LAW AND FREE SOCIETY

...There is no alternative say longer to ,s normalized state of war, during peacetime, except a "one world" system which would grant government officials or prying newsmen the right te poke their noses anywhere they want, to make sure that no country Is up In any shenanigans —be it the United .Stales, Russia, .Spam, India, Fiance, Argentina...

...There are legitimate insights in Mr...

...What remains still to be done in Knglish (if it can ever be done) is evident in reading, in the version of Yasuda, what many consider the greatest haiku in the Japanese language: "Nothing hat 'oh, oh " All that I can sun on cA'ngMoxsumcd Yoshmo...

...or who without extended exegesis could understand how morality lives at the center of these images and exclamations, and this poetry at the heart of Japanese morality, so that Basho disaappioving ithically of an act was accustomed to fsy, "That's not haiku...

...Nassssmsrer head line...

...If the reader of Total Wer and the Constitution reaches this conclusion regarding his personal responsibility, the book will have contributed to- solving the awesome problem it devastatingly presents...

...The extreme difference of the very short poem from our tradition is for some alluring in itself —it falls into the Lafcadio Hearnesque sentimentilization of the strange, the stereotype of the inscrutable Orient...

...It is serious, indeed, when a man of Cerwia's tftnding writes about "the incompatibility between the requirements of total \ sr and principles thus far deemed to b. fundamental to government under the Constitution...

...OUR new intimacy with Japan, and our curiosity in regard to a country fer whose cultural life we are now largely responsible, have made inevitable the appears see of another attempt to make her poetry available to English renders...

...Corwin, therefore, is correct in his assumption: "The effects of the impact of total war on the Constitution will thus become embedded in the peacetime Constitution...

...A peacetime slacker is more dangerous nowadays than a wartime slacker, for it is during peacetime that the atom-bertei ial-blitz will be hater ed...

...In addition, rime falsifies the suspended note on which the haiku always closes, its essential incompleteness In the autumn poem ju«t quoted, the additional fault of reai i anging lit* older of objects is committed, so that th* movement of the original from (It* detail ot the branch to the whole perception of autumnal evening is poiiill»»»ly irvtrstil...

...Corwin reminds ua that the government of a nation—any nation—has the responsibility of taking any steps in a war that are deemed essential to the country's survival, irrespective of jurisprudence...

...If Corwin i book carries any meaning to us, it is that the only refuge fer our fundamental rights is the wisdom ami alertness of an informed, vigilant, sovereign American public, unshaken in time of crisis, steeled by common democratic aima and a common, tolerant way of life...

...fernaps it's been nee...

...The haiku began, like Western vernacular poetry, in the courts as a game to beguile an aristocracy, but it spread, first through religion (the gn-at poet Basho was a Buddhist priest), then politically (one of the early acts of the Revolution of ihc>8 was the establishment of a N'ational Bureau of Poetiyt to everyone, peasant, artisan, soldier...

...A return to full Constitutional rights, it follows, is unlikely so long an we have to remain on a virtual war footing, ready for the new psychological warfare which merges fifth rolumnism during peaceUme into complete atomic and bacteriological warfare, without any break...

...Reviewed by LESLIE A. FIEDLER A PEPPER-POD...

...Especially since bacteriological warfare '» reliably reported to have attained *v«r greater destructive possibilities -han atom smashing...

...Another sueh fact is thst our laws leave us powerless to ileal effectively with treason when it takes advantage of modern, scientific methods of engaging in a "softening-up" wsr before actually firing guns...

...It means that in an atomic age, no man has the right te shirk his responsibilities...

...in the twentieth century, some Japanese potts have attempted "free forms", western modes as extreme as surrealism, but the center of Japanese poetry remains the haiku and the .11 syllable tanka...

...Translations of clastic mud modern Jimhin poems...

...That, to the extent to which St is true, or in danger of becoming true, is the price we pay for security in a divided world, when democracy is still callenged by totalitarian and autSaritar an concepts We obviously have reached a stage where our only security against being forced to live en a war footing during peacetime would be the creation o't...

...In English the poems seem eudemically trivial, slight...

...He calls that era "The War Before the war...

...The forms have, consequently, remained traditional and relatively simple...

...Frankly, it would be pleasant to am this, for Cor win's boek is not enjoyable reading for those who would like, please, te i.tain a little optimism But Corwin has patiently gathered a mass of facts, sufficient to embarrass and disconcert these who would like to assume that things aren't fundamentally different from what they were before Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima...

...op certain facts...

...Quite aside from political considerations, there is much to draw us toward Japanese verse, and in particular the poem of 17 syllables, the haiku to whieh this selection is limited...

...12.75...

...He is an astute analyst of world economic sad political influences on oar Constitution, on which he has written extensively, besides filling important consultant positions for the government...

...Poets or readers of poetry in the West, aware of the alienation not only of the practising poet from the mass audience, but also of that audience from its own great poetic past and from the habit of reading poetry at all — turn astounded to the contemplation of a people among whom the writiny of poetry is almost universal, and for whom a parlor game at most levels of society is matching the beginning and end of a hundred classical poems...

...Only thus can a national tradition be developed which would make fifth columnists impossible If we put our trust in the letter of the law, without seeing to it that its spirit is upheld, we shall find canny intriguers have twisted it into meaning something wholly different than intended, or desired...

...There is no lack of such translations...

...New York: Alfred A. Knopf...

...This obviously must be anticipated in peacetime- It would be suicidal todesve it to chance...

...world democratic everywhere...

...That he fails is not surprising...

...For others the definition of the image typical to these forms, at once delicate and precise, is the essential attraction...

...He wrote Part VI of Woodrow Wilson'j Division and Reunion, and was one at the five preceptcrs the Werld War I President brought to Princeton in IMS...

...Yasuda's introduction, chiefly formal, but they do him little good in practical translation, certainly cannot redeem a basic flaccidity of language clearly revealed in his own attempts to write haiku in English...

...It has remained essentially an amatem poetry, has never been thought merely the business of an elite...

...What casual reader could know that the frog poem quoted above is a three line metaphor of religious conversion...

...It is unfortunate the author did not guard against this by pointing...

...01 any otherThat's Not Haiku...

...While this is the sort of book that can provide guidance for a deasocraticrainded, thinking man, who already has a background of rounded information, it can more easily provide the halfinformed, prejudiced individual with high-sounding data with which te reinforce his twisted arguments- That, unfortunately, is the danger any book faces that treats so broad a subject fairly objectively...

...A CAUTION regsrdhtg this ilea* le is wise, In fact, it's worth being repeated i Not all of taw sataesa does George ssy revise There's only ewe stsnss deleted...

...EDWARD S. CORWIN ha* been » leading authority on Aaeerkas basic law for nearly a generation...

...As Corwin says, "surely the first requisite to a solution of difficulties is recognition of their seriousness...

...Yasuda goes out of his wsy to make ethers...

...It is psrtly because eor own conventions identify brevity end ? lightness, but also because we are cut off from the various strategies of extension that have enabled the Japanese to extend the scope of these pieces without increasing their formsl length...

...if this was the situation before the •torn bomb, how much more Is It new...

...then Knglish seems hopelessly incspalde of representing in its accented movement tile Japanese syllabic form with its level stress (French, one would expert,, would fa intrinsically more apt, and indeed the best translations I have seen are by Georgia Bonneau), or the music of a tongue all of whose syllsbles end in s vowel or a nasal...

...To begin with, the wsusl ap peal of the Japanese poem is necessarily lost without the Chinese Character...

...But with he atom bomb, as Corwin points out, a "shooting war" can be completed "in a few hours...

...There is no higher law...

...All these are, necessary flsws, bnt Mr...

...Or, when he declares that "any candid person must admit that the circumstances of total war may render such i measure (a virtually complete suspension of the Constitution) necessary...

...Or in the equally well-known "Autumn evening now: A crow atom is peitkiuf On a lea fie us bmiyh...

...Indeed, it even leaves us powerless to deal with wartime traitors, such as American Lord Haw Maws...

...Or if, as quoted from John Quincy Adams, war powers and peace powers, exerted through Congress i d the Executive, still were "altogether different," with peace powers "limited by regulations and restricted by provisions in the Constitution itself," and war powers "only limited by the usage of nations...

...oar own Imagists learned from Japanese poetry in this respect perhaps all that can be transposed into our forms...

...Heretofore, we felt secure that with the return of peace, Constitutional safeguards would return, with every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed, so that the rights of ssan could resume their proper pre-eminence in our daily livesBut, as Corwin outlines so effectively In his little book, with a wealth of supP " ting detail, wartime procedures were already in effect before Pearl Harbor, during what Was technically peacetime...

...Yasuda...

...This, then, had to motivate his actions during peacetime, for a President's basic duty is to the over-all security of the nation over which he presides...

...Certain get associations (e.g...

...the word 'moon' always indicating autumn, 'Dower' always meaning cherry-blossom), a body of tiaditional anecdotes that comment on the poems, a whole, alien nature mystique, and the teachings of Zen Buddhism, all are necessary to make available the total experience of these poems...

...By Kenneth Yasuda...

...That, alone, could be "one world...

...But what draws many to Japanese poetry is its democratic, popular nature...

...That would be bad enough if it were only in wartime...

...I hough the Bsapire Is plslnlr past ssvkng...

...dEletion Nationalistic Second Bin* as of "Cad Have the Ring" Deleted ea King's Order...

...We need this background to appraise this latest book, based on lectures he olivered at the University of Michigan...

...The line between preparedness for war and actual war had already vanished at many places...

...e e c v-OftWIN believes our "Constitution of Rights," particularly as regards "an tilfctlllah of checks and balances," is gone, except for ecrtaia values, such as "tise Idee, of liberty against government...

...And what Is behind sack a ruriene thing...

...That body is now larger by one volume, but is still unsatisfactory...

...he chooses to use rime in his versions so that the famous poem "Ancient pond unstirred Into teste* a fiat) has piaȤrd, A splash u>u> heard" the word 'unstirred' emphasized by the weight of rime, is sheer padding...

...The loose, wavering syntax, the freer word order are inevitably misrepresented by English construction...

...may siHI save the Kng...

...To give the Knglish reader some sense of a form that has for so long given poetic satisfaction to so broad an audience, is a challenge must lately taken up by Mr...

...Other wise,, we weald be tempted to brush it aside as sensational and defeatist...

...Americans, British and Japanese alike have collaborated to provide a large and unsatisfactory body of translation...

...These are to keep himself informed on what is taking place around him, and to use his influence and the ballot to strengthen democratic progressHe has not -he right to refuse to sacrifice time and energy to public matters...

...One such fact wss President Roosevelt's fortunately early realization that the Axis Powers had determined we should be conquered when oar turn came, when we should be sufficiently softened up, and without allies...

...Time after time during America's wars, Corwin tells us on the basis of actual instances, whenever some section of the Constitution ran counter to what was deemed necessary to national security, the Constitutional clause was ignored or bypassed...

...rime has been attained at the expense of the alliteration and assonance, the clustering k's and i'i that give the original its extraordinary texture...

...Suck a very add way of behaving...