Smoke and Mirrors: Violence, Television and Other American Cultures.

John Leonard, the author of Smoke and Mirrors: Violence, Television and Other American Cultures (The New Press, 290 pp.), a loosely arranged rumination on television past, present and future, is the TV critic for New York magazine, the literary editor of The Nation and a weekly guest on CBS Sunday Morning. He is also a glowing intellect with both the desire and the equipment to say something positive about television.

Television is the object of a great deal of public and political scorn. To admit that you like watching it is to feel tentative, guilty. And yet many millions of us spend so much time with it, are drawn to what we see. Leonard is the refreshing voice stating clearly what we might have realized for ourselves if the din of criticism hadn't deafened us to our own opinions: that we love TV for those unexpected moments of great art. Admittedly, there is so much material on television that most of it flows by without impact. But there, suddenly, is John Goodman's heartbreaking drunken rage at the mental illness of his mother in an episode of Roseanne. And there, suddenly, is the communal joy of the naked marathon in Northern Exposure. We all have our own moments, filed away in our memories according to the meaning we found in them. Leonard recalls several of his favorites, moments when he too was "ambushed into sentience."

Leonard also makes a watertight case against the "headline-hungry senators and a noisy cohort of under-employed busybodies in the private sector" who charge TV with damaging our youth, our grown-ups, our morals. Leonard notes that TV is accused of simultaneously sedating and inciting to violence. But his crucial point is that humans don't emulate what they see on television. Every '50s sitcom featured a perfect nuclear family, and yet the divorce rate soared. M*A*S*H has been on TV every night in just about every American city for years; why, Leonard asks, "aren't all of us tree-hugging wiseguy pacifists?" He points out that TV tackles the social issues and domestic relationships that movies are often too budget-obsessed to cover. "... over and over again [TV] has sought to represent the most powerless among us," he says. "... we'd actually be a kinder, gentler, healthier nation if in fact we embraced the scruples and imitated the behaviors recommended by most entertainment programs - more welcoming of diversity and difference, more impatient with the routine brutalities of a master class and a mass society, more of a community than an agglomeration of market segments and seething sects."

Leonard's sharp mind ranges far beyond television in Smoke and Mirrors. In his rich prose, he deals with everything from AIDS to societal problems to TV executives to "hype culture" to gun control to the Internet to the decline of TV news ("Instead of courage, we've got demographics."). The book is a should-read for even those who have minimal interest in television. It is food for lots of thoughts, thoughts on a crazy smattering of topics relevant to human existence and intellectual life. The first chapter in particular is a perfect polished gem that could easily stand alone.

A word of caution, however ... Leonard's mind operates at a humbling speed. He writes in a Dennis Milleresque stream of metaphor and free association without a net. This can be a pleasure, and it renders him so densely quotable as to make a book reviewer throw up her hands in despair, but it can also be annoying, like a steamroller paving over your brain.

If you can smilingly swallow the tangential patter, you will find Smoke and Mirrors thoughtful and even moving at times. I actually got into a violent argument over TV and the definition of art because of this book, and that, in my opinion, is a mark of quality.