Dear Editor
Dear Editor Literary Fascism I praised Robert Gorham Davis recently for his assessment of A Mingled Yarn: The Life of R,P. Black-mur ("Dear Editor," NL, March 22), but now I come to blame him. In...
...and Soviet Union can only add to their already existing overkill capacity—close to 10,000 deliverable nuclear warheads each, the equivalent of at least a few tons of dynamite for every person on earth...
...If Davis wants a list, I'll send it...
...In his review of Jeffrey Meyers' The Enemy: A Biography of Wyndham Lewis ("A Malign Modernist," NL, April 19), Davis claims that Lewis, in Time and Western Man, criticized Henri Bergson as a "Jewish 'time-philosopher.'" In fact, there is no mention of Bergson's religion anywhere in the book, and I can only wonder where Davis got the notion...
...When Lewis speaks of "the bright Jewish lady" Gertrude Stein, he is not thinking of any possible religious practices, and the same holds for his treatment of Proust...
...The arms control policies of the Reagan Administration are plainly contradictory...
...Yeats or D.H...
...Lawrence-all good reactionaries and fascists—never seem to provoke such uncontrolled anger...
...It is impossible to pursue nuclear superiority and nuclear reduction at the same time...
...When Stalin and his followers eliminated Jewish Communist officials, it was not for their religion...
...Without them nothing else makes sense...
...The idea of "superiority" is meaningless when the U.S...
...Considering Wyndham Lewis' anti-Semitism, it was important to note that Bergson, for Lewis "the great organizer of disintegration in the modern world," was a Jew, but my telescoping was misleading...
...In fact, anti-Semites are often more lenient with religious Jews...
...Arms control and disarmament demand mutual restraint, if they are to get and stay under way...
...Now Robert Asa-hina's "On Screen" column appears only in alternate issues...
...Rosenthal's word "religion" is a bit misleading, too...
...I remember they were in every issue...
...Greensburg, Pa...
...I appreciate your need to be in the mainstream of political commentary, but please try to keep the humanities alive...
...To start down the path to a reduced nuclear terror, the President must drop his obsession with superiority as a first step...
...Some of the book reviewers have also changed, and their work seems to figure less prominently...
...Remember that T.S...
...DENNIS NELSON Correction The second line in the fifth stanza of Peter Viereck's poem, "A Falkland 'No' to Fascists Left and Right" (NL, May 3) should have read: "To cop-docs who lock up the sane...
...Ezra Pound or Roy Campbell or W.B...
...More Culture I began subscribing to your magazine many years ago because I liked John Simon's film reviews...
...THE NEW LEADER welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...Perhaps this is because they do not challenge cherished "modernist" beliefs...
...Wheaton, 111...
...New York City RAYMOND ROSENTHAL Robert Gorham Davis replies: Raymond Rosenthal, whose good opinion I should like to keep, is quite right to criticize the phrasing of my reference to Bergson...
...Can it be that, with all his faults, he told the truth about a number of important matters...
...An immediate bilateral, verifiable freeze on the production, deployment and testing of nuclear weapons would be the clearest signal both superpowers could give of serious intent...
...Lewis does, and so he gets the works, with a helping of misstatements and inaccuracies thrown in for good measure...
...NORBERT F.GAUGHAN Nuclear Freeze I was moved to write by Steven E. Miller's "The Freeze Debate Heats Up" (NL, March 22...
...As for the "rage" against Lewis, who in many ways led a miserable life, Meyers' well-documented biography shows that in Lewis' personal relations, his writing and his politics, negativism, cruelty and resentment played a far greater part than they did with Yeats, Pound and Lawrence, and made impossible for him the forms of intuition and beauty that their work at its best achieved...
...At present, there is a rough parity in the arms race...
...Lewis is guilty of many things, but why do critics always go a little berserk in their rage against him...
...Eliot's notorious remark in After Strange Gods warned against too many "free-thinking" Jews...
Vol. 65 • May 1982 • No. 11
