NEWLN:The Rat, by Gunter Grass, transl. by Ralph ManheimNEWLN:(Brace jovanovich, 371 pp., $17.95)
Gunter Grass opens his new novel on a bizarre note: the narrator, surfeited with the goods of middle class prosperity, asks for -- and receives -- a pet rat for Christmas.
From this premise, Grass goes on to create an inventive, surreal, zany -- but finally -- high-minded and sober novel that blends a baker's dozen themes, plot lines, narrative forms and points of view.
Grass is a profound humanist and 'The Rat' is, ultimately, a meditation on the state of humanity in a world threatened by nuclear annihilation on the one hand and ecological suicide on the other. It is a plea, edged with satire rather than cynicism, for humans to get their act together before it is too late.
This is a brilliant, idiosyncratic jumble of form, a pastiche of cultural and historical bits of information left to roam through the playroom of his imagination. It allows Grass to fashion his sober manifesto while skirting the excess of bathos and preaching.
It is almost impossible to isolate the separate plot lines in 'The Rat.' One strain is the narrator's monologues with his Christmas rat while the two listen to German educational radio.
Another involves the adventures of five women on a research ship ostensibly measuring the jellyfish density of the Baltic but actually seeking Vineta, the feminist version of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis.
Still another returns the most endearing of Grass characters, Oscar Matzerath, the original tin drummer, now 60 and suffering from prostate troubles, but a successful entrepreneur in pornographic and educational videos.
One of thefunniest, and paradoxically most serious, of the plots involves the recreation of the Brothers Grimm as ministers of the environment in West Germany, as well as a whole cast of fairy tale figures as radical environmentalists out to save forests being killed by acid rain.
Still another story line -- one that shows Grass the political satirist at his best -- unfolds the life story of Malskat, an art forger who specializes in Gothic-era church restorations. Grass links Malskat to two 1950s personalities, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and East German leader Walter Ulbrecht, who 'conspired' in the political forgery that is a divided Germany.
All of these stories weave in and out, allowing Grass to comment on a laundry list of topics -- the superpowers, the radical Greens, feminism, the media. Linking them tenuously is the narrator's dialogue with his Christmas rat and, perhaps, in a conversation in space with the so-called She-rat. The latter may be the narrator's nightmare or, perhaps just the She-rat's dream as she tries to keep the memory of humanity alive after nuclear war.
Grass leaves you guessing and deciding -- after the rats have inherited the earth.
Despite the comedy, 'The Rat' is not light reading and may not be everyone's cup of tea but it shows Grass at the top of his richly imaginative form. David E. Anderson (UPI)
Uncommon Friends, by James D. Newton (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 384 pp., $19.95)
As a young man involved with the Florida real estate boom in the 1920s, the author came to know inventor Thomas Edison. That friendship touched off a career and a lifetime of spiritual realization for Newton, who has transformed his experiences into a charming and engrossing narrative.
Through Edison, Newton met industrialist Henry Ford and a subsequent friendship with tire magnate Harvey Firestone followed. Newton was instrumental in Firestone's real estate and sales divisions, and then left to pursue his interest in the Oxford Group, an organization devoted to international peace based on moral change.
Newton also developed a strong relationship with French Nobel Prize winner Dr. Alexis Carrel, who pioneered the use of sutures in surgery. Carrel introduced the author to aviator Charles Lindbergh.
The book is liberally studded with anecdotes concerning these five men who helped shaped this century. Newton tells how, in 1928, Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis over Edison's Florida home as a birthday tribute. Edison reveals how he accidentally discovered the solution of sending multiple messages on a telegraph wire.
Newton recounts how Firestone achieved a $60 million profit from a stock sale five days before Black Friday and the 1929 Wall Street stock exchange crash. He details a fascinating March 1931 conversation in which Firestone discusses harnessing the wind for power, Ford the possibility of getting energy from strong tidal waters and Edison the future of solar power.
'I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy,' said Edison. 'What a source of power! I wish I had more years left!'
The clarity and diversity of the photographs complement Newton's interesting and unselfish narrative, making 'Uncommon Friends' a book to be read, re-read and admired.NEWLN:Katharine the Great, by Deborah DavisNEWLN:(National Press, 320 pp., $17.95)
'Katharine the Great' is an engrossing biography of Washington Post Board Chairman Katharine Graham that deserves the attention it didn't get seven years ago when its original publisher recalled it from stores and shredded all copies.
That shredding party -- which resulted in a breach of contract lawsuit and eventual payment by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich of $100,000 to author Deborah Davis -- came after an angry complaint from Post Executive Editor Benjamin Bradlee about alleged inaccuracies.
This revised edition by another publisher stirs controversy again by reprinting government documents suggesting that Bradlee, while serving as a press attache at the U.S. Embassy in Paris in the early 1950s, played a role in a CIA 'propaganda campaign' against convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Bradlee recently acknowledged writing a report to answer French news media criticism of the Rosenberg prosecution, but denied involvement with the CIA.
Controversy aside, 'Katharine the Great' offers strong portraits of Katharine Graham's parents, Eugene and Agnes Meyer, and deftly depicts Graham in various roles: as student activist in the 1930s; as wife to the dynamic, but emotionally troubled, Philip Graham who ran the Post until his suicide in 1963; and finally, with Philip's death, as head of one of the nation's most powerful newspapers. The book captures Graham's glory days -- highlighted by the Post's landmark coverage of the Watergate scandal -- along with such less glorious episodes as her successful breaking of the newspaper's pressmen's union in 1975. John Hanrahan (UPI)
Postcards from the Edge, by Carrie Fisher (Simon and Schuster, 221 pp., $15.95)
Don't let the title mislead you. 'Postcards from the Edge' is not a collection of ramblings submitted by an actress who wants to dabble. There is some good stuff here, and one might expect to catch a glimpse of the writer herself in these episodes of the life of Suzanne Vale, a Hollywood actress.
Whether this is a tribute to the editing of Paul Slansky, we will never know.
'Postcards' appears to be a reflection on what the goldfish-bowl reality of Los Angeles show business can do to someone who is already more than a little obsessive.
Suzanne has it all but lacks the ability to deal with it. She starts out horribly in a drug rehabilitation clinic, victim of an overdose and habitual abuse.
It's here that we begin to pick up on Suzanne's obsessional wavelength -- and on Fisher's 'I've got a Dictaphone in my pocket' style -- which displays a characterization both powerfully incisive and charmingly sweet, like being sliced across the face with a marshmallow switchblade. She uses the edge of Suzanne's twisted intellect to pin down the very essence of a personality.
Suzanne's not the only one with problems. Alex is a writer whose account of inner turmoil over his cocaine addiction is so personal and direct it should be required reading for any casual user.
The story ends wonderfully, hopefully with a new beginning and a translation of desperate needs into thoughtful desire.
If Fisher wants to write, one can see in 'Postcards from the Edge' that she definitely has found her mode. Michael Kott (for UPI)
Puss In Boots, by Ed McBain (Henry Holt, 248 pp., $15.95)
Ed McBain, the author of the famed series of 87th Precinct police procedurals, has now written seven books detailing the activities of Florida lawyer Matthew Hope.
Unfortunately, none of them have been as good as the average 87th Precinct novel, largely because of Hope, a bland, good-natured fellow with few notable characteristics.
After stumbling into crimes, Hope now is a criminal lawyer. His first major client is Carlton Barnaby Markham, who is charged with murdering his wife Prudence.
Prudence was stabbed to death outside the film studio where she was working on her latestmovie and Markham is charged after his bloody clothes are found buried in the couple's yard. The film Prudence was working on, however, cannot be found.
While Hope investigates the case, two men who worked on the film decide to look for it, knowing it is a pornographic picture that could be highly successful. Meanwhile, a beautiful woman is held captive by a strange man.
Naturally, all the elements come together in a particularly gruesome climax, one more suited to McBain's police novels than his less intense Hope stories.
'Puss in Boots' is cleverly plotted and McBain knows how to tell a story, dropping just enough hints to keep the reader one step ahead of Hope.
The main difficulty with the entire series, however, is that Hope seems out of his depth. His crime-solving talents are few and his personality is not that interesting.
Still, McBain fans know what they like and they should get enough of it in this book to be happy.NEWLN:Katharine the Great, by Deborah DavisNEWLN:(National Press, 320 pp., $17.95)
