616
PARTISAN REVIEW
motivations" of characters allows Mr. Gaddis a clean surface , blessedly free
of bunkum masquerading as the profound. What we know is what we hear.
JR
strikes me as one of the very few distinguished and
written
American
novels published in the last decade; indeed , it makes most other novels of
this period seem watery or pretentious or both . Its comedy is that of all
excellent comic artists-it conceals the ultimately absurd hopes and preten–
sions of life .
It
is a brilliant work-a great novel.
BEYOND THE BEDROOM WALL.
By Larry Woiwode. Farrar, Straus
&
Giroux. $12.50.
Beyond the Bedroom Wall
displays the talent of its author. In
an odd way, its problems are rooted in this fact . Through some six hundred
pages that deal episodically with the Neumiller family over three genera–
tions , the reader is presented with an almost dogged display of fine writing.
It
is the kind ofwriting that can be found in almost every issue of those large
monthly magazines that still pretend an interest in "serious" fiction, a pro–
fessional genre writing, the constant delight of editors and reviewers since it
is at once neither demanding nor trashy. There's nothing wrong with this–
it is very high-class entertainment , as skillfully made as any successful film of
the last ten years .
It
tells the reader what he already knows, a knowledge
posited by the entire history of modern fiction; the stimuli, as it were, are
carefully placed to elicit the proper responses, just as Woody Allen's work is
funny because Perelman invented it .
I am not suggesting that this novel is a failure; it is far from that. And I
do not derogate Mr. Woiwode because he is not involved in what is variously
called .. superfiction," ..metafiction, " .. surfiction, " etc., which are
academic words tagged on to sundry minor experiments. Nor has Mr.
Woiwode made a novel that creaks along in the dear old, and regularly la–
mented (since it only exists as a tour de force) " traditional" mode. He has
written, as I've said, episodically, eschewing psychological motivation, ten–
sion, character development, climax, denouement, and so forth . His creden–
tials, as they say, are impeccable . But there is something wrong with the
book.
It
is too shiny and complacent, it is too safe, it is conscious of pleasing.
The novel has its excellent points, surely. Certainly the first-rate sense
of place-in this case the Midwest-is one. Mr. Woiwode has an acute feel
