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Show 2 E The Salt Lake Tribute, Sunday, October 17, 1982 Far ervr from Amtrak Malamud s latest: Chicagos rail history in pictures "Rail City Chicago USA," by George H Douglas; Books, 338 pp , photos, maps. $27.50. Gods Grace Cod' Grace," by Bernard Malamud, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 223 pp., $13 50. Well, man nuked himself, and God was annoyed "They tore apart my ozone, carbonized my oxygen, acidified my refreshing rain." And God sent down a Second Flood to drown all the leftovers except a paleonotologist Calvin Cohn who and the son of a rabbi happened at the time to be at the bottom of the ocean, maybe in a magic barrel. Cohn washes up on a tropical "silence island, without insects bugs me" although the liana the mimosas vines are arm-thicand the oleanders are doing very well, the bougainvillea is a royal purple, and you can brew beer from the bananas and drink it under a boabab tree. To talk to, besides God, there is at first only a young chimpanzee named Buz. Buz can be talked to because a scientist wired him for sound, as well as converting him to Christianity. Monkeyed With Evolution Later on, we will learn Buz's real name, but by then its too late. Cohn will already have "monkeyed with evolution. Cohn's Island becomes Cohn's lot. He and Buz are joined by some chimps, one named Esau and another, with whom Cohn will cohabit, named Mary Madelyn, who is partial to the idea of love as it is expressed in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet. There is also a gorilla named George, with "a talented ear for devotional music": George eats the phonograph record of a cantors singing. To this mixed company will be added an albino ape, some luckless and baboons, a child many reflections on the nature of the universe. In his schooltree," Cohn teaches Kierkegaard and Freud. In his cave, he throws pots and makes masks. In his dreams, where "he feared God more than he loved Him," he cracks excellent jokes. From the "mucilaginous he fashions a herbal pulp, medicine. His Lot looks like a tiny socialist paradise, in which he has Howell-Nort- introduced religion, education, the work ethic, leisure time, history and art. We know Bernard Malamud, of course, and therefore Cohn is gmog to be punished in order to make him a better person. After "reversing his role as a digger of bones in order to bury the skeleton of a child, Cohn has to face the cantors music. After pondering what fiction, in Aesop, La Fontaine, Dr. Dolittlc and "Tales of the Hasidim is all in the first story, God about invented Himself; then somebody spoke a metaphor, and man began to tell tall talcs "to keep his life from washing away Cohn must of kneel, "by the golden dark-ligh- t the fire," with his long white beard, at a bloody altar. Who will say Kaddish? A Little Heavy In his eighth novel Malamud is a little heavy on the symbolic potatoes, not quite the flying Chagall with "violins and lit candles" to whom he is invariably compared by critics who cant quite explain the wings on his fantastic prose. He is more of a Spinoza, asking us to consider Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau. Abraham and Isaac, recombinant DNA and the primal horde. He knows everything but happiness. Our history, according to Melamud, will not permit happiness. His characters leave home and find, in Chicago or New York or Cascadia or Kiev, some kind of prison house. Yakov Bok told us in The Fixer": "Once you leave youre out in the open; it rains and snows. It snows history, which means what happens to somebody starts in a web of events outside the Whether these characpersonal. ters seek, like Hobbs in The Natural, a Grail, or whether, like George in "God s Grace, they merely "brachiate, Malamud insists on victimization; fate will bloody their white beards. Honor, however, is possible, Cohn comes from a long line of Malamud losers, heroic schlemiels, bayed at from every window by "a whiteeyed hound," and yet still plugging. By keeping their decency, they keep the faith. God, like Malamud, can be a bully: see my tricks! Cohn, the latest sacrifice, at least knows his angels; he has, perhaps palms up, confronted them, a Job that shrugs. Before they invented the cross, Cohn carried one. Groans Under Weight I wont pretend that "Gods Grace" is a fine novel. It groans under the weight of its many meanings, as if it were a rehearsal of the speech Malamud intends to make in Stockholm on being Nobel prized. It is hard for me to accept a chimpanzee as the Lady of the Lake, and when Isaac sacrifices Abraham, I find myself tired of masks on clowns, of fathers and of sons. But consider the quiet gorilla. George. He leaves the vicinity of the schooltree" because his species isnt mentioned. He also leaves when an idea excites him. What, then, does he do with his excitement? "Cohn pictured him grass, lying in the playing with a thought till it arranged itself in his head. Or was that giving the beast more credit than he deserved? Yet there was something possible about George. He looked like himself plus something else he might be. Guess who says Cohns Kaddish? God invents Himself; the rest of us make up history. Malamud is plus John Leonard, something else. New York Times. half-huma- n They dont talk much anymore about Chicago as the railroad capital of America. The great streamlined trains of high ped'gree no longer flash across the wide open spaces of the Lmted States. Now only Amirak and a handful of commuter trains serve the Chicago area. The railroads therr seizes have fallen on evil days in the last few decades. Thus, it is only natural that the country's great rail metropolis should lose some of its luster as a showcase of railroad progress and vitality. However, much of the magic from days of greatness is recalled In this ably written and researched work by University of Illinois English professor George H. Douglas, making this a fascinating history of Chicago as Americas rail center. Background for the reader is provided in the books early chapters, giving a history of Chicago's early transportation systems before the coming of the railroads. Douglas provides us with a look at a remarkable man, William Butler Ogden, the city's first mayor, who in 1847 opened stock books for subscription cn the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad. The line had been charted by the state in 1836, but no work was done until Ogden, a firm believer in railroads as part of Chicagos future, revived the project. The Galena road was later to become the giant Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, first of a long line of companies serving the Windy City. Other early chapters of the book give brief but complete histories of the other early railroad companies that came to serve the Chicago area: the Rock Island, Milwaukee, Burlington, and Illinois Central railroads just to name a few. Lana Turner One photo-fille- d chapter of the book is devoted completely to Chicagos great railroad stations. At its peak the city boasted no less than six major terminals plus a host of smaller commuter stations going out to its suburbs. Now only three great stations remain: Union Station, serving Amtrak and commuters; Northwestern Station, serving commuters; and La Salle Street, also a commuter terminus. Other chapters cover freight operations into the city over the years, including the facts on a subway that electrically powered freight-carryinhauled cargo under Chicago's downtown business district for direct delivery, keeping trucks off the crowded streets. The speedy passenger trains of yesterday that served the city so well for so many years recall years of luxury and wartime traffic. Additional chapters cover the vast commuter network that still radiates out of the city, cites the history of each line, (most now operated by the RTA) along with the development of the suburban communities they serve. Many of these bedroom communities were started by the railroads themselves. Chicagos railroad scene in the 1970s with the coming of Amtrak and Its future role as one of America's major railroad crossroads is thoroughly covered in the final chapters. The book, while thoroughly researched, is written at a level that any first-tim- e student of history can understand. It is a book that will appeal to both rail buffs and history fans alike. An excellent selection of photographs from both historical and modern collections, as well as photos by author Douglas, along with a number of complete maps, help to accent this excellent book. Nathaniel Goodman. little-know- g door-to-do- Here it is Lana Turners autobiography "Lana The Lady, the Legend, the Truth, by Lana Turner; E.P. Dutton, Inc., 311 pp. $14.95. Although the Jayeees haven't begun to string Christmas lights on Main or State streets, and many multitude of shopping days remain til Christmas, I am prepared to take the plunge nominating this as the worst book encountered in all of 1982, a volume you will wish to present to your worst friend. Although I must confess to a certain ignorance anent the "inside Hollywood" pap that ran in "Modern Screen "Photoplay, "Movieland and have a hunch Ms to purplish prose results from her readings in that classic genre, and from her researches into the world of Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper and similar Hollywood historians. From Lana's Lips, Or Type Writer There is much to be learned from Lana's lips or typewriter, concerning the toil, as well as the antics, of the moviemakers in the glowing Thirties and gilded Forties. "People don't realize the hard work it takes to dress a star, she muses. "In those days the studios kept eight or 10 mannequins made to the exact measurements of each of us. They reflected every tiny for example, my left shoulder imperfection and hip are higher than my right that the designer would have to accommodate. Each mannequin was labeled with the name of the star: Grear Garson, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr. My hip mannequin was the smallest in the entire studio, Greer Garsons was largest, hut she is a tall woman. So much for Greer, Judy and Hedy. Alas, I for one will alw ays wonder which of the quartet had the most askew hip. ". . . To Turn Men On' Onwards and upwards with the Arts, as some werdsmith of more talent than Lana was wont to declaim. Ms Turner, of course, took pride in her tiny figure, and in her ability, as we now would put it, to "turn men on." For example: The production code notwithstanding, critics called my version of The Postmen Always Rings Twice a lot steamier than the sexually explicit 1981 remake. All my costumes were white . . . Steamier? Seamier? Dreamier? There is this to be said for Ms. Turner (and not a few have said it). She married the men she chose to bed with, which was not quite the case magazines, I Turners studied approach with many of her contemporaries, or even with the young members of our current decade. And the provocative, sexy, sweater girl of Hollywoods palmy days (even when swaddled in a fur coat you knew (Lana wore white, a sweater) failed miserably in the business of life. "I expected to have one husband and seven babies," she tells us with that utter frankness that characterizes this prose gem. Instead, as all true students of filmland trivia already know, she had seven husbands and one child. Why Mervyn Leroy, Louis B. Mayer and their ilk didnt commission Seven Loves for Lana rather than Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is beyond my feeble powers to guess. Lana, you will certainly be pleased to know, tells all." She and Frank S. were just good friends Likewise she and Clark G., and she and Cary G , even she and Ronald R. Fact is, the best thing about this volume may well be the Hollywood tintype showing the youthful Lana and an equally youthful Ronnie garbed in r.ding clothes sitting atop a paddock tence, and a still youthful Lana and the current President of these United States more formally garbed at a 1957 Hollywood party. He still wears better than Lana. That was clothing well either before or after Ms. Turner married Bob Topping, had her fling with her one true love, Tyrone Power, or had been on hand when daughter Cheryl stabbed Lanas gangland husband Johnny Stompanato to death. The sequence of events, or in her life can be bewildering to folks accustomed to just one cr two mates. Nation is Changing a virtually worthless book, like even However, a virtually worthless life, can raise issues as well as hackles. Ms. Turners autobiography proves that our nation is changing, especially insofar as "morality is concerned. My marriage to Bob Topping would generate publicity for months to come," she notes with some pride. But then Lana adds: Newspapers sermonized about stars changing spouses with disgraceful, careless abandon. Goaded by the press, the Los Angeles presbytery formally rebuked our minister for performing the ceremony. And the fuss even reached the halls of Congress. Investigators criticized the Voice of America for One broadcasting news of the wedding . . wonders whether todays overseas radio wordsmiths are queried by todays solons for reporting that California's candidate for a U.S. full-lengt- h . black-and-whit- e non-event- s, THE UTAH OPERA COMPANY PRESENTS Senate seat oftimes escorts a vocalist of sorts whose name is not Mrs. Jerry Brown? Oh tempora, oh mores. The other matter worth some thought concerns the morality of movies in the "glamor years when Lana was a star, versus those of our own Cable-Tdays. I have a hunch the very-samfolks up Roy way who so bitterly castigate the cable companies for carrying filmed displays of sexual activities andor flesh once sat in movie-hous- e balconies or in convertibles parked at drive-instudying life as lived by Lana, John Garfield, Robert Taylor and Ava upon the silvered screen. Sin, as Lana would have you know, is where you see it. Her contemporaries wore flashier costumes, is all. Jack Goodman. s, P. D. James serves up new murder The Skull Beneath the Skin, by P.D. James, Scribners; 336 pp., $13.95 P. D. James has not been herself lately. After writing seven mysteries which won her a indeed, worshipful following, James loyal wrote a novel, Innocent Blood," which won critical acclaim but was not a mystery. Fans of the first books will no doubt be pleased, then to hear that in The Skull Beneath the Skin, there is once again a murder to be solved, once again a clever detective on hand to solve it. The sleuth is Cordelia Gray, the plucky young private eye introduced in 1973 in An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (which won a Scroll from the Mystery Writers of America as one of the best five mysteries of the year.) In this latest book, Cordelia is hired by wealthy Sir George Ralston to be companion and bodyguard to his fading, but famous actress wife, Clarissa Lyle, who had been receiving anonymous threatening notes. Despite Cordelias best efforts, her client is done in. It is at this point that the story picks up pace. The characters become more interesting, the plot begins to twist and turn. P.D. James is a writer who cant be bad; but Rose DeWolf, Knight Ridder she can be better Writer. 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