The New Leader Book Page
The New Leader Book Page Boer and Briton By STANLEY LICHTENSTEIN gyp MASTER: THE LIFE OF JAN I CHRISTIAN SMUTS. Btj Rene Kraut. K r I'utton t Co., New York. 471 pmntt. $3.60. This is s...
...WHO . , ." esks the jacket in one of a lonf series of rhetorical questions, •—wrestled for the soul of his own people and fuided his country for over twenty years, in spite of unprecedented hostility, to climax his career ss the father of the fatherland...
...This is true for two reasons which are really one...
...In the index, under "German," there is an item, "bar-, barity...
...The fact is that I have made an honest effort to acquire militaiy experience: I joined the XOTC cavalry unit at Yale...
...the biography is not...
...A year or two passes, aod he it present at s dinner st which the character's name is casually mentioned...
...Thit i* a providential opportunity to fill in the gapt thoughtfully, inserting here and there a philosophical passage, a disarming confidence on the weakness** and worries of writers...
...The history it detailed...
...I must protest this slanderous personal attack...
...the only Boer leader who favored arming the blacks (to aid in the war, not from any ideal of equality...
...Castelar prsdicts (correctly) that 1 "will undoubtedly raise hell" about postwar conscription...
...Answer: Jan Christian Smuts...
...But it it impossible not to notice the extreme inadequacy of hit characters' conversations...
...It ends with these words: "These art but a few typical examples of how the German colonial system works...
...This metamorphosis both orthographic and political is made to seem altogether natural and good...
...further, that he now prefers to be called an •Afrikaner" rather than an "Afrikander...
...Words and phrases are used indiscriminately, repetition it ¦indulged in to an embarrassing extent...
...Can you picture any one as utterly helpless," he writes, "before even a platoon of eager recruits as, perhaps, Dwight Macdonald...
...In our country, one can be anti-Roosevelt as well as anti-fascist, but in the Union of South Africa, it seems, one cannot be anti-Smuts and anti-fascist...
...This is s worshipful book...
...He writes in a confiding, and satirical tone, for which his characters are too inane and unimportant...
...Douhledag, Doran and Ca...
...He chooses a character that interest* him, meets him at a club or party, and so haa reason to reminisce and present previous history...
...If will fag* until 2245...
...Finally, I might say that supporting compulsory military training so that ons may learn how to run a possible future revolutionary army (in my case, since I'm 38, I wouldn't be called up for training anyway, presumably, so oven this shred of reality it lacking in Mr...
...However, it enables Kraus repeatedly to make an incomprehensible kind of statement, of which the following is typical: "Something in his instinct or bis intellect, howe\er—it is difficult to tell the difference, since Smuts is the rare case of a man in whom intellect and instinct art at closely wedded as is humanly possible— must have, at least occasionally, revolted at the uncompromising course to which he was now committed...
...Even the Hindu religion it rathsr attractively presented, but not with sufficient seriousness or thoroughness to be considered dangerously anti-rationalittic What Larry derives from it is entirely harmless: a desire to livs with "calmness, forbesrsnce, compassion, selflessness, snd continence" . . . and to become s tsxl driver in preference to Investing in stocks...
...By dollar and quarter, by nickel aad dime— A war may be wen by the blood ef man, But it'a paid for en the inataHment plan...
...While giving sparse data on personality, Kraus often teems to work on the naive assumption that history is just a product of interacting personalities...
...Surely it is not my fault if my military career lasted only three weeks dus to the fact that all the horses got sick at that point) It a man to be held' up to public ridicule because he was a victim of circumstances (glanders, I think it was, or maybe botts) ? Seriously—if the word may be used in connection with Mr, Castelar's infantilities—I had not considered myself as a potential commander of revolutionary armies...
...Thi* unvarying technique make* it difficult to accept his contsnt at wisdom...
...In any case, he has been at few paint with hit material...
...It is against tuch opposition that Smuts looms heroic...
...Mr...
...He regards it at highly remarkable that Larry Darrell of The Razor't Edge thould reject the palling mores of hit witless friends to do a bit of reading and manual labor...
...Three pages of a reasonably intelligent discussion in every simple terminology, and you can be sure of a paragraph of trivia magnanimously offered at breathing spell...
...It is not easy to criticize him, sines he hat bsrriceded himself with frequent dige st critics' obtuseness and studiedly candid admittions of his own faults...
...Yet several insights appear, end his disgressions have a reasoned humor...
...And, in the South African politicaf-mest, all of these things are tied up with being "pro-British" in a way that corresponding liberalisms in America are net necessarily tied up with being Demoerstic...
...but he does not do so from any conception of German guilt or Allied innocence...
...Today, Smuts—who signed the Tresty of Versailles under protest— is an advocate of a "realistic" peace policy which may lend itself to tpheret of influence and power politics...
...Smuts's character and personality are only suggested in broad strokes, inferred from hit actions in the historical milieu...
...In the Home Front column, September 28.] In the course ef what may be called by courtesy his argumentation, Mr...
...A little dewa and a little to pay, A billion a yeer ie a trife each day...
...Macdonald is ths editor of Polities...
...It is a history of South Africa for all the time that Smuts was involved in it, set forth in great and well-organized detail...
...Castelar's argument), I might say this is like burning down one's house to cook supper...
...RaKING up the crumbs of a successful literary trend Somerset Maugham has written "The Razor's Edge," perhaps the most careless of the contributions to modern mysticism...
...at Me rate •t m Mlht etmllmr* m year, ta may far tht) war.—News item...
...a Steady Does It Accord/af, ie Senator Teft...
...tht only Boer leader who favored better education and conditions for the blscks...
...there is less discretion and more valor in his make-up...
...The author notes that at christening...
...Since "austere" is an adjective that invariably comes to mind when describing Smuts, who was always a reserved and close-mouthed individual, Kiaus's treatment is appropriate...
...Smuts, Ijke Roosevelt, has shown a remarkable penchant for holding, and wielding, power.* But while "Slim Jennie" among Boers has a connotation of "Shrewd" or "Wily" Jannie in a rsther disparaging sense, Smuts has little of the Msster Showman about him...
...The ironic explanation suggests itself that Maugham is • aiiying on a public battle with a private devil who instils in him a furtive lust for Riviera chateau* and shimmering, vacuous hostesses...
...He hat an irritating habit of referring to someone's talent for breesy chatter without once Furnishing a sample Furthermore, he it needlessly afraid of becoming a bore snd sn obscurantist...
...Macdonald Counterattacks - from DVVJGHT macdonald HO/TieFrOnf To the Editor: A FRIEND has called my attention to a rhapsody on the beauties of compulsory military training in a recent Issue of your psper by one Paul Castelar...
...It is cruel, relentless, inhuman...
...this was to be expected...
...The Boers beast an appallingly large number of home-grown fascists...
...i 1 suppose Smuts should be likened to Roosevelt, but in his setting t perhaps it is because the grass is alway greener on the other side of the fence 1, Smuts teems more attractive to me...
...His narrator emerges ass likeable, underttanding person, and his protagonist is personslly winning in spite of his vague ness and non-intellectuality...
...Kraus outdoes his hero-who is the right arm of the British Empire in South Africa—try making a mistake that Smuts himself has never made...
...According to the "freedem"-loving Boers, they don't went their country run by "Englishmen, niggers, and Jews...
...Early in the war, when the tide of battle was running Is favor ef the Axis, Smuts was about the only Boer leader who wat antifascist...
...But if so hsroic and romantic a rols be mine some day, I don't consider drilling a platoon or filling higher posts to be tasks beyond the capacity of a reasonably intelligent civilian...
...armies...
...By twenty-two hundred and forty fee The day of solvency's *urt to arrive...
...They took, it it true, another twenty years before they discovered thit similarity...
...KrAUS'S book is more history than biography...
...First and foremost," he has said, "we shall be called upon to put our own democratic house in order...
...He then asks hew, as an advocate of what he call* "bloody seizure of power" (as against, presumably, the pacific methods used by Stalin-Church ill-Roosevelt», I expect to be prepared, locking such training, to take command of "the ermiee of Marxist liberation" come the revolution...
...The novel is in part a popularized introduction to the Hindu philosophical system known as Vedanta...
...Maugham in a Minor Key By ISA KAPP THE RAZOR'S EDGE, fly Somerset Maugham...
...Smuts had been called Jan Christiaan, with two "a's," but that in the process ef becoming "an ardent Briton, while remaining a proud Boer," Smuts made it Jan Christian, with one "a...
...In South Africa — on the Boers' own insistence — being for Independence is inseparably'tied up with being not only anti-British, but anti-Negro and antiSemitic as well...
...And the reason for all it that it is German...
...If ever there were a book calculated to make one a lover of the British Empire, this is it...
...It could hardly hsv* been otherwise, for Smuts doth bestride his world like • colossus...
...They hate Smuts's ("Smut-howitz's") guts...
...Speaking of Smuts and Sir Alfred Milner, he ssyt, "Both were shy, reserved, and apparently haughty and unyielding, but both were warm-hearted idealists...
...Its central character is an effete and confused Christ figure faintly resembling Wassermann's Christian Wahnschaffe, but coming nowhere near the hero of the "World's Illusion" in dramatic power or motivation...
...Besidt tht succulent descriptions of bouncing girlt who hsvc become possessive beauties, and exuberent one* of snobbish society pets, tht psget on mysticism stem a little apologetic and thin...
...In connection with this item, there is cited a letter detailing German atrocities against the blacks, written by an eyewitness to Smuts...
...ThE framework and narrative method of The Razor'g Edge are disturbingly similar to those of Cake* and All, Maugham has adopted the mott straight forward of proceeduree and one that permits of little implication or subtlety...
...But it it difficult to take him at his word...
...Richard Armmmr...
...Not only because 'of Salute'* general Superman aspect, but also because of the general Lilliputian character of hia enemies...
...The central conflict hat been artificially imposed upon the ttory by Maugham...
...Revolutionary armies, from Carnot's to Trotsky's, hsve been commanded by civilians, and generally a damned sight better commanded than most professions...
...By regular paymenta, a bit at a time...
...Somerset Maugham ssys at the beginning of Larry's explanation of hi*, interest in the Hindu faith, that without thit chapter, he would perhaps not hsve thought it worthwhile to have written The Razot'e Edge...
Vol. 27 • October 1944 • No. 43
