ON BECOMING AMERICAN by Ted Morgan (Sanche de Gramont); Houghton Mifflin; 336 pages; $10.95
First the bad news: Sanche de Gramont is not a French count any more. Now the good news: he became an American citizen last year and, in the process, shed his title and the name his family has borne since "the morning hours of Western civilization." He is now Ted Morgan. Big changes: De Gramont, says Morgan, was the strict, rather European father, for instance, and something of a male chauvinist; Morgan, says Morgan, is a permissive American father of two, and an earnest believer in feminism. De Gramont kissed the slender hands of titled ladies, the rascal; Morgan, 45, helps his wife Nancy with the dishes and is not likely to be invited to dinners where footmen stand behind each place.
The author's good sense in becoming an American is readily apparent, especially to Americans. To him France is all but fossilized, and his highborn relatives there are wholly so, as the funniest parts of his account maliciously attest. (Ted Morgan's Uncle Armand once brought Marcel Proust to lunch. Afterward the due de Gramont, Armand's father, handed his guest book to the already famous author "and with the total disdain of the nobleman for the artist, said, 'Just your name, Mr. Proust. No thoughts.' ") The U.S. he sees as still an open society, free and easy, rambunctious, optimistic, cheerfully ready to build on both its successes and its mistakes. He likes American lingo and quotes a lot of it (Harry Truman on Jack Kennedy: "He had his ear so close to the ground it was full of grasshoppers"). He likes interstate highways, supermarkets, fast-food shops, fast talkers, the entire "discardo" culture. He likes the chanciness of the San Andreas fault, on which he now lives in California.
There is more; he likes the way U.S. society is forever jumping on its horse and riding off in several directions (example: "Saccharin would be banned in prepared food and beverages, where the unsuspecting consumer might not know it was an ingredient, but it would be sold as an over-the-counter drug in containers warning that it could cause cancer"). He cannot fathom American Puritanism but admires the national trait of altruism. He cherishes our chronic forgetfulness and blithering unawareness of history (talkshow gabber to ex-Premier Cao Ky of South Viet Nam, who now runs a liquor store in California: "We still have a minute left. Could you tell us what went wrong?").
Ted Morgan is a man loopy with love for his new country, and the result is a book that is both refreshing and breathless. It has been a long time since anyone serenaded the present reality of the U.S. in such a hyperbolic manner. He cheers on conservatives who roar for less government and more cops, grumpily defending a dream of frontier capitalism. He applauds liberals—writing their concerned letters to the editor, demanding more government and less repression, peering worriedly at the future. To Morgan these factions do not reveal a paralysis of opposed fears but a lively and profitable ferment. Wonderful! he marvels, as environmentalists and exploiters ambush each other in federal court. The system works!