December 17, 20 by beth kephart beth kephart,special to the sun if we were among emerson's confidantes, would we think, like him, that friendship demands a religious treatment, that it must never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery. Readers were being swept up into the entertainment of the novel, where stories about friendships substituted for philosophy. Readers were going off in rafts with huck finn and his friend, jim they were looking the devil face of false friendship in the eye with the likes of oliver twist. And as the 19th century faded and the 20th bloomed, then boomed, those who read cather, fitzgerald, hemingway, faulkner, horgan, carver, ondaatje and others were finding the nuances of friendship in their fictions.

So that, in recent years, friendship, once the province of so much male discourse and reflection and indeed, as francine du plessix gray points out in her lovely essay on friendship, the past 20 centuries of western thought was primarily obsessed with male friendships, discounting all that goes on between women, as well as genders has softened as an ideal, as a matter of civic discourse. Friendship, wrote wallace stegner, in his masterful, late 20th century novel crossing to safety, is a relationship that has no formal shape, there are no rules or obligations or bonds as in marriage or the family, it is held together by neither law nor property nor blood, there is no glue in it but mutual liking. Beth kephart is the author of into the tangle of friendship: a memoir of the things that matter, which was released from houghton mifflin this fall. She is a 20 nea fellow and a phi beta kappa graduate of the university of pennsylvania. Friendship, as we know, is the close relationship of the people who have hurdled the good and the bad times together. It is knowing a person not by name but by attitude the way they act, what they like, what they eat, drink, watch, do, everything! it is a process which develops through time.

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However, the length of time you've known the person is not the major factor in building a quality friendship. You're not ashamed of admitting that you once worked in a fast food chain or you have this horrible habit of picking your teeth in public. Friendship is acceptance! you have accepted him for what he/she is with their good traits and the not so good ones and your friend the same. Friendship is about mutuality, equity! most of us know friendship most of us have experienced it. But what is it really aside from the basic facts we know? montaigne tells us that it is the general and universal warmth, moderate and even, вќ in contrast to love and marriage on friendship par.5.

Francine du plessix gray interprets montaigne's words as the advantages of friendship over any kind of romantic or physical attachment вќ on friendship par.5. There are a lot of reasons why friendship is betterr than any form of relationship. Personally, i would say it is the best! it is an act of selflessness and openness that dominates other ties. As francis bacon wrote in one of his essays, those who have no friends to open themselves

by michiko kakutani

published: august 20, 1981

certainly the genesis of any novel is as singular as its author's apprehension of his craft: some writers start with an idea, a calculated theory that they hope to illustrate others find their book in an epiphany, a character or incident glimpsed with sudden recognition. In the case of francine du plessix gray's new novel ''world without end,'' it was a bit of both. The sight of a fellow intourist traveler ''a sort of forlorn, middle aged bachelor with melancholy blue eyes'' during a 1976 trip to the soviet union gave mrs.

Gray her central character, edmund, and it also gave her a theme, that of ''the solitude of middle age.'' the theory that animated this vision was a good deal more complicated. A philosopher manque who had planned at one time to get a doctorate and teach, mrs. Gray was fascinated by a certain neoplatonic idea the notion popular during the renaissance that it is friendship, not romantic love or sexual passion, that provides human beings with the most lasting and valuable of emotions. ''love is an impetuous and fickle flame,'' wrote montaigne in a well known essay, but friendship produces ''a gentle and universal warmth, moderate and even.'' embody 'forgotten corners ''it was a challenge,'' says mrs.

''i realized this novel would be relatively devoid of the sexual tensions on which the novel form has thrived. But the fact is, until the 18th century, not only the greeks and the renaissance writers, but montaigne and bacon, up through la rochefoucauld believed that friendship was the essential ingredient of the good life. And the way i evolved the novel, these three edmund, claire and sophie would be sunk without their friendship.

It is almost a kind of angelic bond and the only deterrent to that solitude of middle age.'' although ''world without end'' appears at first glance to be less autobiographical than mrs. Gray's first novel, ''lovers and tyrants,'' she says its three characters actually embody many ''forgotten corners'' of her own life. Like edmund, she grew up a child of the impoverished aristocracy, having come to america with her russian emigre mother.

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And like sophie, she says she is ''plagued by a diversity of interests.'' before turning to fiction, mrs. Gray spent some 10 years pursuing a career as an artist she is married to the painter cleve gray and she also published some highly acclaimed nonfiction, most notably ''divine disobedience,'' a study of such catholic radicals as philip and daniel berrigan and ivan illich. Although she continues to write essays and book reviews and is thinking of working on another book of reportage, she has since given up both painting and her academic aspirations. Still, she says she is able to investigate those roads not taken through her fiction. ''there are things in one's life that get pushed aside for pragmatic reasons,'' she says.

''it's a motivating force to write because writing enables one to examine one's failed possibilities.'' versatile martin amis last year, many american readers first became aware of martin amis as the british author who charged that his novel ''the rachel papers'' had been plagiarized by the american writer jacob epstein. Some readers were also dimly aware that he was the son of kingsley amis, the celebrated author of ''lucky jim.'' in london, however, the former literary editor of the new statesman has firmly established a reputation of his own, having created in such novels as ''the rachel papers,'' ''dead babies,'' ''success'' and his recently published ''other people'' a recognizable fictional world. It is a place defined by swiftian excess and metropolitan satire, a place where variously shabby characters partake of lust and violence and guilt in hopes of being allowed a second chance. Amis has written frequently for the times literary supplement and the london review of books, and he will soon be filing a regular letter from new york for the observer. He will cover, he says, ''preferably the most vulgar and lurid things i can find,'' as well as the local literary life a subject on which he had already formed decided opinions. ''american writers are celebrities in the sense no english writer is,'' he said the other day. ''the idea of an english writer doing what salinger did'' becoming a recluse to avoid publicity ''would make us die of laughter because in england, you don't get anybody to bother you.