N.G., P.S.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R000201830003-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 23, 2013
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: February 8, 1965
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/25: CIA-RDP74-00297R000201830003-8
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N.G.,, P.S.
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New,veck?Robert R. McElroy
Bryan: Good-conduct medal for a nonliero
P.S. ,WILKINSON. By C.D.B. Bryan.
441 pages. Harper & Row. $5.95.
Sad to say, literary prizes?like
children's camp trophies, assorted an- ?
`----Inual awards, and good-conduct medals
?are more often expressions of' the bene-
factor's goodwill and fond hopes than of '
the benefited's singular merit.
Even some of the most famous prizes,
national and international, are by now
largely discredited; and, reluctantly.
one has come to suspect that publishers'
prizes for novels are little more than
promotion and marketing devices. Re-
mainder tables?the limbo of the unsuc-
cessful?are constantly filled with the
ruins of those great expectations. True
to form, the 1965 Harper Prize Novel.
"P.S. Wilkinson," is by all standards of
judgment simply a bad book.
Everything that is wrong with it fol-
lows from the sin which no novel can
survive: a protagonist who is a continu-
ous, unremitting bore. Given a thick
book to roam about in, P.S. (Bryan
takes an awful risk in naming his hero
that; the startled reader keeps look-
ing for the epistle above the postscript)
seems constitutionally incapable of a
fresh observation or lively perception.
He is a self-righteous prig?an insuf-
ferable whiner and self-pitier forever
reminding the world of the martyrdom
he has suffered in serving some time
with the peacetime army in Korea. The
28,year-old Bryan and his hero keep
discovering ancient truisms as if they
were revelations of blinding originality:
.the timidity, and stupidity, and hypoc-
risy of institutions. the fact that, some
military officers are martinets and
frauds; the difficulties the young have in.
Finding Themselves and Knowing What
They Want; the Pain of Life and the
Tears of Disillusionment. It is impossible
to care about P.S.'s travails because it
is impossible to become interested in
him, in his routine problems, and in the
terribly dull people whom he encounters
in his listless journey. A witty friend of
his?his best, his only friend?cracks at
one point: "I wouldn't miss this for all
the tea in Lipton's." No wonder P.S. is
a sad young man.
Prying: The trouble is he is also a
posturing and attitudinizing one, and
we are asked to believe that he is in
some special way a heroic one. He ar-
rives at the bold conclusion that it was
not really nice of the U.S. Government
to support Syngman Rhee, and he thinks
there is something deplorable about his
commanding officer's ordering the shav-
ing of Korean ?whores' heads while re-
taining the services of his own personal
Korean whore. Then P.S. daringly de-
cides that the CIA isn't all it's cracload
up to be, what with the Bay of Pigs and
its prying into job applicants' sex lives
, with the aid of lie detectors.
All this would not be quite so bad if
? it were not that the banality of the virit-
,
ing is fully equal to the suffocating
banality of idea and sentiment. Tor-
Army Reserve, P.S. reflects, in a passage
meant to convey his anguish: "He
didn't know bow to explain it, really.
But he felt it was just one more instill:-
tion, just one more big sheltering all-
embracing womb that he wanted no
of." Hastening to a reunion with hi:;
long-lost love?surely one of the exciting
moments in a man's life?here is P.S.
trembling with expectant emotion: "On
the flight to Washington he thought
about how good it would be to see
Hilary again." He ponders the most mo-
mentous fact of our time: "P.S. lit a
cigarette and tried to imagine the de-
struction caused by a bomb six thousand
times ? more powerful than the one
dropp.ed at Hiroshima. It was incredi-
ble. There was no way to imagine it. I
was so enormous that he couldn't eve:
be scared by it."
- Magnetism: In a towering rage at
human callousness, he ? exclaims: "Well
you can be goddam sure 1 care. I don't
like it at all. Not one bit!" And here hc
expresses his sense of the immense per-
sonal magnetism of President Kennedy:
"He thought of the many times he had
watched the President on television,
and how he had been proud of the
way the President answered questions,
proud of the way he looked, intrigued
by the man as well as the office he
represented."
When, at the end, P.S. seems to have
decided to enter the Foreign Service,
the reader thinks prayerfully: "God save
this Republic!"
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/25: CIA-RDP74-00297R000701Rmnm_R