Literary Criticism on the Left
FIESS, E.
Literary Criticism on the Left Review by E. FIESS NO VOICE IS WHOLLY LOST. Wrtttr, and Thinker, in War and Pea,t tig Ha, ru Sk+hsurr. Ntwfork, 1945. Creative Age Prent. 404 page, $3 75...
...Because they are the same kind of stuff as ourselves, their need of mutuality in relationships mutt be as urgent as ours...
...Above everything elae, therefore, it is necessary that there should be s drastic change in the thinking of man and the substitution for the emphasis on material values, of spiritual values, and by spiritual values, I do not mean adherence to any formal religious prsctices, but rather an unshackling of the mind from the conventions...
...Literature mutt solve iti own problems and...
...For all his talk about freedom, he seems little concerned with its actual condition...
...from Mrs...
...Brooklyn, ?. Y. • The Daily Worker of Oct...
...There need no longer be the old struggle for existence, the competition for markets, and sli the other typte of warfare which go on continuously snd are likely (o be resumed with more vigor than ever before, unless there it a different approach to the main problem of humanity, which is, how to utilize the forces of nature for the benefit of mankind...
...two, the embrace of absolutes, an opposite extreme leading to reaction and rigidity...
...Our superior position, materially, has come about largely because of such policies...
...In the last analysis, the only hope is in the peoples within the dictatorships...
...The book, which suffers from its defiant manifesto style, is a collection of essays written over s period of yeara...
...It it in unending conflict with religion and true freedom...
...The $2,000,000,000 spent for developing the atomic bomb will have been well-spent if it will result In s similar appropriation designed to develop an atomic spiritual and educational bomb which will be powerful enough to blast ignorance and prejudice from the surface of the earth and clear the atmosphere for the dawning of · new and better era for long-suffering humanity...
...if it it a discussion of contemporary thought, a host of developments in sociology and psychology are neglected...
...But "remaining aloof" is not the only alternative to violent intervention in fact, I question whether remaining aloof in possible stall in any real sense in our interdependent world...
...For my part, I see reasons for shifting Joyce and Kafka to the "absolutes" group and n* justification at all, unless it be a partisan ona, for leaving Des Paaaos, Silent, and Dewey among the despaired...
...Vanguard l'rrt» 210 payee...
...If Slochower, maintaining a seeming tolerance for all points of vitw and an apparent willingnest to lesrn from all, does not speak outright for an official version of Marxism, he certainly avoids even the gentlest criticism of it, rather contemptuously dismissing other socialist movements...
...H. Lawrence, Maritain, and Proust embrace the absolutes, and that such diverse writers as Joyce, Asch, O'Neill, and Odets struggled part'way up the slope toward the final Marxist goal, a road further followed by Anna Seghers...
...A SPIRITUAL AND EDUCATIONAL IOMI To th* Editor: From GEORGE B. BOOCBOVER The unparalleled destructive power of the atomic bomb confronted the Japanese with the alternative of peace or annihilation and brought about their surrender...
...There it a striking discrepancy between the progress made along scientific lines and the lack of it along ethical and spiritusl lines...
...There are revaluation...
...In other words, insistence on maintaining and extending our power end prestige and advantage undoubtedly unifies and strengthens support for Stalin's fearful snd cruel regime...
...We were largely the cause of I effect which we feared and abhorred, ? there was nothing to do but go violent >eut the effect...
...Given a paper existence, they can be shifted around easily to fit a pre conceived thesis...
...three, Fascism, a confusing amalgam of the two...
...And again, because all human beings want freedom of spirit, they will tolerate dictatorship only when their fears of the outside world make it seem the lesser of the evils...
...Just a black and shite situation and only obtuseness could flil to comprehend ihe simple answer...
...With all hit rough edget, Farrell has a fundamental honesty, an inability to deceive himself, a willingness to see other approaches than his own, all of which point towards th* sound literary criticiim of the left which we to aadly need...
...MAM MRQUHARSON Field Secretary, Pacific Northwest Office, Ftllowthop of Reconciliation fe tn* Editor: YoUR comment in The Sew Leader of August 18 that a "simple answer is adequate to the objections ot pacifist friends who disagreed with the iVew Leader'* advocacy of this country's entrance into the War," startled me...
...if it is a political survey, actual conditions in the Soviet Union and elsewhere should be discussed...
...Hit book is neatly organized around the thesis that contemporary man has followed four main lines of thought: one, the surrender of absolutes, an extreme leading to doubt and despair...
...but it is a persistent delusion of inte?lecluali that ideas exist only on paper...
...Hudenz left the political group led by A. J, Musts in 19311 when they merged with the Tratskyitee (Must* also hat gone back to the church...
...dU*d Should We Renounce Power...
...By Jamet T. Farrell...
...What is needed now it something revolutionary in our thinking and outlook...
...NOT too many year* ago the fad arose of combining Preudi?nlsm with literary criticism to yield "literary paycho-analysis," a product that often had more to do with pejreho-analyaii than with criticiam...
...His book, on its face, would seem impressive to a Rip van Winkle who had slept through the last twenty-five years...
...A foundation supported ss adequately as the atomic bomb researchers could obtsin the services of the world's leading thinkers, scientists, executives, humanitarians, with ? view to studying in a scientific msnner, the causes of the maladjustments' in the body politic and evolving a progrsm designed to cure them and prevent their recurrence...
...If It will work in connection with Russia's iron-clad and ruthless police-state, I thing it would also have worked in Hitler's Reich...
...Perhaps more valuable than any other etsay in the book It "Literatur* and Ideology...
...Js it possible that dictatorship will move in the direction of renunciation of power even if we do...
...to others it will teem a covert apologia for totalitarianism in life and literature...
...Harry Slochower, whose "No Voice Is Wholly Lost" diScusses literature beteten two wars, has avoided crude ex-trtaaes and added Kenneth Burke'a teeh-nique of symbolic analysis to his arsenal...
...The critic who used such a weapon staest always disregarded the more pert lv esthetic criteria by which any •trk of art must be judged: organ i za-MS, form, narrative skill, linguistic farility At his worst, he looked upon literature ask collection of sociological ud psychological documents from which ? could establish a canon...
...With such boundless energy at the command of man, once the development of constructive uses of atomic energy is attained, the whole conception of life must change...
...Budeni has been a member of the CP's national committee for tix yeare...
...m Yerk 1M6...
...404 page, $3 75 tfSL?AGOK OF FKHiHTENSD PHILISTINES...
...Jsit not true that if all of us battered es terrified mortals are going to avoid * 'u»| of an atomic-bomb war on this ?|*t we are going to have to work out lpe?y new patterns of group relat ion-Npi Capitalism and nationalism and ?*plre and racism and totalitarianism *" the police-state must be resolved "? forms, I believe, where individual "man personality can be creative and '**· Bui in working out those new •Werna, W1...
...DESPITE DISAGREEMENTS From LOUIS NELSON Manager-Secretary, I.L.Q.W.U., Local IA6 To the Editor: Not only do 1 enjoy reading The New Leader, hut I certainly appreciate the controversial and high level of the publication...
...Again, to a large extent, we are the cause of effects which we fear and abhor...
...thinking along economic and other lines, which is based on greed, either for money or power, and' the replacement of tuch ideat by a conception of a human society where each one will contribute what he may to the making of this one a world fit for human beings to live in...
...Seattle, Waah...
...iiven a group of writers who fW one reason or another must be ruled ,„t »' the orthodox pale, the militant Marxist could cut down each individusl by using one edge or the other of his imrrd, by investigating either the writers' economic affiliations or the writer's wpaW...
...Sholokhov, much Soviet literature, Steinbeck, the two Manns, and Andre Mal raux...
...With the equivalent of millions upon millions of mechanical slaves ready to do man's bidding, there is no longer shy excuse for slums or poverty...
...De8PITE the discernment and perception of many parts of the book, the whole hss an unreality from which the author's learning, impressive vocabulary, and vast ingenuity csnnot rescue it...
...Human nature and human behavior hsve changed very little during the ages...
...it cannot be turned into a mere handmaiden of politics and into a mere looking-glass of ideologies...
...We in the democracies have frequently taken the lead in establishing the power pattern throughout the world by manifold forms of aggression and arrogance...
...In The League of Frightened PhUittin** he has still net lost his strong feeling that the relationship between literature and politics, particularly leftist politics, is not a simple one...
...The reader will be interested to know that Schnitzler, Huxley, Silone, Dos Passes, and John Dewey are found wanting in various ways because of their adherence to doubt and despair, that Hamsun, I...
...Although I have many disagree merits with your policy on major problems, I believe that The New Leader is making an inrportant contribution in thought and it affords plenty of material for workers and leaders in the labor movement...
...Superiority" and "inferiority," either in prestige or economics oi self-respect, means dangerous instability...
...It will no longer be necessary to think in terma of hours of labor and back-breaking toil...
...if it is a survey of contemporary literatur*, then Koestler, Jules Romains, and James T. Farrell deserve more than passing notice and their voices should not be almost wholly lost...
...Not appeasement, but an indication of a willingness to go the first mile in renunciation of power—to say nothing of the second mile—is the only possible direction 1 can see for moving toward s free world...
...and which way do we move...
...Even if the reader believes that recent writers can be sorted into these neat groups without distortion, he may still balk at Slochower's manipulation of the categories...
...of Dreiser, Hemingway, Twain, Lardner, Dostoievsky, and Joyce—perceptive even if they contribute nothing new—as well ai discerning observations on Hollywood, the short story, and the faiths of Mumford and Mortimer Adler...
...If there is to be survival on this planet the nationa of the world must move toward equality in all phases of life...
...Certainly, 1 ahould put the Marxists among the absolutists...
...2.75...
...I believe the world csnnot long endura half slsve and half free in the realm of dictatorships and democracies...
...So far as 1 know there it general agreement on the part »1 "liberals" that our policies and those of our Allies from the time of the last War—or before—helped create Ihe envn -mment that made Hitler and the Nazis wsiible...
...Ha who would put literature in uniform is afraid of literature, and his fear of literature reveal* a more fundamental fear—that of social change...
...Returning to the Catholic Church, he said that Communism "alms to establish tyranny over the human spirit...
...and four, a Marxist middle road...
...Somewhat later the combination «1 »tsretur* and unimaginative Marxism gave us those fashionable products, "pro-garfsn literature" and "proletarian criticiam," with neither of which the proletariat ed vary muck to do...
...It niav betoken the end of all war in view of the frightful consequences which will, from now on, have to be faced by any group of people who might be insane enough to think of letting loose the Gods of wsr...
...Ideas, in a very real sense, are what men do with them...
...What is to he our sVhniC?iie...
...11 still carried the name of l/ouis F. Budsnz on its masthead at president, though on that day his resignation was announced in the pi ess...
...logic would seem to indicate tat a revertal of those policies would ivt weakened the props that supported •seism...
...If it is a survey of contemporary philosophy, cer-tsin philosophers, like Whit-head and Russell, hardly get due mention...
...ne democracies ate going hsvt to work cooperatively with indi-duslt and leaders in the most ruthless Of dictatorship...
...Turning to James T. Farrell, we coast upon a Marxist of another and mora independent brand, who a few years ago uttered a great deal of sense in A Mete oh Literary Criticism...
...jfew every modern thinker must in paae sense take both Freud and Marx „ta account, but this Marxist Freudian Hakerem* a particularly terrible weap-M aad still so remains, because the fielder of it/can be victorious against tty foe...
...If the thesis is rejected »t environment created Fascism, th* sspl* alternative teems to be lhat it *s a peculiarly evil group of men a irtion df the "master race" idea that trot groups of people are different than there...
...Thus there arose among critics of the Stalinist variety the lU%em of syijtheslsimr Marx and Freud and of applying that synthesis to literary .?ticHm in a way that neither Marx nor Freud would have approved...
...Coming from a man who is no "escapist," such sentences as the following should be calltd to the attention of McLeish, Brooks, Mike Gold, and Harry Slochower: "It is a truism to state that the test of s work of lit era tin · is not to b* found solely in its formal ideology...
...The former editor of the Daily Worker will teach at Xotre I tame...
...A touch of a button will place at the command of man undreamed of units of power...
...Therefore, the first thing lhat must be done is for us, to indicate a willingness to get off from the top of the heap-Security both within nations and between them, is directly proportional lo equality of opportunity tor people, to have "status" and physical well being...
Vol. 28 • October 1945 • No. 41
