Volume 35, Number 14 · September 29, 1988
Odd Man In
By David Denby
A Life
by Elia Kazan
Knopf, 848 pp., $24.95
The Time Is Ripe: The 1940 Journal of Clifford Odets
with an introduction by William Gibson
Grove Press, 369 pp., $22.50
If manners can be said to serve as the mask of self-interest, then charming manners require that one create the illusion of interest in others. Most show-business people are determined to be charming, but whatever Elia Kazan's appeal in person (and from his own mouth one hears of much loyalty, many friendships), Kazan, as author, is ill-mannered, self-serving, and charmless. Now seventy-eight, Kazan has apparently kept note, through a long and very busy life, of every longing, slight, setback, and disappointment—and also of every rose of satisfaction. In A Life, he recalls some momentary defeat fifty-five years ago with the fresh outrage of unearned rebuff; he recounts a moment at a young actress's side as happily as a kid at camp who scores with a pretty girl on the first day of the summer.
Review, 6329 words
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