologists, interpreting character to find the "real" Jimmy Carter.

TV became the self-appointed guardian of the nation's morals rather than informing and educating the public on the campaign issues. (The current campaign, with Its wolf pack reporting of the primaries in horse race sportcasting terminology, supports and updates Barber's indictment. As a Washington Post columnist wrote, Kennedy "has had to run against all three television Barber has noted the recent factors that have weakened the political parties the proliferation of primaries, the reliance of candidates on their own organizations, the role of the media and the increase of independent voters. It will take as good a sociologist as Barber Is a political scientist to explain the underlying factors in our culture that for long have accounted for the little interest Americans have had In politics in general and political parties in particular. Mare Kartoa Is a professor of American politics at Mankato State University.

Riding another winner WHIP HAND, by Dick Francis (Harper Row, 29) pages, Reviewed by Robert Armstrong April was a heckuva month for Dick Francis fans for Dick Francis himself, for that matter. The British mystery writer, a former champion jockey (1953-54) for the queen, bad his 20th book published. PBS presented a three-part "Mystery" series starring Sid Halley, a jockey whose hand was crippled in an earlier Francis novel, "Odds Against." PBS retitled the drama "The Racing Game." Pocket Books brought out a new edition of "Odds Against" at $2.25. The big news, though. Is not about television although the series was superb but about Francis's latest novel.

It's being hailed in some circles as his best the only problem with that being that almost every new Francis mystery Is hailed as his best by someone. What is noteworthy Is that "Whip Hand" features the return of Halley, now a widely respected private Investigator. Halley juggles several cases at once. He is hired by a rich owner's wife who hopes to discover the cause of a strange, lethal Illness that has struck their best horses, and he is asked to search for possible corruption in the Jockey Club. All this is complicated by even more skullduggery involving Halley's ex-wlfe (whom lie's still mooning over), a severe beating that he must recover from psychologically, and a new love Interest.

Halley handles the load with determination, if not aplomb, but the telling of it requires a bit longer Francis mystery than we normally expect. For Francis fans who wish his mysteries would never end, that's good news. Maybe that's why It's being called highest Robert Armstrong is a news editor for the Minneapolis Tribune. Carolyn Banks the thoughts of the three main characters; they speak rarely, and then their words conceal more than they reveal. A dark, oppressive, malignant mood Is evoked, dread builds until it is tangible.

Carolyn Banks is a first-rate suspense writer. Her first novel, "Mr. Right," has Just been published in paperback. I'm going right out to get it. No one writes suspense like The plot Is advanced primarily by Jerry Pope is a free-lance writer.

MARY HIGGINS CLAM the bestsellingauthor of A Stranger VVTiereAreTheChildren? Here is her most spellbinding novel yet. At OddS From er families freed women to become involved in outside activities such as church work and reform movements. Degler argues that women themselves were largely responsible for the drop in the birthrate. He shows that abortion was widely practiced, but calls attention to a still more important way for women of the 19th century to bear fewer children: they had sexual relations with their husbands less frequently. We misunderstand women of the Victorian age if we think their rejection of sexual indulgence in marriage represented a simple rejection of their own sexual natures.

Instead, in an age of uncertain contraceptive methods, it was a way for women to "control their own bodies" and improve their own positions within the family by having fewer children. Degler, who helped found the National Organization for Women in 1966, says that the family is not in danger of falling apart and chides antifeminists for their exaggerated fears; but "At Odds" offers cold com- fort to the feminist movement. For it argues that the values for which the family stands are "at odds" with those of feminism, and suggests that many women are satisfied with their roles as wives and mothers. The feminist movement rests on the idea of individualism that is, the idea that society is ultimately composed of separate individuals, each seeking his or her own advancement and fulfillment. From this perspective women should look out for themselves, for their interests may not coincide with the interests of their husbands or children.

By contrast, family life continues to be based on a degree of rejection of individualism. "For at least two centuries," Degler summarizes, "the best known alternative to the individualism, competitiveness, and egoism that infuse the modern, Industrial and urban world has been the family." Kirk Jeffrey teaches history at Carleton College In Northfield, Minn. Not Working From ltG Maurer, obviously, is a good listener who draws his people out, although, by his own admission, he would have liked to have drawn out more (but he graciously does not prod the reader to read between the lines, which is necessary to gain the full force of the book). I would bave liked to see more commentary on each "case" by Maurer; some analysis beyond his sparse descriptions of physical appearance, living quarters, etc. The average employed reader (one who has never been unemployed for any extended period of time), even If sympathizing with these accounts, may dismiss them as having no direct bearing on hisher life.

The hard fact is that nobody's Job (career) Is 100 percent safe. Personally, I would have liked to see one more category in this book: one for the I.e., degreed people (many with M.A.'s and Ph.D.'s. largely in the liberal arts) who are unemployed, underemployed, or, If working full-time, are secretaries and Janitors. There is nothing wrong with being a secretary or a Janitor, but most people who sweat through four or more years of college don't do It solely for the purpose of gaining wisdom. The number of these Is Increasing alarmingly, but, perhaps, not unexpectedly.

How saleable Is the person who has been trained to detect rot. In a cui: lure which is lubricated by rot? I digress somewhat, but to me the most quotable quote In the book comes from "Abraham Rosner," unemployed stockbroker, 59, who is told by the manager of a brokerage house where he has applied for a job: "I'd rather have a successful Fuller Brush man than a Harvard M.B.A." So- that's where it's at; take your knowledge and shove it, Abe, "I need somebody who can sell." Well, In the coming months there will probably be less to sell, of stocks and most other things. Fewer people buying what there Is to sell you get my drift It's good that someone finally wrote something other than statistics about unemployed people. There are going to be more of them In the near future. John Wlrtb Is a free-lance writer living In St PauL He works full-time for the US.

Postal Service. THE 1ML Heine With brilliant skill, Mary Higgins Clark weaves the story of a medical conspiracy thai must be hidden at all costs, perhaps even that of murder. As it builds toward a climax of overpowering intensity, readers will be swept instantly and compellingly into a world o( sudden where a bright, ambitious youug proBecutor finds herself both the hunted and the hunter. From 1IG "A newsuspense masterpiece Literary Guild Marine laui, snoeK-pacKeu. Literary Guild Dual Main Seltt'tion $10.95 Simon and Schuster 75,000 first printing lb be a major motion picture led him to seek a solution through the Increasing strength of the urban proletariat.

Ultimately this is the difference between emancipatory visions and the flinty realism of historical materialism, between humanism and sociology. No, Heine was no radical with a poem burning in his heart and a rifle slung over his shoulder, but he was poet with an extraordinary gift for language, music and sense of beauty, as well as a poet with a conscience capable of passionate utterance on behalf of the underdog. This biography does much to show that balance between art and life In Heine's career. MJ. Abhlshaker teaches English and philosophy in the state community college system.

construction and analysis of Heine's commitment to the social question the new Industrial proletariat had not found a voice yet is most instructive and revealing of that side of his life a matter almost never much discussed by lovers of his poetry, if at all. We appreciate Heine more, as a poet and humanist, knowing bis commitment to the cause of the oppressed, realizing also that it was no sentimental posture but visceral outrage at the spectacle of human suffering. No doubt Heine was Inspired by the socialism of St Simon, as many of his contemporaries were; in turn he Inspired others, including young Marx. All In all, Heine's view of liberation was confined to what may be called In contemporary jargon "radical life Style," while Marx's historical sense 815 Nicollet Mall 333-2428 MJOI tWt 110 CMW 911D HtfMtM Pl't 691 13M smmm tn nn MHMH) Ml S3S Ul SignM 5J-4J Wll KK AM OKI II 1 1 I.