Carnography

By John Skow

FIRST BLOOD by DAVID MORRELL 252 pages. Evans. $5.95.

Civilization has lately presented us with the meat movie, the kind in which we pay to see meat fly off someone's head as he is shotgunned. Now here is the meat novel.

Two men. Rambo, the Kid; Teasle, the Cop. Rambo hitchhiking, Teasle rodding him on to the edge of town. But Rambo doesn't shuffle down the road. Instead (the reader is cold and sure as the adrenaline shoots: oh, man, it will come ...) he walks back into town. A second time: the Cop, the Kid, back to the edge of town. And walks back in. (The reader: right, right, now let him be a discharged Green Beret...)

The third time: Rambo in jail. Won't tell his name (but wait till they find out ...). Won't let his hair be cut. Teasle starts to cut it anyway; good cop, Korea veteran, a big medal. Rambo, sure enough, an ex-Green Beret (and, my God, a Medal of Honor winner), tries to hold himself in, won't let them force him to start killing again (Come back, Shane!) because this time it won't stop.

Too much; no, he can't; he does: Rambo grabs a straight razor, spills one deputy's guts into his cupped hands, blinds another with a chop, out the door, bashes a motorcyclist off his bike, slews across the fields and into the mountains, gone, bare-bottom naked from the jail shower. Teasle follows.

It is done well. David Morrell, a young Canadian first-novelist, is an expert technician. This is important, an absolute requirement of the genre. When the meat flies off the head, it must fly just right. Through the lens, spraying the viewer with reality. Except that the reader reader/viewer is safe in his chair. That is the fun of voyeurism -- its safety.

A crank's view, if anyone wants it: I am sick of carnography, of sitting safe and watching meat fly. On the screen or on the page. But don't Moby-Dick and Hamlet also end bloodily? And isn't the reader/viewer always a voyeur?

Well, no, he isn't. But carnography's adrenal rush, quickened pulse rate, and readying of muscles for action are nearly as effective as pornography's sexual flush in blocking out all other emotional and intellectual reactions. This monotonous, mechanical simplification is why porno and carno are properly held in contempt.

The carno question invites endless literary lawyering. Is it not possible, for instance, to write excitingly about violence without being a carnographer? Yes, of course; James Jones' fine combat novel The Thin Red Line is not carno, nor is James Dickey's Deliverance, nor Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer stories. Mickey Spillane's 1, the Jury is carno. No, it is not possible to draw a line, and yes, David Morrell's First Blood is unmistakably carno, well over the line that can't be drawn.

Is his novel harmful? There are two answers: 1) No. If you liked Lieutenant Galley, you'll love the book; and 2) Yes. For Morrell runs a grave danger of spraining his back carrying his royalties to the bank. . John Skow

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