THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501090209
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
THE CONSTELLATIONS
JAMES FINNEY BOYLAN
Random House. 265 pp. $22.
WITH A COMIC sensibility somewhere between Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and the Zucker Abraham Zucker film team, James Finney Boylan has proved himself a more than adequate crafter of creative mayhem.
Unfortunately, witticisms and wisecracks do not a story make, and Boylan's second novel, The Constellations, comes off as a little spacey. When we look for character and subtext, all Boylan wants to deliver is whimsy. And when we look for whimsy, Boylan dives overboard into slapstick.
The Constellations (the sequel to 1991's similarly flawed The Planets) focuses on the quirky Harrison family in Centralia, a suburban Pennsylvania town. But whereas in The Planets the Harrisons were torn apart by a bizarre series of circumstances, The Constellations undertakes the Herculean task of reuniting them.
An improbable line of events sets the Harrison family and miscellaneous other characters (among them an artist who sculpts celebrity heads and then lynches them; a love-struck landscaper; and the lead singer of the Poison Squirrels) on a crash course for the Valentine's Day dance at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Along the way are multiple romantic trysts, unexpected reunions and abductions of pets, people and works of art.
The Constellations plays out like an ultra-choreographed version of the Three Stooges - all punch line and no punch. For the time being, Boylan, a Johns Hopkins University writing alumnus, remains a talent in search of a craft.
- DAVE EDELMAN
FOUNDATIONS OF MORAL OBLIGATION
JOSEPH GERARD BRENNAN
Presidio. 269 pp. $14.95.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED by the Naval War College Press in 1992, Foundations of Moral Obligation consists of 10 lectures that formed the heart of the Newport Institution ethics course initiated by Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale, USN (Ret.), when he became president of the war college after being released from a POW camp. Author Joseph Gerard Brennan, a professor emeritus of philosophy at Columbia University, taught the course - first, with Stockdale - until his retirement from the war college.
The book probes the human condition at its most pragmatic level. Brennan touches on concepts of ``true knowledge,'' on evil and the trial of God, on Eros and agape, on Aristotlean ethics and the idea of ``good.'' And he does so in a compelling, readable fashion. Here are Kant's ``moral imperatives'' and ideas on war; existentialism and Camus' idea of ``the absurd man,'' utilitarianism and John Stuart Mill's thoughtful ``On Liberty''; and finally a provocative discussion of the ``ethic of silence.''
The book includes an introduction by Stockdale in which he explains how his readings of the Stoic Epictetus enabled him to survive the brutality of a prisoner of war camp, an experience that earned him the Medal of Honor.
``The right-thinking man,'' Stockdale writes, ``can become a victim of no one but himself.'' Or, as Brennan concludes: ``the right and the good must be demonstrated every day in the choices that we make, the actions we take, the example we set.''
- BILL ROACH
MRS. FUNNYWINKLE
SUSAN OSINSKI MORELLI
Windswept House Publishers. 38 pp. $9.95.
MRS. FUNNYWINKLE is a happy tale of a woman ``about the age of your grandmother.'' She saves everything she finds, thinking she may need it someday - much to the delight of neighborhood children. But next-door neighbor Mr. Crabcake complains that her treasures are a fire hazard, and Mrs. Funnywinkle and the children fear the worst. Before long, the neighborhood children come up with a plan that makes everyone happy.
Mrs. Funnywinkle is the creation of Susan Osinski Morelli, who lives in Williamsburg with her husband and their 2 1/2-year-old daughter. A New Jersey native, she is a part-time instructor at the University of Virginia. Mrs. Funnywinkle is her first book.
The book, for ages preschool to fourth grade, can be purchased at the School Crossing in Williamsburg or Waldenbooks or ordered directly from Windswept House Publishers, P.O. Box 159, Mount Desert, Maine 04660. (207) 244-7149.
- JUNE ARNEY by CNB