The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn A Morning with Upton Sinclair When the accumulated files of Upton Sinclair's library were moved from his square, solid-looking house under the mountain in...
...But what Sinclair really cares for is the work of the men of his youth...
...I am against war, but you can't end it by lying down and being walked over...
...At the beginning he sometimes received small sums of money from Moscow, but this stopped long ago...
...I don't know which of the three is best...
...Faulkner he just can't stand...
...Since he is now 78 years of age, he must have started when he was 15...
...Old friends who continue to repeat the Communist blather fill him with disgust...
...Then he went on to explain that he had always been ready to fight Mussolini or Hitler or Stalin...
...When I asked about other American writers, I set his mind to going back...
...He just doesn't get what the man is trying to do...
...Then we walked out into the sun and picked figs while Upton told us proudly about the luxurious growths of his golden garden...
...I raved about both when they were published, and I still have the same opinion of them...
...The lack of financial reward, however, is not what troubles this honest American reformer...
...In a moment he remembered Dreiser's American Tragedy and started the discussion all over again...
...Having such a man with such a life, such memories and such a memory, thus cornered, I could not be expected to forego my opportunity...
...Soon, I suspect, this enthusiastic Californian will desert his beloved palms, figs and magnolias and content himself with the more modest growths of Arizona...
...The glinting sun was kept out by heavy shades...
...When publishers in other countries reprint these books, Upton insists that they include prefaces explaining that this is the way things were 30 or 40 years ago...
...It is a great novel...
...As I fished about to find what was back of this judgment, I discovered that both the style and the matter of Faulkner are quite beyond Sinclair...
...Lewis was a great man...
...But when it comes to selecting the best, it is either Oil or World's End...
...As we sat the other morning in Upton's study, I had a curious feeling that we were saying goodbye to a chapter of life...
...THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn A Morning with Upton Sinclair When the accumulated files of Upton Sinclair's library were moved from his square, solid-looking house under the mountain in Monrovia, California, to the University of Indiana, they weighed eight tons and filled two great trucks...
...As to the Russians and the Stalin regime, he has had a long and complicated history...
...His reaction is against the great men of the present...
...he remarked, "it is wonderful to see how badly a great novel can be written...
...The Russians have translated and published over and over again some 40 or 50 of his books...
...If we had been willing to fight them sooner," he added, "we might not have been forced to fight so long...
...In the preface to this last book, Life in Letters, Upton mentions the fact that he has been a professional writer for 63 years...
...When I asked him which of his novels he likes best, his face took on the plaintive expression which you would induce on a mother's countenance if you asked her to choose a favorite among her children...
...stockyards, and King Coal as though it were a true picture of the way things look in our mines...
...He doesn't really like the man's work, but after a little argument he did remember that he makes an exception of The Old Man and the Sea...
...First, I reminded him that pacifism is again becoming articulate and I know of no one who has a better right to an opinion about it than he...
...What worries him is the fact that Kremlin authorities publish The Jungle as if it represented the present conditions in the U.S...
...He was delighted with the March, 1917 Revolution, but for a long time did not know what to think about Lenin...
...At any rate, the fireproof structures he built back of his house to preserve his treasures are now empty, and the Los Angeles smog grows constantly worse...
...He may read a half of one of his novels, but he can never finish one...
...He reads the new authors, but when it comes to what he really considers literature, give him Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser...
...At last, when the treaty with Hitler was signed, he surrendered the inquiring mind and wrote a pamphlet against Communist dictatorship...
...we seemed shut in with the events of those 63 years...
...But in the case of the Russians, insistence does no good...
...He was opposed to foreign intervention, but against the dictatorship...
...It is too bad that he ruined himself with drink...
...And, to tell the truth, old friend Upton seemed not averse to a season of reminiscence...
...The old boy straightened up and his voice rang out as if he were addressing a meeting: "1 have never been a pacifist," he affirmed...
...They both exhibit growth of character and both represent society as a vital and developing thing...
...The best American novel," Upton said, "is either Babitt or Arrowsmith...
...When we mentioned Hemmingwav, we got another negative reaction...
...And the story that I love best is entitled Our Lady...
...Of course," he said at last, "The Jungle did the most good and made the most money...
...The process of selection was obviously so painful that I was sorry I had asked the question...
Vol. 40 • August 1957 • No. 31
