Even as far back as St. Augustine, autobiographers who have written of passion have approached this task with missionary zeal. Frequently they feel they have discovered the Truth about sex. And frequently this Truth can be summarized in one of two ways: to such enlightened authors sex is either the symbol of all our society's problems or the answer to them. Thus Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer uses-sex to symbolize action in a world where all action is hopeless though despair must be avoided. On the other hand, in Women in Love D.H. Lawrence declares that only the rejuvenation represented by sex can revive our mechanical society.

But writing a polemic about the meaning of passion narrows the author's exploration of the subject. Once he sets up desire as a symbol of say, rejuvenation, he cannot examine aspects of desire inconsistent with that symbol. This problem naturally limits the autobiographer's reminiscences. Lawrence could not includes humorous reflections on passion in Women in Love without contradicting the tone he set.

But Dahlberg is not proselytizing in his autobiography. Rather than propounding a theory about desire, he is exploring the drives shared by all men, the drives which created and sustained and tormented his mother and himself. And Dahlberg brings to this exploration all the wisdom and all the erudition which he has acquired. Because he is not proselytizing, he does not share the limits of other autobiographers.

He describes the painfulness of desire with lyrical agony, recalling his cry in the Sorrows of Priepus-- "All flesh is trouble." Such passages inevitably echo Lawrence. Yet Dahlberg can write in a subsequent passage of Lizzie's troubles with her bladder. One can hardly imagine Ursula or Lady Chatterley, or Lawrence's own mother in See and Lovers, with such an ailment.

Writes of Sordidness

Detailing the promiscuous lives of Lizzie's assistants in the barbershop, Dahlberg emphasizes the sordidness of sex. Yet he can juxtapose such passages with lyrics full of awe about passion. In Truth Is More Sacred, he affirms that "emptied of awe ... the heart is a moldy fungus that poisons the whole earth."

To combine such divergent tones without antagonizing or unintentionally amusing the reader takes skill--and courage. In using so many obscure references Dahlerg again risks a very unfavorable reaction. Yet he succeeds in both cases because we understand his purpose in creating this beek.

In fact Dahlberg's autobiography fulfills one of the goals he once set for literature. His book "makes the reader stronger in intellect... and gives him arms and legs he did not have before.