26
PARTISAN REVIEW
4.
Have you fozmd it possible
to
make a living by writing the sort
of thing you want to, and without the aid of such crutches
as
teaching and editorial work? Do you think there is any place
in our present economic system for literature as a profession?
5.
Do you find, in retrospect, that your writing reveals any alle–
giance to any group, class, organization, region, religion, or
system of thought, or do you conceive of it as mainly the
expression of yourself as an individual?
6.
How would you describe the political tendency of American
writing as a whole since 1930? How do you feel about it your–
self? Are you sympathetic to the current tendency towards
what may be called "literary nationalism"
-
a renewed
emphasis, largely uncritical, on the specifically "American"
elements. in our .culture?
7.
Have you considered the question of your attitude towards the
possible entry of the United States into the next world war?
What do you think the responsibilities of writers in general are
when and if war comes?
John Dos Passos:
I.
In relation to style and methods of writing, I hardly think of the past
in chronological order. Once on the library shelf Juvenal and Dreiser are
equally "usable." The best immediate ancestor {in Auden's sense) for
today's American writing is I thinK a dark star somewhere in the constel–
lation containing Mark Twain, Melville, Thoreau and Whitman.
2. The audience is probably the people who read books other than best
sellers. I doubt if it has expanded much in the last ten years, though in
the preceding five years it certainly expanded. It may very well be shrink–
ing now.
3. The critics for the daily press, and all newspaper writers live in a
