The Passion Artist by John Hawkes (review)

THE PASSION ARTIST BY JOHN HAWKES (New York: Harper & Row, 1979. 185 pages. $9.95.) In The Passion Artist, John Hawkes further explores the theme which first surfaced in The Lime Twig published in 1961 and has continued to occupy his attention ever since—the dialectic of the conscious and unconscious mind, the exquisite terror of scrutinizing the darkest side of human nature by light of day. Since the death of his wife five years before, Konrad Vost has cut himself off from anyone who might disturb the delicate balance of his "interior life":"a bed of stars" holding in check "a pit of putrescence." This balance is first upset when he discovers that his daughter, Mirabelle, who in his eyes alone remains a child, has turned to prostitution. Shaken by the news, Vost surrenders his carefully preserved celibacy to one of her schoolmates, only to discover that it is his daughter whom he desires. This is followed by a revolt at the local prison, led by his mother, Eva Laubenstein, who has been convicted of the brutal murder of his father. Vost volunteers to help the police restore order, but he discovers as he clubs the rioting women inmates that restoring order is less his purpose than inflicting and enduring pain. Each subsequent event takes Vost further on a journey into the "marshland" of himself, into the "psychic pit filled with slime" of his unconscious, allowing him conscious access to the long-repressed passions of his youth. Hawkes's novels have consistently defied good exegesis. They have been simply too dark, too oddly written. In The Passion Artist, Hawkes's most available novel to date, it's as if he has set out to meet his admirers halfway. There is much to admire in this book. Hawkes is a stylist of the first rank and his vision is often penetrating. The accessibility of The Passion Artist, however, is not entirely a virtue. When Hawkes's concerns are reduced to simple terms, they lose some of their appeal. The "bed of stars"/ "psychic pit" dialectic invites all too obviously marginalia of the Superego/Id variety. And Vost's recollections of a child's sexual initiation with a mother surrogate too easily call up Oedipus. A reader is apt to come away believing Hawkes is at one and the same time the most and the least sophisticated novelist writing today. JAY M. BOYER* MAY M. BOYER currently teaches at Arizona State University. His writing has appeared in a wide variety of magazines; his most recent work, As Far Away As China, a novel, will be available through Swallow Press in the spring of 1980. ROCKT MOUNTAIN REVIBW 215 ...