Two More Books on Russia
Two More Books on Russia Review by I. D. W. TALMADGE THE PEOPLES OF THE SOVIET UNION. By Corlie* Lament. Bar-court. Brat* and Company, New York, 1946. $3.00. RUSSIA AND THE WESTERN WORLD. By...
...Psychological Aftermaths of the War Review by OR...
...Ellery talks authoritatively and knows what he ia talking about This ia not, however, a treatise that will leach psychiatrists new theories of the neuroses and new therapeutic methods...
...New Diree-TIONS...
...Lamont also repeats the same old foibles about the peoples in Eastern Roland and the Baltic State* "voting" "te be incorporated la the Soviet Union, that the constituent republics are guaranteed the right to accede whenever they choose, etc Ia hia preface, the author aay* that he was moved to write this volume) because he has "constantly been baffled ia recommending an adequate, up-to-date end readable book concerning the subject of the Soviet peoples...
...Price $3.00...
...Max m. LASERSON'S ««mm and the Weitern World is s most erudite and scholsrly, but alas, very muddled book...
...In the latter class is Corliaa Lamont, scion of the Lamont millions...
...HfcNRY MILLER la the nearest thing to Celine America haa produced...
...Aa an experienced and versatile psychiatrist, the author discusses every psychiatric phase of the wSr and unlike the thousands of works that have already appeared on special forms of therapy, and aome particular social Implication*, Dr...
...Using largely original sources, tho author describes in detail the oscillation from "sig" to "sag" of Soviet official policy...
...But no one in his right mind ever maintained that Fascist Italy waa a democracy...
...It's in its relationship of (1) and (2) that the book, unfortunately, falls apart...
...They are, briefly, the rise of nationalism, the glorification of the Csariit past, the abandonment of revolutionary internationalism, the restoration of the Orthodox Patriarchate, the revival of Pan Slavism, the stratifl-cation of the bureaucratic hierarchy, the promulgation of stricter divorce laws, the return to the old Csariit policy of imperialistic expansion, etc...
...Jewa held many important posts in the regime...
...By Reg...
...Only a strange, strident, harshly intoxicating, inspired and prophetic prose...
...and only two cities, Charleston snd New Orleans, are worth a second look...
...191 popes with 8 illustration...
...Most of the pivotal posts in the "autonomous republics" are held by Russians...
...Moreover, Lamont completely ignores the recent trend In the Soviet press to glorify Runia and everything Russian...
...Miller sound* a warning to writer* and artists to beware of their soula and their talents, to keep intact what little they have left, to refuse to compromise...
...292 page...
...2.50...
...Being broke most of the time, Miller planned his itinerary by the location of American artists he had known in Paris...
...Stalin in one of hia recent speeches singled out the Ruaeian people (not the Soviet people) for special praise of their "decisive roll" in the defense of the fatherland...
...He admires the composer, Eugene Varese, whose music is intended to bring about "a veritable cosmic disturbance...
...It ia a realistic and comprehensive presentation of the whole vast problem of which the average person, aa well aa moat psychiatrists, see only a small fragment The author discusses hia viewa in the following chapters: Aspect of Larger Lunacy, Psychiatry Steps Out, The Ordeal of Adjustment, Psychiatric Relation to Stress, Treatment, Pregnosia, Prophylaxis, The Home Front, Aftermath, and Epilogue...
...3 50...
...By IIax II...
...Traveling ten thousand miles across the United States, he produces no travelogue, no social v statistics (except that we are all deaf, dumb, blind . . . and dead), no work of scholarship, no verse...
...And his book is obviously written for the friends of the Friends of the Soviet Union...
...There are scattered notes on places and names that are worth a dozen guidebooks...
...A. A. BRILL PSYCHIATRIC ASPECTS OF MOD-ERN WARFARE...
...But repetition does not in itself make things more convincing...
...When he leaves off cultural agitation and relates actual or imaginary incident*, he is one of th* best story-tellers in America...
...Laaeraon ia a highly competent Russian jurist and historian...
...There is more in this book about painters than about writers...
...2) To demonstrate that "thoee inner change* generally went in the direction of adjustment with the political structure of tho Allied Power* of the West...
...He hates the mechanisation of thing*, minds and soul* that America typifies: this is "the air conditioned nightmare" of the title...
...Very few of the top commanding officers In the Red Army today are non-Russian, and the Russians at present constitute less than half of the Soviet population...
...Miller finds a small consolation, looking back, in not having begun his tour via Pittsburgh, Youngstown and Detroit...
...Though he lived in Francs for ten years before returning to the United States in 193% he doeant belong to the refined expatriate tradition of Henry James and T. S. Eliot He ia bursting with the horror of his native country and refuses to sublimate...
...After all, under what heading could a Miller book be placed...
...He aims not at ears, brains or consciences, but at the viscera and solar plexus...
...Milter asks: "Have you ever paused one minute of your life to think what it would mean to become fully conscious, to be neither exploitable nor pitiabler In spite of hia vast irrationalism and eccentricity, or perhaps because of it, Henry Miller haa a valuable role to play in contemporary American culture...
...A Brilliant Story Teller Review, by NATHAN •UCK THE AIR-CONDITIONED NIGHT-MAMS...
...This, too, ia a semantic inaccuracy...
...Each statement is heavily documented and footnoted, citing chapter and verse from some Soviet bible...
...The present volume contains something new, for Miller: a piece on aufo repairs which ia as funny, charming, and witty as anything I have read...
...Ethnic equality without democracy ia meaningless...
...Like the Surrealists, he is looking for "magical phrases" to shock us out of apathy and complacence...
...It la merely an excellent presentation of the problem of psychiatry in its relation to tho war...
...particularly about John Marin, Dr...
...8. EUery...
...But for the few with receptive minds, Miller will serve aa aa oracle and an irritant Aa a preacher Miller ia eloquent, but also repetitious and r bit tiresome...
...In a very broad sense, that ia true...
...The changes which have taken place in the Soviet Union in recent years are for the most part fairly well-known to the general reader...
...Some of'these story-essays are to be found in The Cosmological Eye and Sunday After the War, the two previous collections put out by New Directions...
...Souchon, Abe Rattner, and Hilaire Hiler, who comprise just about the only American painters Miller admires...
...Ia fine, thta is s book that aheaU be read by psychiatrists saal lay pees** Was) era seriously interested la the fat Ml adjustment of mankind...
...Similarly, there ia little comfort for, aay, an Armenian democrat in a Soviet concentration camp to know that'he ia in a concentration camp not because he la an Armenian but because he is a democrat...
...It ia Lamont's basic theorem that in the Soviet Union there is ''ethnic democracy...
...Unless one would give a comprehensive description of each of thass chapters which the allotted apace prevents, no justice can be doae this work ia a short review...
...It may be predicted that meat of then, will notice only what ia bizarre, reactionary, and illogical in Millar, and be the more confirmed in their aaae, and fatal, practicality...
...The Maemillan Company, New York, 1945...
...Laser ten...
...An almost aimilar ease may bt made out for Mussolini's Italy...
...Lamont had for years been the head of the Friends of the Soviet Union...
...The author haa set himself a dual task*: (1) To trace the evolution of the Soviet regime —how far it haa departed from the blue-prints drafted by the Founding Fathers in 1917...
...Hollywood, the radio and the slick magazines are relentlessly taking the heart out of American writing...
...Lascrson would have ua believe that these developments are "factors of rapprochement between the Soviet Union and the West" Frankly, I don't see it...
...But there are experts and "experts...
...In other words, that the metamorphosis of the Soviet regime is making for closer relation* between the USSR and the western world...
...I might have turned into a human bomb and exploded...
...The South is the laat stronghold of any semblance of real culture or truly human living in America...
...The People* of the Soviet Union is the sort of book that has been published a dozen times before...
...It Is understandable that the Guggenheim people refused Miller a fellowship...
...Reed and Harri*, Melbourne, 1945...
...Unfortunately, such a book ia still to be written...
...Of the many works that I have read on psychiatry and the war, this is undoubtedly one of the beat resumes of the subject...
...Ell*ry dweaaae* tho total preblem—th* aseaalag of war, the In-iaeac* of the men and women ia the armed services, sad the socio-economic factors of postwar living...
...The author shows a thorough knowledge of what Other investigators tales: on thass problems, bat ho give* the impression at aa individual thinker whs has his own philosophy of life « philosophy which, though aemewhat cynical, expresses tho situation as it really la and no* SS soaae wish h te be...
...The Byelorussian delegates to the San Francisco Conference could not even understand Byelorussian...
...For the first 16 years of Fascist rule, there waa no racial discrimination in Italy...
...THERE is an aphorism current in Washington these days that if all the "experts" on Russia were stretched end to end, they still couldn't reach—a conclusion...
...What he probably means is "ethnic equality...
...By Henry Millar...
...There ia no quarrel about his facta...
Vol. 29 • March 1946 • No. 13
