ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

so fragmented-some of the narrators are
completely undeveloped-that "Rules"
ends up feeling like endless MTV videos
strung together. There is no story here-
just the depressing flotsam of a spoiled
generation.
While striving to be just as hip, Tama
Janowitz is much less serious than Ellis.
(At least he hasn't made an Amaretto ad
yet.) In fact, she may be the first true "lite"
novelist-all fizz and no substance. Unlike
Ellis, Janowitz creates a bizarre world
without a compelling thread of reality, peo-
pled with characters so flimsy and odd they
might as well be lifted out of an Andy War-
hol movie. Of course, Janowitz has let us
know, over and over again, that she was one
of Andy'sgirls-that wild-and-crazy bunch
that included Edie Sedgwick and Candy
Darling. Now, in the best Warhol tradition,
Janowitz is capitalizing on her 15 minutes
of fame. Her new novel, "A Cannibal in
Manhattan" (288 pages. Crown. $16.95),
isn't actually new at all; it's one of a group

of books she wrote that were never pub-
lished. Riding on the crest of notoriety of
"Slaves," she's recycling her older work.
Abriefplotsynopsiswill, atleast, prepare
the unsuspecting: a cannibal (Mgungu)
comes to New York on the invitation of an
American heiress (Maria Fishburn) who
has fallen in love with him upon seeing his
picture on the cover of Time magazine. A
rather sophomoric mock cover of Time ap-
pears among the photographs, showing a
cannibal with a pen through his nose under
the headline PRIMITIVE RITUALS. Mgungu
tells the story, theoretically through Jano-
witz, according to a "letter" to the publish-
ers in the beginning of the novel.
'Primitive' voice: Unlike Janowitz's zany
downtown artists in "Slaves," Mgungu's
premodern perspective on the world is nei-
ther insightful nor amusing. For example,
his account of his first airplane trip: "Flat-
tened into my seat with fear ... my hand
involuntarily went to my crotch, as if I had
forgotten, although I hadn't, that I was no

longer clad in only a gourd around my penis
and a bunch of teeth around my waist."
Mgungu's misadventures in the big city
cover all the corny things that are supposed
to happen to tourists: he gets kicked by
pedestrians, sprayed with mud by a passing
car and taken for a $189 ride by a New York
cabby. When Mgungu stumbles upon a mu-
tilated body in Fishburn's apartment, his
companion, a dwarf, actually mouths the
boilerplate clich6: "This is New York.
Things like this happen all the time."
If Janowitz intends Mgungu to be an
innocent abroad, bearing witness to the
corruption of advanced civilization, the de-
vice fails miserably. It's too dull and pre-
dictable a moral, and she renders it in an
artless fashion. Her transplanted canni-
bal, with his stilted "primitive" voice, is not
endearing. After nearly 300 pages of
Mgungu-speak, the reader may want to see
Janowitz skewered and served up as some-
body's dinner.
JENNET CONANT

I


4

;hip in "Think
[olsapple sings,
haul, love con-
the long run,
e your fun/In
vo, there stands
In a truly goofy
ranting to visit
e Salt Flats, he
know but Ihear
s hot as hell/
/Very hot and
L that is that / In
The dB's aren't
ke music about
problems of ev-
the humdrum
Fyouandme.It's
Zem back again.
RON GIVENS
SEPTEMBER 1987


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