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Hope Springs Eternal
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10263 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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12 / 1993 |
2,709 Words |
| Author
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James Thompson
James Thompson, who lives in Nashville, is the author of
several books, the most recent of which is The Church, the
South and the Future. |
HOMELAND
John Jakes
Doubleday, 1993
In "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" Mark Twain noted an annoying enigma of the republic of letters: the inept often flourish. In light of John Jakes' transgressions, an apology is long overdue to Cooper; he was a veritable Flaubert compared to Jakes, whose Homeland is a compendium of literary crimes and misdemeanors.
Banal symbolism, trite metaphor, and hackneyed description swarm over the pages. Broken crockery symbolizes a ruined life; nationalism is a "furnace" and the will an "anvil"; eyes "blaze" and "burn," the sky is "cerulean," and women are "ravishingly beautiful." Jakes supplies a textbook example of the pathetic fallacy: the "sky wept silver tears." Clots of stilted speech, pressed into duty as dialogue, awkwardly convey information and expound opinion. For example, a woman in New Jersey warns the greenhorn Pauli Kroner that "the nature of the American system permits a great deal of latitude when it comes to making money. Some therefore make it dishonestly."
Stereotypes abound: German army officers are pigheaded martinets; southerners are dim-witted and vicious; the villains, frequently reeking of foul breath (Jakes has a phobia about the odor of garlic), exude a malice reminiscent of cartoon bullies; the whores have hearts of gold. Jakes relies upon the shopworn devices of melodrama: improbable coincidences; spine-tingling (or is it hair-raising?) turns of events; the meting out of just deserts to the wicked and due rewards to the righteous; heart-stopping love at first sight; and a dramatis personae replete with rich uncles, peevish schoolmarms, ethereal maidens, dastardly seducers, dauntless heroes--and all orchestrated to a crescendo of happy endings.
Jakes' popularity
Highbrows may snigger at Homeland's flaws, but Jakes will enjoy the last and loudest laugh. This book will sell in the hundreds of thousands, and millions of viewers will catch the TV miniseries to follow. It is not hard to figure why. Melodrama entertains; unambiguous divisions between good and evil gratify people beset by nettlesome complexities; and, as Hollywood discovered ages ago, most folks like happy endings.
Homeland furnishes satisfactions and reassurances that Americans crave. Although Jakes condemns the societal ills
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