VARIETY
THE CULT OF THE
GOLDENARMED ORACLE
A decade has passed since
Tom Lehrer's sardonic tribute
to The Old Dope Peddler
("Spreading joy wherever he
goes") first diverted the college
young. Judging by the most
famous off-Broadway play of
recent seasons, Lehrer's treacly,
bitchy little song was more pro–
phetic of forthcoming tastes
than its taboo-twitting composer
and his delighted, squirming
audiences suspected. The dope
peddler in Jack Gelber's
The
Connection
dispenses not only
powdered happiness, but moral
sanction. Brave, witty, a wise
hipster and a square shooter–
in a heroless play, Cowboy is
almost a hero. That thousands
of playgoers have accepted a
framework of dramatic values in
which such a character
is
pos–
sible, that with the ·film version
millions of moviegoers may do
the same, suggest we have come
a distance from the time when,
even · to those enlightened
in
gospels Freuqian, ·Lehrer's kind–
ly ·old ·entrepreneur ("Doing
Announcing .
THE 1961.1962
$IO~OOO
Harper
Prize Novel
Coniesi
723
.. • • JUDGES •.••.•.
LOUIS AUCHINCLOSS
ELIZABETH JANEWAY
PHILIP ROTH
The Harper Prize, for which
any previously unpublished
novel in English is eligible,
is the largest prize regularly
presented for fiction by any
American institution.
Of even greater impodance
to the novelist is the assur–
ance that the winning novel
will be launched with all the
enthusiasm and resources of
one of the nation's greatest
publishers.
AU manuscripts submitted
for the Harper Prize are
considered
to
be
submissions
for publication by Harper
&
Brothers. Those accepted will
immediately
be
placed under
contract and become nomi–
nees for the Prize. Manu–
scripts considered unsuitable
for pUblication will
be
r e–
turned promptly.
The contest closes June I. 1962
Wril. fo, p,osp.elus
.ntl
eompl.,.
nUlS
Priu Novel Contest
HARPER & BROTHERS
4'
E. 33rd St., New York 16, N•.Y.
