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Between fact and fiction

In the late 1940s, with America licking its war wounds and its people trying to settle down again in a daily routine, new cultural identities were established in response to the dramatic change that the decade had provided them. Many of the younger, idealistic generation found refuge in their collective intellects, using literature, art and philosophy as a means of insulating themselves from the postwar realities. As "birds of a feather," these intellectuals, writers and artists came together forming districts and creating some of the most colorful cultural times of the century. Greenwich Village, a place more romanticized than any other American place, with the exception of perhaps Haight-Ashbury, was pivotal in the conception of this lifestyle.

In "Kafka Was the Rage," (Vintage, $11) Anatole Broyard, a resident of this New York neighborhood during this period, explores what it meant to be a resident of Greenwich Village, how this experience shaped each individual and how each individual shaped Greenwich Village. Book I is entitled "Sheri" and focuses not so much on the area and culture as much as on one individual. When Anatole arrives in the village, he finds himself living with a woman named Sheri. With little ceremony or circumstance, he has a roommate and a lover. Sheri is a painter whose one desire is to lead a life as abstract as her art. Predictability is abhorrent to her as are so many other things average society would consider important: cleanliness, communication, honesty. For example, when Anatole first moves in and has to go to the bathroom, she tells him to "pee in the sink." When he reminds her the sink is full of dishes, she responds by reminding him they need to be washed anyway. She is a typical atypical Village resident, and although the reader sees little else other than their relationship, Book I still gives us a good idea of the people coexisting around them.

The breakup of Sheri and Anatole is the catalyst of the second book, appropriately titled "After Sheri." This second half is fascinating in that we are on the streets of the neighborhood, coming in closer contact with the types of people we are introduced to in Book I. The intellectual lifestyle is so much a part of these people that at times they seem to have problems distinguishing reality from the fiction they read. Lurking beneath this seemingly entirely cerebral existence is an erotic tension pumping through the psyche of this area, a spell in which Anatole freely admits he was under.

Although what happened in Greenwich Village in the 1940s and 1950s is still influencing much of the art and literature of today, there is not much to compare it to, so a clear sense of its spirit cannot be discerned. Anatole Broyard clarifies this as well as it can be done, and with such precise writing it seems as if every word were held up by him and rigorously inspected. He examines the scene and reviews it with the same exacting eye he used as "The New York Times" book reviewer, allowing the reader to glimpse into the motivations of many otherwise inexplicable actions. Seeing these people in this light, the mystery and romance of this vanished era becomes much more accessible.