The Man Who Planted Trees, Jean Giono,...

The Man Who Planted Trees, Jean Giono, afterword by Norma L. Goodrich (Chelsea Green Publishing Co., P.O. Box 283, Chelsea, Vt. 05038). Acclimated to contemporary American fiction that is dark, comic, biting, experimental--anything, in short, but straightforward--we’re likely to dismiss tales such as this, about a taciturn shepherd who plants thousands of acorns, as too slow or saccharine. Jean Giono’s story is moving, though, precisely because the technique it uses to remind us of beauty--word images of trees swaying in the breeze, pines growing under snow in mountain passes, wild white horses galloping across the surf--has become so rare.

Taken as the publisher and Norma Goodrich present it--the story of one man’s generosity and hope--”The Man Who Planted Trees” is genuine and touching. Its simplicity is deceptive, however, for the shepherd and his trees are offered not only as an uplifting story, but as a fable intended to enlighten. The more one looks at Giono’s word-paintings, the more one sees the hidden morals; through the model of the shepherd, for instance, Giono offers curious tips on everything from proper attire (“All his buttons were firmly sewed on”) to dignified pets (“His dog, as silent as himself, was friendly, without being servile”).

Literacy: Reading the Word and the World, Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo; A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education, Ira Shor and Paulo Freire (Bergin & Garvey, 670 Amherst Road, South Hadley, Mass. 01075: $12.95 each). Though Paulo Freire is a leading education theorist in his native Brazil and in developing nations, his name is rarely mentioned in debates on improving U.S. education. The omission at first seems mysterious, for Freire’s vision of ideal schooling--emphasizing active dialogue between student and teacher rather than a “banking system of education,” in which a teacher deposits ideas into “empty receptacles”--is deeply democratic in spirit. Freire’s obscurity is less surprising, though, after one wades through these jargon-filled pages. Freire’s ideas would have been more accessible if he had taken heed of his own advice to teachers about the importance of “dialectical debates” (discussions that consider many sides of an issue), for in these books Freire spars only with educators who already agree with him. Consequently, he doesn’t address contrasting views about education, such as the conservative argument that we need more discipline in the classroom.

This is a shame, because many of Freire’s ideas could help broaden the scope of the current U.S. debate. In “Literacy,” for instance, Freire writes that we are unique among the animals because language allows us to envision something different (perhaps better than) the surrounding reality. Freire’s idealism might seem foreign to Americans because we think more about boosting test scores than transforming society. Nevertheless, according to Johathon Kozol’s “Illiterate America,” the United States is 49th among the countries in the United Nations in terms of literacy, and Freire’s philosophical ideas might suggest some reasons why. As Freire sees it, for example, the “dropouts” who help drive up our illiteracy rate are better seen as students “expelled . . . by aggressive elements in the curriculum.” This is, admittedly, a controversial view, but Freire’s provocative explanation of it could lead to a constructive, “dialectical debate” in the United States.

The Resurrection John Gardner (Vintage: $5.95). John Gardner’s protagonists are nearly always grappling with the Big Questions, a tendency that has won Gardner acclaim for holding that “the business of civilization is to pay attention” as well as criticism for letting his characters ramble on about the elusiveness of good, the persistence of evil and the importance of “remembering what is central.” In this, his first novel, however, Gardner effectively balances emotions with ideas, characterization with narrative. Only one true pedant is allowed to take center stage--a mad law librarian named John Horne--and then only for parts of three chapters. James Chambers, Gardner’s protagonist, an associate professor on top of his profession with a book on contemporary metaphysics in the works, is actually the most likely candidate to become the book’s ideologue.

In the book’s first chapter, though, he discovers that he has leukemia. While he subsequently spends some time “fleeing into the comforting arms of pedantic abstraction,” he no longer takes his search for truth seriously. His transformation is more liberating than demoralizing, though, because it helps him (and later, his family and friends) come to terms with the fact that ideas are often as short-lived as those who envision them. Not surprisingly, then, the first sign of ephemerality in the book is not tragic, but comic: a cemetery sign near Chambers’ grave with faded, barely legible letters reading “Perpetual Care.” Also recently reprinted is Gardner’s The Sunlight Dialogues (Vintage: $6.95). First published in 1972, it’s a sprawling saga focusing on a jail escapee who had become an anarchistic magician.

Religion on Capitol Hill: Myths and Realities, Peter L. Benson and Dorothy L. Williams (Oxford: $8.95). The authors’ initial observations, based on in-depth interviews with 80 congressional representatives, are far from surprising. They conclude, for example, that “there are very few evangelicals who take a moderate political position.” And, yet, reading on leads to surprises: Between 22% and 40% of evangelicals are solidly liberal (the variation depends on whether the authors use scales developed by the Americans for Democratic Action or by the New Christian Right). The study, funded “prominently” by the National Endowment for the Humanities and carried out by a secular think tank with a religious-sounding name (the Search Institute), was one of several started after the New Right gained new prominence in 1978. And, while the authors are never critical of the New Right, their results call into question some of its assumptions. Congress, they write, “is not a hotbed of secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism,” for the representatives are as religious as the represented: 86% percent “definitely believe God or some ultimate religious reality exists”; 9% “lean toward believing,” while only 5% “don’t believe or lean toward not believing.” While the authors falter when they set the statistics aside and attempt interpretation, raising questions they can’t answer, most of this book offers unique, illuminating and objective reportage.