Natural History:
Malin, Irving
does say that such a strategy must rec- inaction, sided with the junta. rious fiction. Perhaps the centerpiece of ognize the reasonableness of many of the "The United...
...Perhaps the centerpiece of ognize the reasonableness of many of the "The United States must be willing to the novel is the section called "double Islamic activists' beliefs and goals...
...0 Brays...
...and discover that it never existed as im- ing those of her brother James...
...If, for example, we simply read the setting more than the "private" Bridgeport Perhaps the invisible message of the enstory of Billy Bray, we discover that his or Bray family...
...Their demonstrate by word and action its be- entry...
...it is at the heart of "simple" Billy or James...
...She writes: ON THE ONE HAND...
...Double entry, designed to place equivalencies ...when something is missing ...when something is lost, you simply set down a number on the other side of the page to compensate, reconcile...
...Barnum, Lincoln, and other famous allegiance of their fellow citizens...
...It requires nuance, pragma- saw history-whatever it is-as a kind of racy in Algeria and elsewhere...
...An actor The three levels intersect in our minds...
...it is, finally about the "mix" (of limited ability), James has been in- We recognize that we can never understand of art and reality, of "word" and "world...
...jettisoned its principles and, by damentalist threat...
...Catherine, a spinster at vowels...
...we can read the fasmanagement to run effective govern- interests," Esposito concludes...
...fluenced by his father...
...lief that the right of self-determination and concept of double-entry bookkeeping the While Islamic activists may be better at representative government includes ac- debt and credit must agree...
...What exIrving Malin exploration of motives is unclear...
...This section of the novel can be rience in political, economic, and legal will and does not directly threaten U.S...
...as if NATURAL HISTORY vestigation of the murder of a soldier by to balance, naturally...
...they exist because they began their children...
...placable fact...
...as if to insist that Maureen Howard a woman who pleads self-defense...
...Howard is, in a sense, questioning the relation of private and public history, of those uncanny associations which can never be correctly explained...
...he has refused to "nature" or "history" in any completely These three levels, in effect, do not move accept "ordinary" happenings...
...The second level of the novel has as its continual flow, refusing finality...
...who works as a detective for the state gov- Can words ever capture life...
...It his story...
...It was the initial A, peak and word means not only to the Bray children lives alone because she cannot ever be crossbar simpler than drawing of horse but to all who want to recapture the "past" sure about the motives of men, includ- upon the wall of cave...
...it does not account for the full It is interesting to note that Howard ends moves on at least three lev- complexity of the event...
...her "double entry"-now notice the dark els: it is, first, a study of the And Bray's investigation is viewed in pun!-with a series of speculations on Bray family-Billy and different ways...
...We are told that in "the beautiful societies do need fundamental reform...
...She picture...
...On the authoritarian Algerian government cried context...
...These are precisely the attributes right-hand side of this section of double "fundamentalists...
...It is a bold "double entry" tire novel is that humanity is flawed, that life is dominated by one event-the in- into the way "history" is an odd, myste- it can never know unearthly designs...
...Barnum is, perhaps, the Algeria recently, this allegiance may be ticipation, something which President secret hero of the novel because he was expressed at the ballot box...
...thus any page of the to rewrite-or, better yet-to recreate tives in an unconscious way...
...it is also a study of "histo- and adulthood have, in a mysterious way, as "pictures": "In the beginning was the ry," a meditation, if you will, on what the been shaped by Bray's testimony...
...He tries rational way...
...We crosscut events and moin any linear manner...
...As in toward human rights and political par- historical figures...
...derline investigation because we eventu- The "beautiful system" in effect, leads ally learn that in the investigation, any us to the third level of the novel...
...Is it possiernment, offers one version of the mur- ble to describe those longings which lie Ir his brilliant novel deserves der...
...read in several ways...
...Indeed, he and bless with silence the denial of democ- righteous...
...Bray, actly is the relationship of language to life...
...them?-so that our constructions are in ing, an epistemological labyrinth...
...But this version is a perversion...
...She is aware that "a" or "e" or "o" Nell, the parents, and James and Catherine age fifty, recognizes that her childhood are symbols...
...I un- the beautiful system must hold...
...and effected a coup, vitiated by our current portrayal of the fun- entry we can continue to read about the the U.S...
...This strategy will fail, nius who recognized the need to carry histhe United States to look the other way however, if it is heavyhanded and self- tory into the unreality of life...
...Norton, $23, 393 pp...
...How hypo- Bill Clinton has stated as a pillar of his not only a citizen of Bridgeport but a gecritical and counterproductive, then, for foreign policy...
...no inaccuraopposition than in government-they ceptance of an Islamically oriented state cies or altered circumstances are admittend to lack adequate training and expe- and society, if that reflects the popular ted...
...0 Commonweal 12 February 1993: 23...
...more than a brief review...
...When the tism, and an empathetic tolerance of duplicity, a hoax, a stage show...
...Primacy cinating references to Bridgeport in the life ments-they will increasingly win the must be attached to supporting tendencies of P.T...
...We manipnovel combines the various levels and, in- Billy in a movie he wants to sell to his ulate them-or are manipulated by deed, makes them into a maze of mean- agent...
Vol. 120 • February 1993 • No. 3
