What Makes Justo Fall?

SANCTUARY V by Budd Schulberg. 415 pages. World. $6.95.

In his first full-length novel since 1955, Budd Schulberg makes a bold attempt to invade the thoughts of an aging revolutionary. Justo Moreno Suaarez is the provisional President of a nation's revolutionary government. A former professor of political science, Moreno was a helpful hand in toppling the corrupt regime of President Zamora and aided the rise to power of Angel Bello, the people's hero. Bello rewards Moreno by making him a puppet president, whose essential task is to lend the revolution a respectable imprimatur.

But Moreno soon begins to despair of both Bello's repressive measures and the workability of revolution in general. He asks a risky, rhetorical question of a foreign journalist: "Is it our fate to jump from the Wall Street pot into the Communist fire?", and he winds up forced to beg for refuge in a neutral embassy.

Schulberg's title, Sanctuary V, refers to an article of the Pan American convention governing diplomatic asylum. And Schulberg is at his best in depicting the grinding banality of asylum where defeat and depravity exist on innumerable levels.

Ambivalence is, of course, the root of Moreno's undoing. Even as he seeks to flee the country, he still finds himself defending the fundamental principles of Bello and his Green Revolution. As a former Communist Party member who did his time on the rack before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Schulberg is well-equipped to blueprint the attitudes and agonies of a man who once had high hopes for revolutionary reform. But his reach embarrassingly exceeds his grasp in dealing with Moreno's inner conflicts. What the book lacks is not philosophy or knowledge but a cohesive narrative skill. The phenomenal success of What Makes Sammy Run? (1941) and The Harder They Fall (1947) rested on fast-skipping story and stark, substantial characterization. In the end, Moreno's subtle, introspective world seems too delicate for Schulberg's stumpy pen.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.