THE SPECTATOR REVIEWABOOKS

Roger Scruton on James Joyce Reviews by George Holmes, Patrick Cosgrave, Christopher Hudson Auberon Waugh on new fiction

Henry Fairlie on David Frost's Americans

That the collection of his American inter- views which Mr David Frost has put together is insignificant is an assurance that the book is not out of character. That it is deceitful . . . some may not find that a puzzle either.

There is no possible way—outside the standards of 'show business'—of justify- ing the title: The Americans.* They hardly figure in the book. In his interview with Joe McGinnis—the author of one of the most imperceptive books about politics which has been published in recent years, The Selling of a President—Mr Frost tells us that he has 'travelled in forty-nine of the fifty states in the last four and a half years'. One must linger on that word `travelled'—he uses the American spel- ling, by the way—because it is tell-tale.

If he really had travelled in the forty- nine states for four and a half years. that Would mean he had spent an average of about one month and three days in each state: a little scanty, but it might serve for a few swift impressions. But. of course, this is not what Mr Frost means. In his introduction, glibly called 'The Americans Need No Introduction'—it is almost ex- actly what they do need—he gives us nine quick vignettes, one or two sentences each, which form, apparently, his picture of the United States (forty-nine of them) of America : the quip of a New York cab driver—I often wonder why I always get the silent ones—who said : 'Better maybe we never invented the wheel, huh?' Where else but in America? asks Mr Frost.

a 'Park Avenue tableau', in which 'the residents were out on the street shaking the snow from the branches in order that they wouldn't snap under the weight'. Where else but in America? asks Mr Frost.

a sign on Interstate Highway 95 says: 'He who has one for the road gets a trooper for a chaser'. Where else but in America. asks Mr Frost.

So it continues to the final : 'And where else but in America could an Englishman get off a plane and be given the heart-warming greeting, "Hel o, David, it must be nice to be home again".' Does it not happen to him in England? That is sad.

At the end of the book is an epilogue (does a non-book need an epilogue?) in which he tells us that 'Only an American could or would feel constrained to say in quite that way' certain quotations from the interviews, which include: the commonplace: 'We became great from protest. The "Mayflower" was a ship of protest'.

the untrue: 'Nobody in this country really knows who is his grandfather'.

the banal : `If you asked me what's the one thing in the whole world I would like more than anything else, it's for even fifty seconds to be able to—pow—be in some- one's head and just see the world through their eyes'.

the universal: 'What's my daughter going to breathe in ten years?'

the juvenile: 'We're beginning to under- stand each other in a day-to-day way. And I just wish the adults would leave us alone for a while'.

These are the significant—peculiarly American—voices which Mr Frost has collected after four and a half years? Whatever their faults, the Americans are not as dumb as all that, and there are more. interesting things that they say.

So one turns to the interviews them- selves. I do not often catch—as the Amer- icans would say—the David Frost Show. It appears in Washington at a time in the evening which is convenient only for people who take high tea. (This is not altogether a mistake in America where even quite highly placed families sit down to their evening meal at 6.30 and rise at 6.50, having munched a cheeseburger.) Nevertheless, I caught not long ago a David Frost Show on which Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson were the guests. It was worth, as they used to say. a guinea a box. 'John . . . Ralph', said Mr Frost. while the two knights courteously addressed each other as 'Sir John' and 'Sir Ralph'. As his stage-struck—teeny-bopper's- questions pattered forth, Sir John was always ready with an anecdote about him- *The Americans David Frost (Heinemann £2.10) self, his urbane vanity never ruffled, and Sir Ralph Richardson bumbled as best he could. I mean that precisely: he seemed to be trying to bumble. 'And what about you, Ralph?', and Sir Ralph emerged from his slumber, and said: 'What, eh? E• . Oh, me, oh . . . Well, yes, perhaps .. Come to think of it, no ...'

But the moment for which one waits came when Mr Frost asked Sir Ralph what he thought 'star quality' was. 'Mc, eh? . . . Oh, I don't know about that .. . Well, I always go to see Ethel Merman when I am in New York', and he went on to explain that, whenever he saw her, he went back to his hotel at night and • wrote a letter to her. 'How marvellous', said Mr Frost. 'Of course, I never send them; I tear them up the next morning'. Mr Frost indicated that this, too, was marvellous, and asked what Ethel Mer- man was like to meet. 'Oh, I have never met her', said Sir Ralph. 'You mean, you have never gone backstage as the rest of us would do, and introduced yourself?' Mr Frost asked incredulously. 'I wouldn't dare', came the mumbled reply. 'I think that's marvellous, absolutely marvellous', exclaimed Mr Frost; and Sir Ralph blinked a little, and curled up again inside his teapot.

Well, this sort of stuff is now in print. Mr Truman Capote said that when he had been in love, it meant that 'I didn't have to finish sentences'. FROST 'That's a great definition'. Mr Chet Huntley said that today's young people are 'running a rather good litmus-paper test on us'.

FROST 'That's a good phrase'. Mr Frost tells us in his introduction that he has enjoyed a 'rapturous acquaintance' with the Americans. The rapture cannot be denied. It is cloying as molasses, yet his guests lap it up. FROST 'That's a great phrase'.

Now and then, some of his guests re- sist; and, when they do, they throw into relief the banality of Mr Frost's approach to serious subjects. Mr Orson Welles, for example: FROST What's the last premonition you had?

WELLES I like to forget them, like my movies.

FROST Which one are you proudest of, the best one?

WELLES Oh, let's change the subject. I don't want to clam up and spoil the show. I'll answer anything you want but don't ask me 'proudest' or anything like that.

But does Mr Frost know any other way of thinking of anything: as if the only way to recognise merit is when a rosette is pinned on it? In the very next question: FROST But do you think you've achieved great things in your life, or don't you even think of it?

WELLES You know, we've only got so much energy to go on, and I think it's a waste of energy. I think that's a con- solation for real old age.

Then, after a discussion of the impact which was made by The War of the Worlds, came this: FROST If you wanted to terrify people to- day, how would you do it?

WELLES I don't. I didn't then.

FROST No, of course.

This is Mr Frost's normal way, as in this exchange with Mr and Mrs Artur Rubinstein: FROST When you say get into the hearts, what's the most emotional piece of music you play?

RUBINSTEIN Ah, don't ask me about any sort of champion in anything. This is a question which is impossible for us to answer. There isn't such a thing as a best piece.

But Mr Frost is impervious to what he has just been told: FROST No, but is there a piece that moves you more than any other?

RUBINSTEIN No, no, no. You know, the minute I would feel that way, all the other pieces would have a second rank, you know. It's inipossible. Whatever I play is the piece, and there is no other one at the moment I play it.

FROST Is there a piece of Arthur's that you prefer more than any other.

MRS RUBINSTEIN Well, I must say the same thing.

One gets the impression that Mr Frost knows no other way of recognising worth than by awarding it an Oscar. He even talks to people about their personal lives as if they can be ranked and rated. Here he is with Mr Tennessee Williams, of all people: FROST What is being happy, really?

WILLIAMS I don't know. Does anyone? 1 think that the greatest happiness is felt in moments of tenderness between two people. Isn't that about as much as we know?

FROST Is it that any one person yearns to communicate with another and it's only in those moments of love that they can most deeply communicate? Why are these the peaks of happiness?

WILLIAMS Because we all have a great de- sire to escape from ourselves and to feel joined to another human being.

FROST Why do we like to escape from ourselves?

WILLIAMS Because to be alone is lonely. Unless you're a writer and you have your typewriter.

FROST Do you like yourself or not? Or do you adore yourself?

WILLIAMS I don't adore myself, no. FROST Do you find yourself good com- pany?

WILLIAMS .I never stopped to think about that very much. I'm more or less saddled with myself. I can't do much about it. Do I like myself? No, I don't like myself very much. I often wonder, how can any- body like me, and yet occasionally I find that somebody does.

One has to admit that it is an achieve- ment to persuade Mr Tennessee Williams to be as banal as that. The only inter- esting remark in the whole passage—about the writer and his typewriter—was, of course, ignored.

Is it worth going on? Closing the book, I could remember no more than a hand- ful of remarks made by any of his guests that had told me anything of more than superficial interest, and even those seemed to have emerged in spite of his questions, rather than in response to them, and were then dismissed. Does it matter? Not very much, because we are being introduced to little more than the world of 'show business', and those of his guests who do not belong to that world Mr Frost sucks down to its level.

Yet, when he does approach a serious issue, my irritation sometimes begins to darken into anger. The trivialisation of serious concerns has been the main influ- ence of television on our times—one can see its influence on even a news(?)paper such as the Times today—and nowhere is that trivialisation more pernicious than in the 'talk shows', in both Britain and America, of which Mr Frost is a so typic- ally empty-headed master of ceremonies.

Anyhow, can a reader not sue for fraud if he buys a book entitled The Americans at an inflated price, and finds nothing of the Americans in it? An alter- native title? I would settle happily for the 'David Hoar Show'.

Henry Fairlie is a. former political corres- pondent of the SPECTATOR, author of The Life of Politics', now resident in Washing- ton