BOOKS
periences in his life: his childhood, his first job, a strike, hoboing, a steel
mill, an auto factory, unemployment, migration, and so forth. Such a
narrative as this, covering a considerable period of time and involving a
variety of experiences, is frequently held together by the intellectual and
emotional development of the central character, and this is the theme on
which Conroy relies for unity. Larry is an ambitious boy, takll1g cor–
respondence courses in order to get ahead. Gradually he learns that the
ways of getting ahead arc blocked. He begins to take more interest in
the efforts of the working class to improve its position as a class, and at
the end he sets out with an organizer, presumably a Communist, to fight
against the capitalist system. The trouble is that Larry's development
towards class-consciousness seems largely incidental. The reader's at–
tention is not focussed on th is development, but rather on Larry's ex–
periences and observations. The book fails to give us a sense of unity,
and the climax, though logical enough, does not seem to follow irresistibly
from the progress of the narrative. The strength of the book lies in the
pictures of proletarian Ii fe rather than in the theme, to which the pic–
tures should be subordinated.
One can say all this and yet be profoundly glad that Jack Conroy
wrote
Th e Disinh erited,
for its faults are certainly less important than it,
virtues. Its weaknesses, however, must be pointed out, both for the sake
of Conroy's future dcvelopment and for the sake of proletarian literature
One notes, for example, that these weaknesses enabled a number of bour–
geois critics to misinterpret the book, consciously or unconsciously. One
reviewer, for example, dismissed Larry's decision to become an organizer
with the remark that, though Larry might become militant, the author
did not recommended militancy as a general solution for the workers'
problems. Now anyone who knows Jack Conroy knows that he is recom–
mending militancy to all workers, and the reviewer ought to have been
bright enough to see it. But the fact remains that, because Conroy fails
to sustain the analysis of Larry's development, the remark is superficially
plausible.
If
all the excellent portrayal of workers and their lives were
built arollnd a strong and unified presentation of Larry's growth, even
the stupidest reviewer could not make such a comment.
The truth is that, thus far, proletarian writers in this country have
shown br less rt'sourcefulncss than is necessa ry. Most of them have ac–
cepted the easiest way of presenting their material, instead of trying to
find the best way. So long as an author is using material that has im–
mediate personal significance for him, he is likely to achieve, despite this
slackness, an effect of authenticity and power. But growth, as the careers
of many promising bourgeois writers show, requires a more substantial
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