18 / CHRONICLESnround of dinner parties would leavenone with a bad taste in one’s mouth, sontoo women need other interests. Butnare day-care centers really the answer?nOr might it not be better if the homencould once again become a dynamicncenter in the community, obviatingnthe need for women to seek a way ofnescaping the horrors of boredom andnisolation? And if Margolis’ nononsensenrealism means that the economicnrealities of life make such annoption an impossibility, then it is highntime feminism was seen as a desperatenOut On a Limb by Thomas P. McDonnelln”Such was that happy garden-state,nWhile man there walked without anStanley and the Women by KingsleynAmis, New York: Summit Books.nKingsley Amis has been practicingnthe writer’s trade long enough tonhave produced a full shelf of books.nLast year’s Stanley and the Women wasnnot only his 17th novel but a signalnthat three decades have suddenlynelapsed since the publication in 1954nof Lucky Jim. And yet it was a minornpublishing scandal of the late 1985nseason that there was some kind ofnattempt to prevent the publication ofnStanley and the Women in this countryn—even after, that is, its successfulnappearance in Great Britain. It turnsnout that the attempt to “discourage” anU.S. publication of Stanley and thenWomen was the work of a handful ofnfeminist editors in at least three of ournmost esteemed publishing houses,nsupported by their uxorious overlords.nWhen Stanley and the Women wasnpublished in England in the spring ofn1984, the received word spread rapidlynto both sides of the Atiantic that Amisnhad been simply beastly to the femalenof the species and was therefore not tonbe tolerated anywhere. But of coursenthe attempt to delay, if not to prevent,nthe book’s appearance in this countrynwas bound to fail. What still seemsnincredible is that any such censorialneffort should have been attempted atnall. This remains a shocking fact,nmoreover, which has clearly escapednthe notice of those custodians of thenperishing Republic who guard withntheir very lives the sacred rights of theirnThomas P. McDonnell is a free-lancenwriter living near Boston.nmate. . . .n—Andrew Marvellnown free expression—and rightiy so.nUnfortunately, it is a latitude whichndoes not extend in equal justice tonthose who do not fit into the approvednsocial and political patterns of the day.nThe narrator of the offensive novelnis one Stanley Duke, the 45-year-oldnadvertising manager for a Londonndaily newspaper, whose chief concessionnto hedonism is that he drives annApfelsine FK3. By the end of thennovel, he will have become the automotivenwriter—or car critic—for thensame paper. The ways and means ofnhow Stanley earns his living, however,nhave littie enough to do with the story.nnnattempt to come to terms with a hopelessnsituation. For feminism, the ideologynof privileged, professional women,noifers no panacea to the many womennnot so situated, especially when onenrealizes that the marriage betweennfeminism and science is for keeps.nHe has had thrust upon him a rathernuntoward avocation which has mainlynto do with women, wives past andnpresent (one in each category), plus ansevere family crisis involving the onsetnof madness in his only son, Steve.nSusan is Stanley’s present wife, annassistant editor of a London literarynweekly, who also reviews books. Literallynemerging out of the darkness,nSteve suddenly returns home one eveningnwith no explanation as to why henwas not in Spain. Steve’s morose behaviornmanifests itself almost at oncenin his having ripped asunder Susan’snreview copy of Saul Bellow’s Herzog, annovel she had judged good enough tonkeep and thus not to sell, with thenaccumulating review copies of othernbooks, to the secondhand dealer.nSo much, then, for Steve’s estima-n