BOOKS
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authors under rev iew (whose photographs adorn the back dust-j ackets)
seem LO be peering in LO a mirror ra ther than ho lding it up to na ture.
Their fa ilure to maintain the neces ary emo tional a nd artistic distance
from their suffering, seeking pro tagonists, makes the reader a n uncom–
fortable accomplice in narcissistic a nd claustropho bic rites.
On the surface, H ortense Ca lisher does mos t to equip her heroine's
"voyage into the interior" wi th social, famili al, a nd ma le perspecti ves.
Lexie lies nude on the riverba n k after a drunken party. Floa ting pas t
on the stream of consciousness are her rela tionships with parents,
brother, husband , o ther men, chil dren, as she asks, "Wha t do I want
from the parlia ments of the world?" Purs uing an a nswer to this
portento us q ues tion, she has already tri ed everything from taking
lovers to taking classes. T he stronges t elemen t in the novel is a comic
awareness, alas LOO fli ckering, of the absurdity inherent in a LOO
del ibera te ques t. Lexie's brother, James, for instance, neatly clo bbers a
feminine poeti c genre to which she shows da ngerous signs of contrib–
uting: " ... they' ll hang their damp psyches out to dry anywhere."
Lexie herself crisply severs her connection with a univers ity semina r, in
which unsa tisfied women "are try ing on life like a new hat" and
writing essays on "whale cha uvinism in
Moby
Dick."
With continuing
impartia lity she quits the "cloisters of women"; conscientiously di stin–
guishes between the personal and the fema le, the adventuro us and the
"erogenous"; concl udes tha t " happiness is androgyno us." Her hus–
band, Ray, coming home from a tra nsforming illness in Spain, is
permitted his own r ite (right?) of pa sage, whil e his bio logical disqua l–
ifica tions for undertaking it a re sympa theticall y recognized : " Nor can
one expect him to report himself with the exac titude tha t his wife
reports herself."
Nevertheless, we can expect more exactitude from Ms. Calisher in
the reponing of Ray (a nd in the grammar of tha t sentence) tha n we
actually get. Ray, J ames, the class teacher Plaut, are no t onl y seen as
inadequa te before Lex ie's complexity, but inadequa tely seen in com–
parison with the loving a ttenti on lav ished on each quive r o f her
psyche, not to mentio n o ther parts. De p ite the fl ashes o f wit and irony
that lighten Lex ie's obscure, tortuo us search for an identity tha t will
encompass body, mind, housework, work, motherhood (we're all
behind you, girl ), the humorl ess monstros ity of her concentra tion
upon herself, and her creaLOr's u pon her, becomes more and more
apparent:
A pot of roses fl owers between her legs, thorns a nd all. Far above it,
eight feet taller and in another cl imate, fl oa ts tha t simpleton coco-
