The Wasteland

A DREAM JOURNEY by JAMES HANLEY 368 pages. Horizon Press. $8.95.

James Hanley, 75, is one of the best-known little-known writers now at work. Over the course of his long career he has been praised by such disparate souls as T.E. Lawrence and E.M. Forster. Novelists and reviewers periodically puzzle over the obscurity that has accompanied Hanley's high critical reputation. Yet the matter is not terribly mysterious. He throws no sops to fashion or to the ease of his readers. Hanley's essential subject is a darkness that most people would rather whistle through: the abrasions of living that wear away spirit and soul. A Dream Journey, Hanley's 26th book, is a particularly harrowing example of his craft. Clement Stevens, 50, is a painter with ferocious determination but no special gift. Lena, his wife in everything but name, sums up the fruits of his labor: "Two exhibitions, ten private sales, a deal of barter." Clem no longer leaves their apartment on the top floor of a crumbling London house; he drinks and stares at the reproach of blank canvas. Lena goes shopping once a week, toys dispiritedly with the notion of leaving Clem and the airless gloom that enshrouds him. Clem reads her thoughts and reminds her: "If you left me, I'd fall down. But so would you" Hanley lightens this bleak, static scene only once--with a long flashback to World War II and the London blitz, when Clem, Lena and the other tenants trooped down the stairs to spend nights of fear in the cellar. Here, A Dream Journey takes on special intensity. The dream is a nightmare, and small, carefully described activities like eating or conversing become pools of serenity in a chaotic torrent.

The symbiosis of Clem and Lena is hardly a compelling matter, and Hanley's narrative does little to pique the reader. He lets his principals do the talking, and, like most victims of accidents. Clem and Lena have a cloudy sense of what hit them. They are well-versed in their own weaknesses, but not on the whys and hows of their lives. A rare visitor to their room registers an outside opinion on what the two have accomplished: "In the wasteland he saw a curious mixture of loyalty and stupidity."

Both loyalty and stupidity can be tiresome over the long haul, and Hanley's haul takes place over 368 relentless pages. The artist's death, near the end, gives his wife one of the few chances to make a genuinely moving speech: "1 knew my husband was a failure three long years ago, but you don't just walk out on a person just because they turn out to be second rate ... There's more to a man than that." Hanley wrests such epiphanies from meager raw materials, and it is easy to commend his skill and tenacity. But A Dream Journey like Clem and Lena themselves, is more to be puzzled at than loved. Paul Gray

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