U.S. — from Arcadia to showbiz

Press, 26 February 1983, Page 16

U.S. — from Arcadia to showbiz

Letters from an American Farmer, and. Sketches of 18th Century America. By J. Hector St John de Crevecoeur. Edited and introduced by Albert E. Stone. Penguin, 1982. 491 pp. $6.95. Struggles and Triumphs. By P. T. Barnum. Edited and introduced by Carl Bode. Penguin, 1982. 394 pp. $6.95.

(Reviewed by

John Wilson)

Although these two books treat of entirely dissimilar American worlds, less than 'lOO years apart, both provide answers, accurate today, to the question Crevecoeur poses at the head of one of his letters: What is an American? The books can both be read for their historical interest — one for what it tells of late eighteenth-century rural America, the other for what it tells of the origins in the mid-nineteenth century of the American entertainment industry. They can also be read for a deeper understanding of today's United States. Crevecoeur's work paints a picture of America as a rural Arcadia, in which all enjoy "a pleasing uniformity of decent competence" and. in which men and women are industrious because their effort is duly rewarded, with health and happiness as well as a material sufficiency. There are some magnificent passages, descriptive and reflective, evoking a pioneering idyll, which are a delight to savour. But the book is far more than a hymn of Jeffersonian praise. For Crevecoeur knows that the harmony, peace and prosperity which many enjoyed in late eighteenth-century rural America was precarious. His own devastating experience during and after the American Revolution break the crust, revealing a dark side to American good fortune, which has its roots in nature and in people's conduct towards each other. "Good and evil" he writes in his second letter. "I see. are to be found in all societies, and it is vain to seek for any spot where those ingredients are not mixed." Doubts about the good American life keep erupting through his descriptions of that'life. "Many dark spots" he writes in another letter. "... on due

consideration, greatly lessen that show of happiness which the Europeans think we possess.” The parallels with more recent American discoveries about themselves will strike those who have watched America over the past two decades. But more important, the tension between what Crevecoeur wants to believe about American life, and what he knows to be true, gives the book an extraordinary literary force. Literary critics like to debate whether Crevecoeur’s work is literature. The general reader can put this question aside and enjoy the acute, detailed descriptions that Crevecoeur provides. and his ■ reflections on the American — and human — condition. By the time Phineas Barnum emerges in the nineteenth century as the first show

business mogul, his America is urban. There is no place in Barnum's world for the frugal, industrious farmer, nor for anv doubts that America might not be the best of all possible worlds. Barnum amassed a substantial fortune through managing the dwarf Tom Thumb as an entertainer, organising the triumphant tour of the Swedish singer Jenny Lind through America, and attracting huge crowds to his American Museum in New York. Property speculation and development contributed further to his wealth. His career was ruled by the principle that "art is merchantable;" he made adroit use of the media, understanding that to get people to think, talk and become curious and excited was the best way of furthering his goal of “money getting." He admits candidly that he pulled the public's heart strings preparatory to a relaxation of its purse strings. He sees no need to question what he did or how he did it. although the psychologist may want to read significance into his self-congratulation and his cataloguing of his acts of charity and generosity. But behind it all, the modern reader will probably conclude, he was gulling his public. His position, and wealth, was based more on "hype” than substance. Sometimes on plain hoax, to his later embarrassment. His superficiality, his love of sensation and contrived experience, and his apparent incapacity to feel any emotion deeper than sentimentality — these traits all mark him clearly an American. But it would be wrong to let any sneering superiority interfere with the immense enjoyment to be gained from reading the book. His prodigious energy, his apparently unassailable selfrighteousness. his.startling innocence and ingenuousness, make him a likeable rogue and his autobiography a thoroughly "good read." In both these books. Penguin can be seen continuing to discharge a function it has always been good at. Neither are books most people would otherwise read. But now they are accessible they can both be read for enjoyment and for a better understanding of the American character.