Page Four I HE MICHIGAN DAILY ijndav Onctober. 13 ;wrnrn"n-nmmmm..PRESENT THIS COUPON..w-amm-- ----. I1 ISUPER ARBY'S FRENCH FRY LARGE COKE ONLY X1.5OPLUSTAX *GOOD ONLY AT ARBY'S OF MD ANN ARBOR YPSILANTIMD WASHTENAW AVE. WASHTENAW AVE. 112 mile west of Arborland Across from K-Mart near Golfside u ----- ------OFFER EXPIRES NOVEMBER 30, 1973-.""...u-.... The Rackham Student Government is now soliciting applications for the graduate student positions on graduatet school & SGC committees THESE COMMITTEES INCLUDE: Program Evaluation (1 GRAD STUDENT) Dissertation & Independent Research (1 GRAD CANDIDATE STATUS) Distinguished Service Awards (1 GRAD STUDENT) Training in Teaching (1 GRAD, TA OR FORMER TA) SGC Election Rules (1 GRAD STUDENT) SGC Permanent Interviewer Board (1 GRAD STUDENT) ' .y r~ rrV V, ' SjV V'Vr.1 L(.Tl. 1111 i 4 BIVO UAC ARMY-NAVY SURPLUS 518 E. William ON CAMPUS "Ascente ' Prime Goose Down Coats.. . $48.50 Air Force Parka $49.99 (10 oz. regulation fill) Air Force Parka $27.00 oz. fill) BOOKS VIDAL'S BURR Power-lust destroys principal: Were politicians ever moral? I Pea Coats . $25.00 BURR: A NOVEL by Gore Vi- dal. Random House, New York; 430 pages, $8.95. By ADAM SIMMS AARON BURR is a fascinating subject for a political novel about the early American repub- lic. His reputation is second only to that of Benedict Arnold as an archetypal traitor in American history, and yet most of us know little about him. He looms in the background of our history texts like a Miltonic Lucifer-assassin of Hamilton, would-be usurper of Jefferson's presidency, pretender to a throne over the western Unit- ed States and Mexico - a man driven by a dark lust for power who, if he could not be first in his own country, would reign over an empire of his own creation. And Gore Vidal is one of our most consistently interesting and imaginative contemporary writ- ers, whose plays and novels are a chronicle of America's changing social (The Pillar and the City, Myra Breckenridge) and political (The Best Man, Reflections on a Sinking Ship) climate since the Second World War. Given this conjuction of writer and subject one might reasonably expect that Vidal's Burr would be a noteworthy commentary on contemporary American mores. It, is - frighteningly so. BURR portrays the last three years of that man's life, 1833-1836, when he had achieved the status of an embarrassing political relic: a man without personal power, yet with a name and reputation that were both feared and used by men schem- ing to defeat Martin Van Buren's bid for'the presidency. Charles Schuyler, a neophyte literary journalist trying to establish his own reputation by writing occa- sional pieces for the politically powerful Democratic New York Evening Post, is sent out to gain Burr's confidence and to help the old man write his memoirs. His real mission, however, is to ferret out damaging proof for the ru- mor that Burr is Van Buren's true father. Should the link be made, the editors could tie the "Sly Fox" to the traitor Burr, and thus ruin Van Buren's ca- reer. The plot, therefore, is ad- mirably constructed to enable Vi- dal to recreate the inner political ------ - - ----- history of the American Repub- lic's first fifty years - from the Revolution to the Age of Jackson -using the devices of Burr's (fictional) memoirs and Schuy- ler's involvement in the nether- world of presidential politics. The result is revisionist history in ektreme. Burr is but an ambi- tious, though reasonable, man wronged; the Founding Fathers become canting schemers jockey- ing for power. Washington is a broad-hipped, impotent dullard inept on the battlefield but a master of flattery with his su- periors, the men of the Continen- tal Congress. Jefferson, more a sophist than philosopher, is a. hypocrite who defends civil liber- ties when out of power and disre- gards them when, as President, he attempts to destroy his rival, VIDAL Burr. Alexander Hamilton, oddly, is a friendly though powerful op- ponent whose fatal error is not the frustration of Burr's ambi- tions, but rather his libel upon Burr's daughter. Burr will probably be a little slow for those who enjoy his- torical novels, particularly those of the Hornblowers type. Vidal is less interested in historical "color" than he is in the moral landscape of American history and politics, past and present. Judging from this work, that landscape is bleak, indeed. Shin- ing rhetoric all too quickly gives way to tarnished motives, and it is lust for power, not principle, that motivates and sustains po- litical man. GIVEN Gore Vidal's career as a political novelist to date, this is a particularly damning judgement. What gave meaning to the politically defeated hero of The Best Man, Vidal's major po- litical statement of the Fifties- decency in public life and per- sonal conduct - is totally absent in Burr, the author's first novel of the Seventies.tOne cannot help feeling that the shade of Richard Nixon has finally, begun to cast its pall over American letters. Adam Sims is a graduate student in history who wonders at times if he is distantly related to Martin Van Buren and thus, perhaps, to Aaron Burr. aI 4 I New Field Jackets $22.98 Used NEW & NOVEL Grass: History as a grand snail pace Field Jackets Field Jacket Liners $8.95 FROM THE DIARY OF A SNAIL By Gunter Grass, trans- lated by Ralph Manheim. Har- court, Brace and Jovanovich, Inc. New York. 310 pages, $7.95. By JOCK HENDERSON From the Diary of a Snail is another fine one from Gunter Grass which demonstrates the profound conception, bold execu- tion, and original sensibility Grass readers have learned to expect. A Grass book always manages to escape, transcend, . $3.99 Flannel Shirts . $4.99 Positions will be g i v e n to those demonstrating and ridicule traditional miscon greatest interest, experience, or qualifications. ATCER PICKPOCOT, ceptions of what a book can or -eiusPshould be. (To those unacquaint- DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION-OCT. 31 Corduroy Shirts $6.99 JAMES COBURN -- Openings for other committees will be MICHAEL SARRAZIN and regularly publicized TRISH VAN DEVERE in A Theatre phone 662-6264 OPEN DAILY AT 12:45 SHOWS AT i, 3, 5 7, 9PM HELD OVER-3rd HIT WEEK .. . ".DON'T MISS IT! Rated G {1 I F 603 a ibry I CG ANORMAN WISO"m f TNESEVNTHSE L -''''''"*2, JESUS CHRISi Open 12:45 S Igmar Bergman's classic allegory of a man's search for meaning, in life. Shows at 1-3-5-7-9S Antonius Block, a disillusioned knight returning home from the crusades, regmm-n-namoPRESENT TH ICOUPON*---".-------'---" plays a game of chess with death while the black plague ravages medieval Europe. It stars Max Von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand and Bibi Anderson. FRENCH FRY FRENCH FRY ' MONDAY NITE Architecture Aud. DESSERT at 7 and 9:05 Adm.$1 LARGE COKE -- - ---- ---------------COMPLETE MEAL ON LY $1.75 PLUS TAx ." w- 4 GOOD ONLY AT ARBY'S OF MD 2v ANN ARBOR YPSILANTI WASHTENAW AVE. WASHTENAW AVE. . tbf t ?ph mile west of Arborland Across from K-Mart near Golfside r>ku --..-ninin..inOFFER EXPIRES NOVEMBER 30, 1973.inu ..--m---.m Gypsy and an Origial Musical CENTRA L COMM ITT E E A PPL ICAT IONS ACCE PT E D OCT. 23-OCT. 30 ) Pick up applications 2nd floor Union in UA C office FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CALL 763-1107 a. 3,..;$sa.$, @0>-c.. . c"5:,'-<. - -. . , x- . a ____ ____ __-.__. _ _ _ "_ - -__ _ ______ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ______ _ _ _ _ _ - __ _ ___ " ___ _ - . ,'a rr ..,,... .'- , . b h_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ :f:<. -o:c t- :... ...a i.s.'c'r? a %+'w a° - with Grass, I recommend his first and best-known: The Tin Drum.) Gunter Grass is a connoisseur of nightmare, an aesthetic mas- ter of the grotesque crunches and cuts of violence. Born in Germany in 1927, his hair shirt scratches and sweats with mur- dered Jews, too many for the imagination. Grass curses, Grass shrieks and laments the dead. He also acts. Which brings us to the Snailbook: Grass's philoso- phy of action and political in- volvement is a philosophy of his- tory. History is a grand snail pace, the human scene is a snail- scape. B UT LET'S switch from the broad sweep of rapid fire and snipe at a few large targets with single shots: the major components of thebook. THEME: Individual experience, political involvement, and histori- cal change rolled up into a phi- losopy of the snail. STORYTEL- LER, or SITUATED VOICE: Grass speaks throughout, at- tempting to explain to his wife and children why he was away from home so much in 1969, when A BUTTERFIELD THEATRES EXCLUSIVE FOOTBALL WIDOWS NIGHT AT THE MOVIES Every Monday night thru Monday, Dec. 10th Is your husband hypnotized by the TV escapades of the LIONS, Dolphins, etc.? Fly the coop! We welcome "football widows" with special low admission prices and all the popcorn you can eat for 25c. MONDAY NIGHT all Football widows admitted FOR $1. MAKE UP A PARTY of "widows" and attend these Butterfield Theatres STATE-CAMPUS- MICHIGAN & WAYSIDE he was campaigning for the S. P. D. (Social Democratic Party) and Willy Brandt. Be careful now, it is not a book for children. In fact, a good deal of melan- choly develops around Grass's efforts to hold his children's at- tention ("Later, Daddy. It's time for Bonanza .. .'' etc.), and also around the stillborn future which history promises. Heh, heh. STYLE and GENRE: Free variation: novel, memoir, auto- biography, poetry, history, re- portage, and more; fact and fan- tasy, reality and imagination, are blended, not confused, with each other. Note well: this variety does not destroy the overall inte- gration of the book. THE TWO MAIN TEMPORAL THREADS OF THE STORY:eThe first con- cerns an invented character, Iers an Ott (Doubt per- sonified), of Danzig during the '30's. Though not a Jew, others believe that he is because he lives and works in the Jewish com- munity. While treating Doubt's life, Grass intersperses real events and data about the Dan- zig Jews. The secondthread tells of Grass on the campaign trail in 1969, and of a real character named Augst, who committed sui- cide at a public rally where Grass was waiting to speak. The earlier thread shows how terror -and violence rent non- Jew and Jew asunder prior to incarceration, while the contem- porary thread limns shadows and ghosts which leave no doubt: to- day's Germany is indeed the country of yesterday's pogrom. THE PARTICULARS of the story blend and mesh with a framework of general images and aphorisms. A quick look at 4c COPIES ? YES! AT IMPRESS COPY CENTER 524 WILLIAM (in Maynard House) NO GIfMICKS! FAST QUALITY. IBM COPIES ON BOND PAPER. WE SPECIALIZE IN DISERTA- TIONS AND OTHER LARGE OR- DERS WHICH REQUIRE A LOT OF CARE. Denise, Peter and Bob GRASS the doubled characters, fictional Doubt (Ott) and real Augst, will allow us to touch upon the gener- al imagery. Just before the Nazi strong arm is about to grab him, Doubt escapes Danzig and takes cover in a farmhouse basement for the duration of the war. After the war, he becomes a men- tal patient. Augst was an SS officer. After the war, he became a peace de- monstrator, an activist in the ban-the-bomb movement. Augst is (was) a compulsive group par- ticipant, his personality craved the spirit of group unity more than any other. In the long run, however, the harebrained logic and petty motives of groups prov- ed too superficial and meaning- less to fulfill him during peace- time. His last words were, "Now I've got a provocation for you; I salute my comrades of the SS." He then sat down and poisoned himself. The contrast between these characters illustrates the possi- ble extremes of individual/group relations. Doubt withdraws in apathy, Augst plunges in with en- thusiasm. Analogous to, and in conjunction with these two ex- tremes, Grass creates an inten- sive if not exhaustive vision of Melancholv and Utopia in poli- tics and history. MELANCHOLY might be a con- tenuporary woman on the way to the abortionist. Nausea squeez- es vile flavors up from the gas- tric pit: dread breathes raggedly through the chest: vertigo flash- es white and yellow before the eyes. At this melancholy junc- ture, the heart may be too numb to feel any rupture in the will to live. Though it may be the least dismal of alternatives, from what nastiness, from what abyss do such ghastly limits arise? Utopia might be a Jesus-freak "doing" leaflets against abortion on the street. Utopia gushes good Continued on Page 5) You are cordially invited to attend the open- ing of an EXHIBIT OF ISRAELI ART to be held at the B'nai Brith Hillel Foundation, 1429 Hill on Tues., Oct. 30 at 7:00 p.m. .Collections of Lithographs and Silk Screens by fifteen Israeli artists will be on display from- 7-9 p.m. Oct. 30, 31, Nov. 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.j Special programming, including Israeli food and movies will accompany the exhibit.. All profit from the sale of these works will be donated to the Israel Emergency Fund. I The Academy Award Winner You MUST See Again THE WORLD FAMOUS COMMODORE CALCULATORS are now on display at the UNIVERSITY CELLAR Bookstore iMM3-four function with con- stant ................$45.00 *MM3PR - f o u r function with constant, percentage. Recharge- able ................$60.00 *MM2 --- __ fn ri f a u r A-r+r R tAit I 761-9702 7:15,9 I I ?j NOW SHOWING 5:30, "VERY FUNNY. One that will nrnvide erent a, ... .......~- I I rL.w: i ne pIcrure you