This Quarter
TWILIGHT OF THE THIRTIES
SEVERAL
MONTHS AGO
there appeared in the
New York Post
an
interview with Arnold Zweig in which the eminent exile repudiated
his anti-war novel,
The Case of Sergeant Grischa.
And in giving
his reasons for thus publicly disowning the book on which his repu.–
tation in this country rests, Zweig struck the typical political note
of our time. That novel, he eagerly explained, painted so vividly
the agony and futility of the last war to save democracy that it has
been used as evidence against participating in the new-the gen–
uine war to save democracy! Hence, he said, he took this occasion
to deplore and, if possible, to correct the harmful impression
mad~
by that work of his.
Only a few years ago such a revolting about-face by a writer
of Zweig's stature would have been universally cited as a piece of
demented reaction. In this retrograde period, however, the major–
ity of writers who formerly would have challenged Zweig are
actually of one mind with him. For aren't they all, nowadays, true–
blue democrats together? Don't they assemble at literary con–
gresses-such as the recent P.E.N. Congress and American Writers
Congress-where the war drive is spiritually organized, where
celebrities of such diverse and unequal talents as Thomas Mann
and Dorothy Parker, Jules Romains and Dorothy Thompson,
parading their loyalty to the status quo, solemnly engage
them~
selves to provide the coming world-conflict with the required cul–
tural unction and humanitary appeal.
Like Zweig, these people justify their political program by pro–
claiming their veneration of culture, by repeatedly telling us how
"madly" they love literature and the arts. But there is one mean–
ingful relation between culture and imperialist wars which these
