PARTISAN REVIEW
471
moments. And in the vein of sharp-eyed but affectionate domestic satire
in which Roth perhaps functions best there is a running commentary
on baseball's obsession with records, from which I pluck this gem: the
mark for "standing ovations in a pregame ceremony in regular season
competition."
But the light hand tires and the heavy one takes over. The Rus–
sians have come, with names like Chichikov, Smerdyakov, R askolnikov,
and Stavrogin. In a tactical move somewha t similar to one employed
in his previous novel,
The Breast
(where he attempted to disarm criti–
cism by pointing out within the text his fable's debt to Kafka and oth–
ers), Roth has his narrator include at the end a number of rejection
letters the manuscript has received from publishers. A witty ploy, but
it backfires, for among the letters is this one: "I am returning your
manuscript. Several people here found portions of it entertaining, but
by and large the book seemed to most of us to strain for its effects and
to simplify for the sake of facile satiric comments the complex realities
of American political and cultural life."
A bit harsh and stodgy, it's still a self-critique of rough accuracy.
Richard Gilman
POPULAR ANTHROPOLOGY
THE Fo.REST PEo.PLE.
By
Colin M. Turnbull. Simon and Schuster. $7.95.
THE MOUNTAIN PEo.PLE.
By
Colin M. Turnbull. Simon and Schuster.
$7.95.
THE TEACHINGS o.F Do.N JUAN: A YAQUI WAY o.F KNo.WLEDGE.
By
Carlos Castaneda. California. $2.45.
A SEPARATE REALITY: FURTHER Co.NVERSATlo.NS WITH Do.N JUAN.
By
Carlos Castaneda. Simon and Schuster. $6.95.
Jo.URNEY TO. IXTLAN: THE LESSo.NS o.F Do.N JUAN.
By
Carlos
Castaneda. Simon and Schuster. $6.95.
Colin Turnbull's
The Forest People
and
The Mountain Peo–
ple
and Carlos Castaneda's trilogy,
The Teachings of Don Juan, A Sep–
arate Reality,
and
Voyage to Ixtlan
are works of popular anthropology.
"Popular anthropology" is a curious rubric.
It
refers to works which may
be admired for their literary quality but which for the professional an–
thropologist are not to be taken too seriously. They are at best a sort of
adventure story, an educated travelogue, a narrative at the edge of fic-
