Page 8--Sunday, October 16, 1977--The Michigan Daily
the Michigan Daily-Sund
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/
BRID-GE ken parsigian
Sex and cold
cuts:*It's .DeVries
By Jeffrey Selbsti
T HE MASTER of wacky comedy
is back, with a slightly subdued
but nonetheless devastating opus.
DeVries, who imbues logical se-
quences with an extrapolative mad-
ness, has returned to tell the story of
repressed free-lance writer Bob
Swirling.
As the book opens, we see Swirling
caught'up in what psychiatrists call a
"fugue" (a state from which a
subject will later emerge, with no
conscious recognition of what oc-
curred during that time), prowling
about the grounds of Silver Slopes
sanitarium, under the care of a Dr..
Josko. Swirling is under the delusion
that he is Groucho Marx.
How he came to be there under
such a delusion is the subject of
Madder Music. The book traces Swir-
ling through a number of entangle-
ments - marriage to prim Enid, who
wants an "open" marriage and
finally cannot forgive Swirling for
forgiving her for something she
didn't do in the first place; marriage
to Becky Tingle, who brings her
witty, effete brother Pomfret to live
with them and ends up in an
incestuous affair; an affair with
Pauline, a beautiful black militant
who forces him to the ideological wall
- or wants to THINK she has.
Swirling's troubles really begin
when he runs across Enid's note of
condolence to a.recently-widowed
friend. By coincidence, both Swirling.
and the deceased hail from Kalama-
zoo; consequently Swirling thinks
he's run across his own eulogy.
Believing that he has little time left,
he decides to have flings. On the way,
he perfects his Groucho impersona-
tion, conceived for charity benefits
that he never seems to attend.
As always, the side characters in
DeVries' stories have the best lines.
Pomfret, for instance, spouts off on
theater ("With a little more work out
of town this could have been
whipped into a bit of inconsequential
fluff"), food ("There are few things
more degrading to the human spirit
than Brussels sprouts"), art (The
Night Watch is eleven inches too
wide") and psychoanalysis ("A per-
sistent appetite for cold cuts is
almost certainly indicative of latent
necrophilia.")
1D EVRIES' caricatures are fierce.
Swirling's father, a church-elder,
is angling to move in with his son.
Swirling pere lives in an old-folks
home which, by dint of his church
membership, costs Swirling fils only
$25 per week. Non-church members
pay $200. Fils, drawn into theological
argument (as usual) by pere, con-
See DeVRIES, Page 9
Jeffrey Selbst is the Daily Arts
Editor.
AS THE MATCH went into the last
round. Steve was finally breathing
easy. His team had been heavily
favored, but was trailing by 2200 points'
at the half-way mark. Mark's team had
been incredibly lucky, and at times
seemed on the verge of putting it all
away. But the superior skill and ex-
perience of Steve's team began to sur-
face, and they picked away at Mark's
lead throughout the second half.
Finally, on the penultimate hand of the
match, Steve's team took the lead for
the first time (by 500 points), and ap-
peared to be headed for victory.
As they picked up their cards for the
hand that would decide the match, I
thought back to the origin of this
strange challenge event.
,It all started some two months ago,
when Steve was launching into another
of his daily attacks on Mark's admit-
tedly limited bridge playing abilities.
"If I'd known you were planning to
misplay the hand so badly I'd have
stopped in 4 hearts instead of 6," Steve
moaned. "How could you have finessed
for the club queen when the club
diamond squeeze was marked on the
bidding? You might as well simply toss
cards out of your hand at random-if
you're lucky you might pull the right
card, but given a chance to think about
it you'll surely go awry."
None of us at the club was unduly
disturbed by this diatribe since we had
come to expect suoh behavior whenever
Steve and Mark play together. But the
usually complacent Mark was deeply
offended by the verbal assault, and he
lashed back at his peremptory partner.
"This time you've gone too far,"
screamed a rattled Mark. Most of us
are used to your antics, and we tolerate
your pomposity only because you are
such a fine player. But there are a few
players, myself included, for whom you
hold particular enmity, and for us your
vituperations are much less than
tolerable."
We were all taken aback by Mark's4
uncharacteristically stinging repartee,
and while we sat there stunned, he con-
tinued.
"I've discussed the matter with Jim,
Bruce, and Greg, and we all agree that
something must be done. We demand a
chance to defend our honor."
"Are you suggesting," Steve
snickered, "that I duel each of you
separately?"
"No" Mark replied calmly. "I
propose a bridge match to settle our dif-
ferences. My friends and I challenge
you and any three teammates you
choose to a team match, the winner to
be determined by total points over 48
hands."
And that was the origin of today's
contest, which was rapidly approaching
its climax.
I was seated behind Steve, whose par-
tner was Frank-a fine player with
considerable tournament experience.
Their opponents at their table were
Mark and Greg while in the other room
Jim and Bruce squared off against
Mike and Alan-a well-seasoned pair
that was consistently in the running for
top tournament honors.
Steve, North, was the opening bidder,
and picked up this hand:
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clubs with a five-card spade suit,
but'he was feeling mischievous on this
final hand, and he decided to throw a
wrench in the works by psyching 1
heart. Mark passed, and Frank raised
to 2 hearts. Greg cue bid 3 hearts to
show a big hand, and after Steve
passed, Mark bid 4 hearts. Frank
doubled, and Greg paused to consider
Greg grimaced when he caught sight
of dummy, but there was no way to
change the contract now, so played to
give himself the best chance. He won
the spade lead with the queen, cashed
the king and ace of spades, and led the
six of spades to Steve's seven. But
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American black
SONG OF SOLOMON
By Toni Morrison
Afred A. Knopf, 333 pp.
$8.95
T THE NOVEL'S end, Pilate Dead
is sixty-eight years old. She has
endured. She is a country woman id the
city. While she has made a home for
herself which would not be considered
comfortable by most standards, it more
than meets her needs. As a bootlegger,
she has, without a husband or son-in-
law, raised a daughter and grand-
daughter. They live, in a word,
primitively, disdaining all modern con-
veniences. Pilate's family lives "pretty
much like progress was a word that
meant walking a little bit further down
the road."
Macon Dead is four years her senior.
After Pilate and Macon witness their
father's murder, they soon part ways.
He moves to Michigan. Macon begins to
buy up housing in the slums, marries
into a respected, yellow-skinned family
and fathers three children. His son
describes him as a man "who acquired
things and used people to acquire
things," a man who loved property to
an excess. Perhaps not surprising, sin-
ce Macon's father was killed over a
, land "dispute": "he distorted life, bent
A~i ianesreg. of. kwsnatdrig
By Frank James
father's death." Macon marks time by
the. number of keys he has at a par-
ticular moment; he remembers that he
had two keys when he courted his wife.
His son is "deep" and his daughters
"dry." Blackfolks around town refer to
his only-on-Sunday Packard his
hearse. He fits his surname as well as
can be imagined.
Macon and Pilate represent two sides
of the same persona. Toni Morrison's
Song of Solomon beautifully illustrates
the schizophrenia that accompanies
being black in America, through
characterizations of the brother/sister.
Macon's son, Milkman, is awed when
he first meets Pilate, to finally encoun-
ter someone who can physically and
mentally stand eyeball-to-eyeball with
his father. The similarities are over-
whelming; the differences are equally
obvious. Pilate, unlike her brother, is
very much alive. She is overflowing
with love and generosity and demon-
strates no use for uniecessary zi1ateripl
goods. Because she refuses . to coir-
passed between her and Macon for the
better part of fifty-five years.
Morrison compares, contrasts and
plays these two halves off of each other
as they engage in a psychological tug of
war over Milkman's soul.
THE NARRATIVE picks up the day
before Milkman's birth in 1931 and
progresses quickly through his early
life, while at the same time flashbacks
show glimpses of how Macon Dead
climbed the socio-economic ladder. '
Herein lies one very glaring
weakness in the movement of the novel,
that essentially the reader is not given a
sense of the time and community.
Various dates-1931, '45, '53, '63-are all
marked, but with little more than a per-
functory mention of famous names and
events. The question which remains
unanswered throughout the novel's first
part is, where, in what type of city, is all
of this happening? There is never any
exposure to elements outside of the cen-
tral characters; one wondersif all-offth'-
As Milkman grows older he apparen-
tly grows no wiser, at least until his
thirty-second birthday, when he sud-
denly decides that he doesn't want to be
his father's office boy for the rest of his
life. He must choose between carrying
on in his father's footsteps and sear-
ching for something more substantial,
though less tangible than real estate.
Up to this point he has allowed others to
make decisions for him, and has only
reluctantly taken responsibility for
preserving his own life. His buddy
Guitar says that everybody wants a
nigga's life; Milkman has been more
than happy to accommodate anyone
who wants a piece of his.,
Disturbing to Milkman is the fact that
he is his father's son. And despite his
superficial attempts:to mark, differen-
ces, the similarities between the two
become frighteningly real to him. Not
only is he practically reliving his
father's work experiences, but he also
has his father's desire for yellow, near-
white women. And in a very effective,
almost eerie passage, lie speaks of
Macon Dead in the same terms with
which his father would have described
See MORRISON, Page 9
the bidding. Surely, he reasoned,
Mark's heart bid didn't show hearts
(after all, the opponents had bid and
raised that suit), so he must be cue
bidding toward a slam, and promising
the other major suit (spades). Since his
partner had to have spades for his bid,
Greg decided to set spades as the trump
suit by bidding 4 spades. He expected
Mark would now show the club ace if he
had it, and they would wind up in either
6 or 7 spades. But Mark had different
ideas. He passed, and Frank doubled,
and now it was up to Greg again. He
still didn't consider the possibility of
Steve having psyched, so he continued
to place his partner with a shortness in
hearts. Since Mark had passed, Greg
assumed that he had almost no points,
but had good distribution, and simply
wanted to play in the best game con-
tract. Since 4 spades requires one lessr
trick than game in- the minors, Greg
decided he was probably in the best
spot, and unabashedly he passed.
Jeff lead the spade jack, and these
were-the four hands:
ticipation of a big set, suddently stop-
ped since he realized the contract was
now unbeatable. He could cash one
more trump trick, and the club ace, but
since he couldn't get to Frank's hand,
Greg would take the remainder in the
minor suits to make his doubled game.
- "Nice play, partner," said Mark. "I
knew from the start, of course, that
Steve's heart bid was fictitious, but
there was nothing I could do but pass on
the first round. When you cue bid 3
hearts, I thought you probably had a
heart void, but even if I had three losers
in the heart suit, there was still a chance
for 4 hearts, so I bid it. When you bid 4
spades, I pictured you with a long solid
suit, and since I knew 5 hearts would be
defeated, I took a chance that 4 spades
would make."
STEVE, WHO WAS fuming, was about
to launch into a sob story of how
unlucky he had been, when Frank in-
terrupted him.
"Actually," said Frank, "we could
have murdered this hand if you'd only
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