Time Makes Heroes But Dissolves

The Force Of The Advertising Word And Image Dwarfs The Power Of Other Literature In The 20th Century.

Not So Many Years Ago There Was No Simpler Or More Intelligible Notion Than That Of Going On A Journey. Travel -movement Through Space -provided The Universal Metaphor For Change. One Of The Subtle Confusions -perhaps One Of The Secret Terrors -of Modern Life Is That We Have Lost This Refuge. No Longer Do We Move Through Space As We Once Did.

But Rather That We Should Lose Our Sense That Neither Can Become The Other, That The Traditional Novel Form Continues To Enlarge Our Experience In Those Very Areas Where The Wide-angle Lense And The Cinerama Screen Tend To Narrow It.

Modern Tourist Guides Have Helped Raised Tourist Expectations. And They Have Provided The Natives- From Kaiser Wilhelm Down To The Villagers Of Chichacestenango - With A Detailed And Itemized List Of What Is Expected Of Them And When. These Are The Up-to-date Scripts For Actors On The Tourists' Stage.

As Individuals And As A Nation, We Now Suffer From Social Narcissism. The Beloved Echo Of Our Ancestors, The Virgin America, Has Been Abandoned. We Have Fallen In Love With Our Own Image, With Images Of Our Making, Which Turn Out To Be Images Of Ourselves.