Page Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, October 13, 1974 BOO KS ROMANTIC TRIANGLE Murdoch's gothic novel of the evil forces in possessive love STREET FICTION PRESS A local little magazine of some repute becomes a book, ANON THE SACRED AND PRO- FANE LOVE MACHINE, by Iris Murdoch. New York: Viking Press, 374 pp., $8.95 By MARTY HAIR T FIRST, the situation seems innocent enough. Here is the familiar love triangle, the story of husband, wife and mis- tress and the personal hells evoked by their intertwined re- lationships. It might have con- tinued innocent; but in the hands of British novelist Iris Murdoch, the situation takes a turn for the surreal and de- monic. Once The Sacred and Profane Love Machine shifts UA W WLL ecasear AY AWILSSA ! tteQ A G Ok. QUAR~IAN IG Tt AS' PAUL !Q COMMi5OrtfP -Pd. Pol. Adv. into gear, the book's characters are torn apart by their own perversities. The story begins at Hood House where hack psychothera- pist Blaise Gavender lives with his wife, Harriet, and their teenage son, David. It is an average, quiet, bourgeois house- - hold. However, author Murdoch soon reveals that the Hood House calm is deceptive. Blaise is suffering from guilt, stem- e ming from his dual life of the past nine years. While dull un- ademanding Harriet has been en- sees Luca standing in her gar- den, a nightmarish sign of Blaise's other life. Luca isn't the only dream- ghost in the novel. Murdochr gives us Sophie, the dead wife of Gavender's next-door neigh- bor, Montague Small, still; hauntingly present in her hus- band's mind. Monty Small, the demon of the novel, is a writer of detective thrillers, and the, hero of his writing, Milo Fame, one - even the readers. Monty is Small's alter-ego. Fane is is mysteriously bewitching, characterized as "a remorse- making characters easy prey less killer who never smiles." for the love machine's destruc- 4 i I i .: i f . It I ANON 1974; edited by War- ren Jay Hecht. Ann Arbor: Street Fiction Press; 94 pages, $3. By DON KUBIT I OR THE last seven years ANON, an anthology of fic- tion and poetry, has been an outlet for local writers. Sup- ported by local businesses and friends, the editor, Warren Jay Hecht, somehow managed to scrape together the necessary1 resources each year in the typi- cal "little magazine" tradition. Sold on the Diag and in local bookstores, ANON attracted enough attention to subsist. It may now be ready to thrive. finger in this socket and then stepping into this tub of water But that's the easy way out The hard way is to go on plowing through the happi- ness The goddam no money en- ergy crisis deformed child happiness Hecht believes "Japan" may be one of the most important poems Clark has written and compares it to his earlier, widely - acclaimed, work in "Stones". j AGREE WITH his appraisal and would only add that it was an excellent choice with THE LATTER alone is worth the price of ANON 1974. Since ANON 1974 is an an- thology it offers a variety of writers and styles. It can be read as a unit or left on the coffeetable to be tasted at one's leisure. The misconception that ANON was in some way connected with the University should be dispelled. This is not an aca- demic anthology of struggling young writers trying to per- fect their art, but a collection of professional writing, edited and produced by professionals. d :s - is 00 There IS a df . difference!!! I PREPARE FOR: 0 RMRFR Over35years * : MCAT oferxperience * AT and success Small classes LSAT Voluminous home GRE study materials ATGSB Courssta't : * 111110 constantly updated* " IcATP Tape facilities for : *" reviews of class * 0 f f7 lessons and foruse 0 *" Dn of supplementary * FLEX materialsfo : ECFMG mssssons SAT'. MED OS THOUSANDS HAVE s * RAISED THEIR SCORESwi a *te (or call:oS **" 00 , EDUCATIONAL CENTER** T TEST EPAAO s s SO-01CIALISTS SINCE 138 Banches in Major U S Cities joying their perkect" mar- HARRIET ADMITS that "love riage, Blaise has been keeping (is) itself the madness," his mistress, Emily McHugh, troubling everyone and leading and their eight-year-old son, them to commit strange crimes Luca, in a London flat. Harriet against each other. Blaise, the is too trusting; her opposite, "clumsy, greedy egoist," is en- Emily, is an emotional vol-c d byMonty to form cano. She makes Blaise's life IHarriet about Emily and to pray unpredictable and exciting. She for his wife's forgiveness. He is his "dark goddess." somehow yearns to be able to Deciding the deception must I carry on both parts of his life. end, Blaise tells Harriet about Blaise reasons that Harriet will his other life. The barrier be- not reject him. "If he hurt his tween the two worlds is first finger she sympathized, so why broken by Luca, an intense and not now?" Harriet responds by withdrawn boy, resented by his revealing her feelings to Emily mother as "a ceaseless dark and Luca. She not only wants mysterious pain." One suffo- to meet them; she wants to cating summer night, Harriet possess them, to swallow their lives. Blaise "had hoped per- haps for an angel's kindness, but he had not anticipated an angel's power." He is as trap- ped now as he was before. Em- A ily, who had badgered Blaise to leave Harriet, now wants re- HALLOW EEN venge and justice for the emo- tional wrongs she has suffered PARTY for nine years. ! Monty himself is the concert- AT master of the macabre situa- tion. He is the villanous devil's "" -- +--- advocate, convincing each char- acter to hurt the others. His powers thrive oncethewins trust, and he has it from every- tion. SHE TERROR EVOLVES from love turning good into bad, innocent into wicked. Da- vid, for example, had been a child on the verge of aware- ness, "a creature in metamor- phosis trailing a half-discarded form," before knowledge of Blaise's double life. "I am only a child," he wails. "How can they do this to me?" Luca, with his sardonic smile, watches over the action and dis- integration around him. He is open only with Harriet, who tries to steal him from Emily. The Sacred and Profane Love' Machine takes readers to an edge of reality where wicked- ness threatens to overwhelm them. Murdoch suggests that the worst, which is about to ! happen, inevitably will. Particu- larly in the surprise ending, the story is told with a sense of glee and quiet violence; and in the rest of the novel, the lives of Harriet and Emily with Blaise, and Monty's revelations, are juxtaposed for maximum im- pact. As the lives of these weird characters unfold, Murdoch dis- plays her fluid, poetic and vivid Estyle. With its full images and un- predictable plot, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine en- joyably picks up where normal love tales leave off - as the emotional destruction begins. Love is suffocating and unmer- ciful, Murdoch says; but it is life. Still, there is the sense that while the book's demons lower their masks, Murdoch is cackling as we recognize our- selves. ANON 1974 is published by which to begin Anon 1974. Street Fiction Press, a local Among the other poetry con- publishing company comprised tributors are Marge Piercy, An- of artists and, writers whose drew Carrigan, and Richard professionalism is best exempli- E. McMullen, whose "Chicken fied in "Periodical Lunch." Beacon" is a fable reminiscent Consequently, ANON 1974 has of Aesop. the charisma of other Street Fiction Press publications - it Two of my favorites in this is a professional product. And collection are by local writers: since Street Fiction Press now "The Girl Can't Help It", a has national distribution, the poem about Jayne Mansfield ambiguous (often demeaning) and the 50's by Hopwood win- tag "little magazine" can be ner Steve Schwartz, and a ser- dropped. ANON 1974 is a book. ies of prose poems by Ellen Zweig entitled "The Dwelling ANON 1974 WILL be available beginning Tuesday, October 15. Support it. Enjoy it. Don Kukt is a free-lance writer liring nii Ann Arbor. 114 E. WASHINGTON Downtown Location Thurs., Oct. 31 WEAR A COSTUME There will be PRIZES & DANCING i BROWSE THE CHI LDREN'S BOOK, GAME & TOY DEPT. on FOLLETT'S SECOND FLOOR State Street End of Dias ("ONTRIBUTORS i n c I u d e both local and nationally- known writers. Together their works form a literary antholo-' gy of diversity and finesse. The first selection in ANON 1974 is "Japan", a long poem by: Tom Clark, poetry editor of the Paris Review and a University alumnus. "Japan" is a metaphysical poem and in it Clark deals with the contradictions and complexi- ties of life: I keep getting the feeling Only a man who lives in the present is happy For in life in the present there is no death There is only a pulled groin muscle An electric heater A radio ad for pool table sale priced at $18.88 A BSORBED in thoughts of death, there is the psycho- logical analysis of emotions: I can make myself indepen- dent of fate by putting my pro~t41'd ZA1OULTZ P iL LsL CANCER PCt1~e~tc K1 THO {S Solc, o VS (otCVMMLSkOIR Pod. uPCI. Ad -d. Pol. Adv. Poems", about homes and childhood memories: "WHEN I AM chased in my dreams by a highly or- ganized conspiracy, it is to the backyards of my childhood that I run for safety." There is a wide range of fic- tion here from the experiment- al styles of Tom Raworth, "There Are Few People Who' Put Qn Any Clothes (Starring 'It')" and Peter Anderson's' "The Call" to the book's final selection "The Parish Priest" by Arturo Vivante. Readers may recall Vivante from his pieces in New Yorker and "The Parish Priest" has the same sort of controlled style Vivante is known for. ]MARGE PIERCY contributes, a story about a Christian with a Harley - Davidson who has a transfusion in "God's Blood." My favorites of the fiction selections are "Religious Vi- sions Produced by Dangerous Brain" by Tom Veitch - a hitchhiker's tale expertly in- tertwined with historical events of the day; and "An American my mind is not with people sealed tight in heated houses it longs for winter to come and cover the earth with snow to see tree limbs bare and black outlined against a grey sky. tall and proud they challenge it come, let loose your storms try to bury us in snow, break us in two with cold but when spring comes we will be here still ready to watch the snow around us melt to feel the earth at our roots unthaw. i also wont to prove my strength, to cry i have survived your freezing inhuman cold (even gloried in it) enjoyed your many feet of snow seen the beauty of your northern lights watched the days slowly die then be born again. -Joanne Smith Mtart), hir is Aa raa'uale stu- dient in Jou rnali.sm-n ,al Ci i I SGC ELECTION - 15, 16, 17 OCTOBER REFORM1Platform STUDENT GOVERNMENT COUNCIL, the central student government at UM, can be on ef- fective tool for action on student concerns and matters of importance to the community. Before Carl Sandberg and Reddix Alien took office as President and Executive Vice-President last January, SGC was plagued by financial irresponsibility, racism, mismanagement, and in- activity on issues of true concern to the students on campus. Since January the internal opera- tina structure of SGC has been totally revised, several legal cases have been initiated to re- cover student monies allegedly misused by former officers, a financial accountability system has been implemented, operating costs have been reduced, action has been taken on student organizations issues (especially defeating the Administration proposal for direct Univer- sity control of student organization finances), and SGC's ability to act effectively on matters of student concern has been restored. Under the Sandberg-Allen leadershp, SGC is now ready to tackle maior issues on the student body's behalf. The REFORM slate headed by the Sandberg-Allen ticket, will support or initiate action in the following areas: SGC FINANCES - * Honest and efficient management of student gcvernment finances and frequent financial reports to the student body. # Continued legal action for recovery of student funds allegedly misused by former SGC officers BLACK CONCERNS - 0 12 percent Black admission and maintenance of this level of enrollment. " Increased hiring of Black employees by the University. " Elimination of clauses on the financial aid affidavit which we believe are in violation of the aid recipient's constitutional rights. WOMEN'S CONCERNS - r Continuation and expansion of women's programs on campus, including additional funding for the Women's Advocate, establishment of University-funded Child Care Centers, and in- creased Women's Studies programs. STUDENT'S OWN FINANCES - * Student government action on financial issues affecting a student's own wallet. Work to- ward the establishment of programs such as (a) Yale University-style deferred tuition plan, (b) tax deduction of college expenses, (c) bicycle and liability insurance, (d) better apartment insurance, (e) clarification of Health Service billing procedures, and (f) changing dorm meal contract system to give residents the right NOT to eat in dorm cafeterias. p Opposition to further dorm rate increases and recent cutbacks in quality and quantity of dorm services; Initiation of a comprehensive investigation of massive waste of Housing funds (such as spending $240,000 on converting two dorm cafeterias from a working meal-line sys- tem to a questionable one which eliminates student jobs). * Work toward the establishment of an SGC-sponsored STUDENT TEXTBOOK LOAN AND GRANT SCHOLARSHIP FUND, which could be funded by concerts of popular performers (also providing students with campus-wide weekend activities). * Petitioning the State Legislature to increase appropriations to UM in order to prevent further tuition increases. ECOLOGICAL ADVOCACY - * Environmental alternatives programs; informing the Midwestern colleges of corrective meas- ures and promoting conservation principles within the University's jurisdiction. UNIVERSITY RELATIONS - A For the Office of Student Services, work to establish an Asian-Advocate Office, increase the funding of the Minority Advocates well past their recently cut budget levels, make Student Services more responsive to the needs and problems of students, and stop actions taken by that office against the autonomy of student organizations. * Support the election of a Student Regent, and the seating of the SGC President, ex officio, at all open and closed Regents sessions. * Careful study of the Regents Commission to Study Student Governance report and other proposals for restructuring central student government, and opposition to administration interference with student government. * Active support for the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) in their current negolations with the University, WITHOUT AN INCREASE IN TUITION. PROGRAMS FOR SGC - 0 We oppose the ballot question to eliminate the Legal Advocate Program from SGC. Legal services available to sudents should be increased-not decreased l ® Publication of a comprehensive course and faculty evaluation booklet written by students for students. * Establishment of a non-partisan student electoral commission for all student elections. AND, ABOVE ALL, communication with the student body to enable the central student govern- men to act rapidly and effectively on matters of student concern as they arise throughout the school year. REFORM slate for STUDENT GOVERNMENT COUNCIL ISc WILL RPfECT ~beoe ey e HOULTZ SNE rIecepie*\/Ie. eSo 45ARR4 ' lRYWiF COMMl5S1QNE .II* A - os-- -Pd. Pol. Adv. Cent jeore Frameshop 336 MAYNARD COMPLETE SELECTION OF FRAMES Modern Traditional Art Deco Metals Woods Matting Dry-Mounting Custom-Made Ready-Made 100'S & 100'S TO CHOOSE FROM We Offer Expert and Imaginative Help in Framing Anything To Its Best Advantage. OUR PRICES ARE THE LOWEST EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF STUDENT LIFE PRESENTS WAR 0 I U U uiitk VniukI l~u.oc*c D i: fl WrIflWAflNM I 0 with Cnari-21 Rnactc R F n ou nINam 1