The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN PROFESSIONAL literary comment on Thomas Manna quartet of monumental novel* just naturally apiita into two block*. The boy* ana girl* who do the writing divide...
...Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard are popular among the literati ht the summer...
...They can't all be writing books...
...Their recreations are movies, concerts, plays, books...
...Sholem Ashe and Thomas Mann are both bestsellers...
...But there is a continuous hinting that dreams and their interpretation are the thoughts that form behind half-closed eyelids...
...That spreading tree, through the branches of which I could glimp** the for sky and an occasional transport plane or boasber off about its war business, wss a strong incentive to ranging meditation...
...Another side of Russian life—the simple joy*, you know—was told by some airmen who participated in the shuttle bombing of Europe...
...He was, above all, a sentimentalist...
...Perhaps this is the source of critical shortcoming...
...I'll let one of them toll about it in his own word* from her* on: "We get there and the place is full of men snd women swimming in their birthday suite...
...At th* end of my garden there ie an orchard...
...Wherever he " scheduled to apeak, they whip up a petition campsh...
...Inside and Out By MURRAY EVERETT Fascist Jteeeleea TllE Bo*well type of biography it interesting not only for the material of a man'* life, but the kind of posturing • man will exhibit when exposing himself to public gate...
...asking the sponsors to withdraw Chamber tin...
...Now new and even more stringent family laws have been passed...
...Evidently a lot of the thing* mentioned have double meanings...
...Yankee flier*, accustomed to the taboos of Amer ics and the surface primness of England, were baffled by Russia's forthright handling of the boy meets-girl situation...
...Since the novel, next to the moving picture, ia oar characteristic art form it inevitably reflects this change...
...To each according to his need...
...Those who took the required course* and have beard about Goethe are distent but respectful...
...Mann was thinking of the Junkers—of his day...
...Here is Howard Whitman's story from the Newe: A number of the boys at this base were in on that show and thrir stay in Russia impressed them more than anything else...
...The Russian people have a well trained army developed by technicians from Europe end White Russia who are pilot*, tank drivers and artillery men and below them, Asiatics who constitute the brute mass of infantry animated by an instinctive warlike spirit for they are direct deecendente of Tamerlaine...
...The doctor was called in to treat Mussolini's ulcers and the blacksmith's sob unloosed some philosophical remarks...
...Symbols suggest ideas, and ideas make us uneasy...
...It was funny seeing her walk up like that without a darn thing on...
...Perhaps it doesn't take nerve to write a symbolic tale...
...Perhapa we are at the turn of the literary tide...
...Thia Hebrew upstart st the sophisticated court of Pharoah was the first economic planner...
...This may be the wave of the literary future...
...In Switzerland I did know Lenin when he edited th* journal The Spark...
...Of course the 01 shorts we were wearing didn't cover up very much but, aw gee, yea know how it is...
...So thia fellow says, 'Okay, baby, 1 dea't mind if 1 da' She didn't under-stand that, but when he took off his shorts the clapped her hands and ran into th* water...
...Thomas Msnn snd J»*«wA wcwM etsrt me, and the flights included wide stretches of geography and history...
...There is an eternal conflict between the person and the pattern...
...It may be that millions are now in a mood for meditation...
...They told their stories, tb American correspondents oa their return...
...And God save us from such saviors...
...The Italian nation ia in a crisis from which it can never recover...
...Finally a girl—not bad, either—come* up to one of our fellows and motions him to take his shorts oa...
...More then one has a modern sting in its tall...
...Wow I "A couple of us turned to walk away, figuring we'd busted in on something purely personal,, but they ran over to us aad told ua to stay...
...It is a world in which we are not at home...
...The drive will also result in a clash with Harry Bridges, Both Wolchak aad the west coast party-liner have sent organisers into Dallas to sign up the plant there...
...According to the Mere, th* Russian official didn't like to have his offer declined and walked away registering displeasure • • • Cu/fore KuRT LIST, whose opinions oa Shostakovich in these pages precipitated s verbal battle ia the music columns of the N. Y. Times, has taken ever the editorship of Listen, a critical magaziae...
...It is what George Babbitt might select for comment From beginning to end the book ia a search for the truth which Us* back of names The ancient people* went from their animistic deities to the earth to the moon to the sua...
...resting of these Boswellian biographies emergea from the note* an Italian physician made talking to Mussolini while the erstwhile Duce waa imprisoned after the collapse of Fasciamo...
...R wee hot when they landed near a town he the Ukraine and) using sign language, they found their wsy to the local swimming hole...
...The other belligerent nations are in a crisis toe...
...One of the latest places where the stunt wss tried wss hi Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Ch.mherlin spoke st a conference arranged jointly by Anttooh Cortege »*" the Friends...
...They are not as interested in sexual freedoms or experimentation as perhaps are some city people, intellectuals and neurotics...
...Sasl Virfae MaRKOOSHA FISCHER, in her My Lives ht Russia, tells of the time the first stringent divorce and anti-abortion laws were introduced In Russia in 1984...
...A good, fat book jast ate into the crotch of one of the apple trees...
...But I may be wrong...
...Within a few hours after the Yanks arrived in Russis, Soviet officials approached the little group and asked matin of factly, "How many women do you want...
...Joseph it pictured as the supreme peHtldae, and a good peHmaalaalstas both th* tWvtical dictator oa ths" throne snd the r******* people who are theoretically slaves...
...the United State* ia going to face a crisis soon...
...Well, I'm afraid we don't do things, that way," an American officer explained with come embarrassment...
...One of the more int...
...But the decree went through...
...The benevolent dictator shall investigate and find out where the grain "ia to be distributed gratia and where sold, shall arrange that the little people shall eat . . . and shall harraaa the great in favor of the crown, that Pharoah become over gold and silver...
...Mlsce/laay A. PHILLIP RANDOLPH, national director of the March On Washington movement ia organizing s letter campaign to President Roosevelt urging him to issue a National Proclamation abolishing segregation and discrimination in the armed forces...
...Th* traits he attributes to them jibe with the description* of the Italian peasants in Silone'i r'ontmmara, but it isn't superficiality, but a peasant pragmatism, a basic common sense that rejected Mutter end war—a feeling that ultimately led to the overthrow of the Duce...
...What we call realism has long been accepted aa the natural literary form for practical and common sense folks like as...
...Prom beginning to end the cowmen people supported this program, and you can weH imagine what "the remnant* of the old" thought about Joaaph and what they said about him in their clubs...
...As I would finish s row of corn or beans, there Joseph th* Provider would tempt me into the deep shad...
...A column spy reported that within an area of a few miles he •potted Edmund Wilson, John Do* Passos, Max Eastman, Charles Rum-ford Walker, Herbert Soiow, Dwight Maedonald, Fred W. Dupee, S. M, Levitas, Nicola Chiarmonte and Mr Alister Coleman...
...They belive in a saint only when, and to the extent that he answers their prayers They apply 'do ut dee' (tit for tat...
...t Tk* Egyptian New Deaf TrllS symbolic form hss the greet advantage of universality...
...He was prepared to provide the customary contingent of registered camp followers, the same as provided for units of the Rassian armed forcee...
...The UaThe search kWbm.aiftm and turnings as agW»Sfrfjat Ill k what furnishes the bones of this story andaraeatb the luxury ei orieatal trappings...
...Symbol* aad tosaiflsm D UT all of thia is oa the surface...
...The author evidently had a lot of fun doing the writing, and I can imagine his quiet ¦mile as he penned some of these passages...
...Our beat war books take the symbolic line...
...Having no graphs and Gallup poll, he depended upon dreams...
...Those who cam* up by the journalistic route and make a virtus *f judging by th* taste which a book leaves en their tongues tabs infantile pleasure m throwing s couple of clod* at th* ftn* Gsethean sMrtfront The two schools are united by the fact that neither one offers much proof of having read the aovda or having sny distant notion of what they are ail about...
...They, said the smart economic planner, shall pay "such kind of prices that their eyes shall run over with tears and they shall be plucked to the last pin-feather" so that in the end these who "(it defiantly on their estates" shall be turned into tenants...
...The first issue, now oat, is devoted to Richard Strauss...
...Some of them have meanings aa new as the Republican convention or Winston Churchill standing before Parliament...
...John Dewey haa written a significant article on education that will appear in the August Fortune...
...Then it began to dawn en my somnolently soaring mind that these four books smiting Israel and Egypt are really a comment on civilisation—on all civilisation...
...For there were in those days, aa in our*, "remnants of the old" which still defiantly persisted...
...The beat defense against oar unease is to pretend that the whole business is phoney and doesn't matter much...
...Music moved him" Mussolini's remarks on the Italian people show that he underrated them all along...
...To get into the spirit of the thing, yea mutt tend every word, Aad yea mast rsad slowly—with tints out, new aad then for taaajriioaa to other stostebe- of history and color* af climate...
...The shads of my tree, with airplanes in middle trH*r...
...The United Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Employees are organising a nationwide drive to unionize Montgomery Ward...
...Far things become near and ancient things are contemporaneous...
...While I admired the ear* growing round aad long on my own cornstalks, 1 read about Pharoah's dream of fat and lean ears...
...Purely from a pinup point of view they saw a lot more af Russia than they bargained for...
...The implications about dictatorship and ecmncsmcy are far too many and too subtle to indicate here...
...The Russian people are interested in simple joys — work, security, happy children and a chance at last at some leisure and relaxation...
...We stripped down to our thurts, but doggenit we juat couldn't go whole hog...
...Marshal Stalin, besides being a great sociologist, is a good strategist...
...clowda above these and the aky still higher up furnished just the right eetting with its own symbolism...
...Joseph and the young Pharoah are seeking teat* thing deeper than the earth aad higher than the sun...
...The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN PROFESSIONAL literary comment on Thomas Manna quartet of monumental novel* just naturally apiita into two block...
...Which leads up to the fact that 1 have been taking a vacation...
...It may be that we have come to the place where readers are no longer content with unrelated bits and pieces of experience...
...A mast With a deadline to meat is in as proper mood to «e*k meanings which lie beyond mooning...
...from each according to hit bank balance...
...Corneal Muaaon of the New School for Social Research has taken over the- editorship of the trade department at Prentice-Hall...
...We expect a straight forward and preferably fanny tale shout what happened to Joe or Annie or old Grandpa Goople...
...As you feel the tug of all the claaaes and sects of Egypt, you heve the feeling that little ha* changed...
...Joseph and Pharoah are two men thinking about government, prices, finance and foreign relations...
...It takes nerve to write such books in these dsys...
...England ia in haste to conclude the wer...
...And on tap in Russia to explain these laws to American women is Ella Winter, the N. Y. Post correspondent...
...When a man begin* to write about distant and ancient regions, canteens, gods, idea*, religions—we get nervous...
...It forced a lot of ua to think...
...Aa reported by Herbert M. Matthews in the N. Y. Time*, here is what Mussolini *sid: "The Italian people ia a superficial people ia every way, even m religion...
...Fascism attacked the foundations of our faith...
...At least 1 suppose it dee...
...Thomas Mann requires leisure, snd 1 have been having it...
...I don't know htm personally...
...The Communists are organising a boycott esntpe>*'n against William Henry Chamberlain...
...Nearest the surface it the ttory of Joseph at the Egyptian Roosevelt...
...And after laying down this neat little program Joseph goes on to pay his respects to the economic royalists—or perhaps Dr...
...They are symbols...
...The boy* ana girl* who do the writing divide themselves according to th* amount of literary owe which went hate their making...
...One of them who could speak a little English explained that It waa the custom to swim au naturel and urged us to come on in, the water's fine...
...Here is Miss Winter's explanation: "it must always be remembered that worker* and farmers form the vast majority of the Russian population...
...Women all over Russia sent letters to the editors protesting the new laws, and one count showed 90 per cent of the women opposing the chsnge...
...Any man who haa a Boawell to record "distinguished utterances" usually pulls in his stomach, throws out his chest and orates...
Vol. 27 • July 1944 • No. 30
