Carl Jonas

From Philosopedia

Jonas, Carl (1913—1976)

Born in Omaha, Jonas is the author of many satires on contemporary life, including Beachhead on the Wind (1945), The Observatory (1966), Our Revels Now are Ended (1957), and others.

He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Governor Dummer Academy, and Williams College (BA). In 1957, Jonas began lecturing in Creighton University's English department of what was then the University of Omaha.

The author of Jefferson Selleck (1953), Jonas when asked his view concerning several connotations of humanism, responded,

What you ask appalls me. A fiction writer hates to say these things directly and prefers to say what he is in the corkscrew fashion of his profession, leaving the task of labeling to the academician. It had never occurred to me to ask myself whether I were a humanist at all. Of course I might be, and then again I might not be.

I am a fallen Middlewestern Baptist which means that I don’t go to church but have at least so my wife says a stern New England conscience; that I don’t believe in God but am terribly in awe of something; that my theoretical morality is as loose as a goose in the sluice but my actual morality is as confining as a pair of high tight shoes; that the good life consists of doing very seriously more or less what one wants to plus paying up the bills more or less promptly; that people are fundamentally good; that science is a great thing but that perhaps the price we pay for our electric refrigerators, Hotpoint ranges, antihistamine pills, the cathartics is a little high; that ends do not justify means; that love is one of the best things there is but that a lot of people seem to have to get along pretty much without it; that the game’s not over until the last ball’s played; that we would all probably be better off if we stopped smoking cigarettes but that probably we won’t; and that Scotch is considerably inferior to Bourbon.

I also believe in the institution of marriage, in the United States Constitution, and in children, although I feel that, interesting as they are, they are considerably less interesting than adults.

Oh yes, finally I believe that the Fifth Amendment should be changed, and that probably I am a Romantic… and that “Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire /To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would we not shatter it to bits, and then / Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!”

Books

Beachhead on the Wind, Little, Brown, 1945

Jefferson Selleck, Little, Brown, 1952

Lillian White Deer, WW Norton, 1964

The Observatory, WW Norton, 1966

Our Revels Now are Ended, WW Norton, 1957

Riley McCullough, Little, Brown, 1954

Snowslide, Little, Brown, 1950

The Sputnik Rapist, WW Norton, 1973

A Trout in the Milk, WW Norton, 1972

{WAS, 29 July 1954}