The Art of Living by John Gardner

First published: 1981

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of work: The early 1970's

Locale: Upstate New York

Principal Characters:

• Arnold Deller, the protagonist, a cook in an Italian restaurant
• Finnegan, the narrator, a member of a motorcycle gang
• Angelina Dellapicallo, a high school senior and cocktail waitress in the restaurant
• Frank Dellapicallo, the owner of the restaurant
• Joe Dellapicallo, a bartender in the restaurant, Frank's son and Angelina's father

The Story

An Italian restaurant in a town in northern New York State has acquired a certain local fame because of its cook, Arnold Deller. A veteran of World War II, in which he was an army cook in Europe, Deller is fascinated by the art of cooking, and though the special dishes he prepares each week for the restaurant are not elaborate, they are unusual and meticulously researched. Deller has worked in the restaurant for twenty years. He is an avid reader, something of a philosopher, and a political idealist. He has three young daughters, and his son Rinehart has been killed in the Vietnam War.

Finnegan, the narrator, belongs to a teenage motorcycle gang called the Scavengers. Beneath their braggadocio, they are a harmless bunch; their custom is to visit the Italian restaurant in the afternoon to have a beer and listen to Deller hold forth in his eccentric but literate manner while he takes a break from work.

One afternoon, he harangues the boys with his notion of "the art of living." Also present are Joe Dellapicallo, the owner's son, a bartender, and Joe's daughter Angelina, a cocktail waitress in the restaurant. Although Joe seems indifferent to, and Angelina coldly irritated by, Deller's lecture, Finnegan is nonplussed by its intensity. Deller's argument is that the art of living is the ability to absorb rather than fight foreigners and foreign ways of thinking. His assumption is that man has always been both a social and a warlike creature. The need to have and protect children is at the root of this dual aspect of man's nature, according to Deller. The social contract has arrived at the point, however, where a man has to accommodate those he once regarded as his enemies if children are to be successfully nurtured in the modern world.

The emotional force behind Deller's point is the fact that his son has been killed in a war that is primarily racial, and therefore anachronistic. That is, the social instinct is now more important than the warlike instinct, for if children are to be given a chance to survive, the former must be enlarged deliberately (through "art," a willfully intentional process) and the latter must be forsworn.

That evening, Angelina approaches Finnegan in his father's garage, where he is working on his motorcycle. Finnegan has been attracted to Angelina for some time, but he has kept the attraction a secret—or so he believes. At dinner earlier, his sister Shannon teased him about it and his mother suggested that he invite Angelina to dinner. So far, Finnegan has expressed his interest only by driving his motorcycle by Angelina's house at night or near the places where she might be attending a party. He is, in his own eyes, concerned for her safety, as though he were a surrogate for her father. They have not been together—even to talk—before she arrives at the garage.

Angelina tells Finnegan about an ancient Chinese dish called "Imperial Dog." It requires a completely black dog, and she asks him to find one that night so that Deller may prepare the dish. Vaguely scandalized but not wanting to alienate Angelina, Finnegan, along with the other Scavengers, breaks into a pet shop, steals a black dog, and brings it to the restaurant after hours. Deller is waiting for them, and as he continues his harangue from the afternoon, he butchers the dog and cooks the exotic dish. Besides the Scavengers, his audience consists of Frank Dellapicallo, his son Joe and granddaughter Angelina, Deller's three daughters, and his kitchen helper Ellis. Frank insists that, according to the long contract Deller has with him, the dish must be eaten. He himself eats nothing but spaghetti, and after he sees that everyone present except his son has sat down to eat the dish, he leaves, as does Joe himself.

The story ends with Finnegan commenting on how good the Imperial Dog tastes, and with various toasts and the approval—as Finnegan reports—of the shadows beyond the candlelight, which are the ghosts of Deller's son and of numerous Asians.

Bibliography

Henderson, Jeff. John Gardner: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1990.

Henderson, Jeff, ed. Thor's Hammer: Essays on John Gardner. Conway: University of Central Arkansas Press, 1985.

Howell, John M. John Gardner: A Bibliographical Profile. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980.

Howell, John M. Understanding John Gardner. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993.

Morace, Robert A. John Gardner: An Annotated Secondary Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1984.

Morace, Robert A., and Kathryn Van Spanckeren, eds. John Gardner: Critical Perspectives. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982.

Morris, Gregory L. A World of Order and Light: The Fiction of John Gardner. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984.

Silesky, Barry. John Gardner: Literary Outlaw. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2004.

Thornton, Susan. On Broken Glass: Loving and Losing John Gardner. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2000.

Winther, Per. The Art of John Gardner: Instruction and Exploration. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.