Find Thyself

THE FORGER (375 pp.)--Jay Williams --Afheneum ($4.95).

This is the latest exposition of U.S. fiction's post-Socratic theorems: Find Thyself and Express Thyself. From Madison Avenue to Greenwich Village, from suburbia to Sunset Boulevard, the heroes of unnumbered novels are digging for their treasured psyches. In most instances, there is no treasure worth unearthing, all of which leads to another popular precept: Pity Thyself.

The 'hero of The Forger is Rufus Griffin, a Greenwich Village painter in his late 20s who makes poor money and worse puns ("All nudes is good nudes"). He falls in love with a rich man's girl friend and, to keep her in caviar and champagne, starts forging old masters. But the caviar turns to ashes in a psychologized unhappy ending. Most self-quest novels are assembled with interchangeable parts, and The Forger can be assembled and disassembled rather rapidly. Part 1 (colloquy): "What do you want out of life, Rufe?" Part 2 (ecstasy): " 'Yes, yes,' she said, 'I want you. Take me, Rufus.'" Part 3 (obloquy): "Nobody believes in trees, or love making or beauty or ugliness or God." Part 4 (philosophy): "All we can do is touch hands, all of us, and be gentle with each other, as strangers on the same earth."

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