Two Americas

THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 1950 (452 pp.) --Edited by Martha Foley--Houghton Mifflin ($3.75).

THE SATURDAY EVENING POST STORIES 1949 (314 pp.)--Random House ($2.75).

If a visiting anthropologist who knew very little about the U.S.--say, Englishman Geoffrey Gorer--were to read these two collections of stories, he might easily conclude that the U.S. is suffering from a hopeless schizophrenic split. And he might get just as wildly off base by picking up either one by itself.

From Miss Foley's anthology, he could argue that the U.S. is psyche-deep in insecurity, addicted to the subtle analysis of private anguish, decadent in social morality, and continually worried about the problem of racial minorities. From the Satevepost collection, he would get a picture of a U.S. incredibly complacent about its national virtues, convinced that romance always ends with a kiss of betrothal, and devoted to the notion that everything always turns out right in the end.

Quack Monologue. The current Satevepost collection (No. 5 in a series that has been appearing since 1946) lacks the work of such distinguished old-time Post regulars as John P. Marquand, Guy Gilpatric and Clarence Budington Kelland. But its breezy, lightweight stories are done by expert literary carpenters, e.g., Gerald Kersh and Steve McNeil, who know the formula perfectly. Moreover, the collection makes no claim to being the best literature of this or any other year.

Miss Foley, more venturesome, has set out to pick the best 28 stories of the year. Several of them are good, but on the evidence it is doubtful whether as many as 28 really good stories were published last year. The best in her book: Saul Bellow's recording (in Partisan Review) of a quack doctor's monologue in Chicago's "Bughouse Square"; Paul Bowles's eerie portrait (Mademoiselle) of a missionary's effort to hold the attention of primitive Indians by playing them jazz records; Peggy Bennett's sketch (Harper's Bazaar) of the thoughtless, almost affectionate cruelty young boys can show to each other; and Edward Newhouse's story (The New Yorker) of a father who delights in ceremonial tributes to his dead soldier son.

The Muddy-Brow. The most interesting thing about Miss Foley's book this time is that it seems to reflect an internal reorientation in the avant-garde literary world. Half of her stories are from the highbrow little magazines, but these are no more experimental or daring -- and no better in quality -- than the stories she picks from the slicks and fashion magazines. One reason: increasingly these days, magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and Mademoiselle have been offering more than the little magazines can pay for the work of the more understandable in the avantgarde.

The transition has been made easy by the fact that the highbrow journals themselves are becoming increasingly conventional in their stories. Thus, the distance between high and middlebrow is gradually shortening, and the two are merging to form a dubious amalgam : the muddy-brow.

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