A Fossil
The Ecstasy of Owen Muir.
by Ring Lardner, Jr.
Cameron & Kahn. 302 pp. $3.00.
Mr. Lardner’s novel was published in England before it was published in America, by a reputable firm, and, if the quotes on the jacket can be trusted, it was well reviewed in the Manchester Guardian, the London Times, and other sober and discriminating journals. In this country it was published by a company that no one would be published by who could be published by anybody else, and, so far as I can make out, has scarcely been reviewed at all.
The discrepancy can easily be explained. First, Mr. Lardner, a successful script writer prior to 1947, was one of the “Hollywood Ten,” serving nine and a half months in a Federal penitentiary for refusing to answer the questions of a Congressional committee investigating Communist influences in the motion picture industry, and this is a matter that seems more serious to American publishers and editors than it does to their British counterparts. Second, the book criticizes the Catholic Church in an outspoken, detailed, and rather vulgar way, and the Church is very powerful in the United States.
If the book does not merit the praise it has received in England, it is certainly worthy of critical attention. Even its anti-Catholicism, objectionable as it sometimes is in form, presents a challenge in substance, for it compels a critic to sort out his views on the Church. I, for instance, cannot deny Mr. Lardner’s charges that there are irrationalities in the Church’s views on marriage and birth control, that the Church has encouraged superstitiousness, that within the Church there are reactionaries of a frightening kind. On the other hand, some of my closest friends are Catholics, and I see in them few if any of the traits Mr. Lardner chooses to pillory. Furthermore, I find myself in agreement with much that I read in Catholic books and periodicals. I conclude therefore, that even if some of what Mr. Lardner says is true, he is a long way from the whole truth.
But perhaps I had better tell what the book is about. The leading character is the misfit son of a reactionary businessman. Turned into the paths of dissent, he becomes a pacifist and in 1942 goes to prison rather than register for the draft. But in prison he impulsively employs violence to save a Negro from an avowed fascist, and, having thus involuntarily convinced himself of the fallaciousness of pacifist theory, volunteers for combat duty. After being wounded in an act of unrecognized heroism, he is discharged from the army, and then is forced into business by his father.
At this point Owen falls in love with April Wykoff. There are two obstacles to their marriage: she is currently living with a Communist organizer by the name of Gene Couto, and she is a Catholic. The first problem is disposed of when April expresses a preference for Owen and dismisses Gene. The second does not seem too difficult, for April’s Catholicism is of a flexible sort, but again Owen’s passion for consistency complicates matters. Unwilling to promise that his children will be brought up in the faith unless he is certain they ought to be, he begins to study Church doctrine. He is quickly converted and, of course, becomes exactly the kind of fanatic April is not. He wrecks their marriage when he refuses to sanction an abortion that may be necessary to save April’s life.
Owen also has political troubles. As a matter of conscience he becomes active in an organization of Catholic veterans and is present at the Peekskill riot of 1949, where he is shocked by the violence of the veterans and the connivance of the police. He receives a second shock when Gene Couto, who turns out to be a secret agent of the FBI, testifies against his own mother, although he was the one who recruited her into the Communist party. For a time Owen tries to take up arms against the injustices he has been forced to recognize, but the effort is too much for him and he enters a Trappist monastery.
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At first it appears that Mr. Lardner is writing a book about a young man who tries to make his actions conform to his beliefs. This is a device that writers, from Voltaire to Thornton Wilder, have used to satirize the pretensions and expose the hypocrisies of their societies, and a very effective device it can be. But after a time one perceives that Mr. Lardner has something else in mind, and, in fact, he warns the reader of this in a statement appearing on the jacket: “The shining horizon of man’s destiny is shrouded in a fog of mystical obscurantism. I have chosen in this book to deal with a character so hopelessly lost in that fog that he makes his way into the past instead of the future.” In short, the trouble with Owen Muir, from the author’s point of view, is not that he tries to live according to the ideas he adopts but that he adopts the wrong ideas.
What the book is really about is fascism and how not to fight it. I know how implausible such a summary must sound, but it can be documented. Owen’s father is not merely a narrow-minded, money-mad, Roosevelt-hating businessman; he is privately in complete agreement with Hitler. The Catholic Church, as Owen observes it, is full of fascists. Gerald Mulvaney, the self-styled fascist whom Owen slugs in the penitentiary, turns up as an employee of a Catholic veterans’ organization. Monsignor Frasso, who seems to bear a considerable resemblance to Fulton J. Sheen, defends the Peekskill riot, justifying the use of fascist methods in the fight against Communism. Business, the Church, the army, and the government, as seen by Mr. Lardner, are riddled with fascism.
Aside from April, who is a special case, the only attractive character in the book is Mrs. Couto, a member of the Communist party. After she has been framed by her son, Owen goes to a meeting to raise funds for her defense. The principal speaker denounces American aggression in Korea, cites examples of “rampant fascism,” and calls for a militant struggle to “prevent the subverters of democracy from launching total war against the peace-loving peoples of Asia and Eastern Europe.” Owen realizes that exactly opposite views are held by millions of Americans, and he decides that, in order to act effectively, a man must choose one side or the other. It is a decision he cannot make, and that is why he ends up in a monastery.
If Mr. Lardner means that one has to choose between the Communist view of the world situation and the American view as presented in this book, then perhaps we shouldn’t blame Owen for becoming a Trappist. But it is not certain that he does mean exactly that, for there is the problem of April. She is a loyal Catholic, but this does not stop her from using her own mind. She stands by her friends, whatever their politics, but she professes no fondness for Communism. She seems as incapable of being a fanatical Communist as she is of being a fanatical Catholic, and yet she is the chief object of the author’s admiration.
What I am suggesting is that the book, in Mr. Lardner’s mind, may not be a piece of Communist propaganda but a recommendation of a position somewhere between the two extremes as he conceives them. But one cannot be sure of this, for he still sees both Russia and America through eyes that were conditioned by long years of loyalty to the Communist cause. (This I conclude from the book itself, not from personal knowledge.) He has a real satirical gift, and there are many scenes based on acute observation, but when he attempts to explain the significance of the events he is describing, he makes it clear that he is living in a world of fantasy.
How, then, does it happen that the Times Literary Supplement could describe the book as “an admirable blend of righteous indignation and cool observation”? I can understand why British reviewers may take satisfaction in reading about America’s shortcomings, but I am surprised that so many critics failed to see this book for what it is—a fossil. Here, wonderfully preserved into the 50’s, are the attitudes of the 30’s. Fascism is still rampant, and the United Front is on the march for the preservation of peace and democracy. The Catholic Church is still fighting the war in Spain. And Russia is still the future that works. Time has stood still for Mr. Lardner, and the failure of British reviewers to recognize that fact is perplexing and mildly disturbing.
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