The Astonishing World

by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

Ticknor and Fields

$22.95

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison understands that the most important character in any journalistic account is usually the journalist herself.

"To rejoice in objectivity is to rejoice in divesting one's self of self; to lay claim to objectivity is to lie," she writes in the introduction to her excellent collection of essays, The Astonishing World. "Disinterestedness is an excellent thing in a Supreme Court justice...but a disinterested writer? I couldn't be one--why would one choose to spend a lifetime writing about a subject that didn't excite one's passions?--I'd be bored."

Harrison is forcefully present on every page. Although she treats subjects as diverse a Francis Ford Coppola, Nadia Comeneci, a Vermont religious cult, racial tensions in New York and ethnic conflict in Yugoslavia, her book retains a logic and cohesion through Harrison's distinctive voice and sensibility.

Fittingly, the opening pieces serve as an introduction to Harrison--her past, beliefs and prejudices. She writes eloquently and wittily about her difficult past. In one essay, she recounts her experiences as a seven year old" precocious little mouthpiece for the apocalypse" who preached door-to-door on behalf of her mother, a Jehovah's Witness. We read about her early alienation from the Italian American suburb of Bensonhurst in which she grew up; her defection from its provincialism to feminism and bohemianism; her marriage and divorce.

Through all of this she seems to have retained a sense of humor, a fierce pleasure in observing the world and a moral strength (she has a biting contempt for people who complain). She writes beautifully, savoring the details that pass most people by in the blur of daily life.

Harrison brings this strong personality and keen eye to all the essays in this book. The profile pieces are less standard interviews than dialogues; Harrison's opinions on the celebrities she writes about are always crystal clear. Some of the best essays result from encounters with people she clearly dislikes.

"Pure Gore," which recounts an afternoon spent with Gore Vidal in his house in Rome, is a fascinating display of two clashing sensibilities. Gore's dry pessimism in the face of his own worldly and literary success strikes Harrison as pouty and ungenerous. Rejecting the usual fawning interviwer's pose, Harrison challenges and argues with Vidal. In their tense but often funny exchange, they hone their opposing philosphies:

"'At my age," [Vidal] says, 'Nobody is afraid of death...I think I might take a short cut.'

I protest. Suicide sets a bad example, I say, and it is contagious, "There are plenty more where we came from,' he says.

Harrison, of course, eventually gets the last word, finding Gore guilty of a rather ungrateful attitude toward the world. But the piece presents an absorbing and fair fight.

The essay on Nadia Comeneci is more devastating. In a series of depressing interviews, the Rumanian gymnast bosses waiters at restaurants, lies to Harrison about her collaboration with the murderous dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and periodically leaves the table to vomit up the large quantities of food she stuffs into her mouth.