124
PARTISAN REVJEW
PROTEST FROM ARKANSAS
Sirs:
It is my impression that the more re–
·putable literary publications assign books
to reviewers who may be presumed to
have some previous knowledge of the sub–
ject matter, yet I find that in your current
issue THESE ARE OUR LIVES is re–
viewed by Dwight Macdonald, who con–
fesses that "many of these stories seem as
remote as tales of some tribe in the in–
terior of Mrica."
Aside from its superb literary excel–
lence, the importance of the book is due
very largely to its amazing veracity. These
are
the people speaking. These stories are
typical not of isolated individuals but of
literally thousands of people living
throughout the South.
If
your reviewer
had had any knowledge whatever of the
South, he would not have criticised the
editor for giving "no indication of the
grounds of his selection beyond that he
chose what seemed to him 'the most typi–
cal and most important'," for he would
at once have recognized the authentic
voice of the Southern people speaking.
If
you are going to label your periodical
"A Quarterly of . . . Marxism," you had
better get down to earth and find out
something about the hundreds of thou–
sands of the poor, the hungry, the home–
less, and the oppressed in the South. Cer–
tainly you should not publish reviews on
such subjects by one who writes smugly
that he "lives in a big city and has always
had enough to eat."' Why don't you stop
this petty sniping at "Stalinism" and do
something really important for present–
day Marxism?
Sincerely and indignantly yours,
JoHN T. APPLEBY,
Cotter, Arkansas.
-It is unnecessary for Mr. Appleby to de–
/end either
These Are Our Lives
or the
oppressed hundreds of thousands- mil–
lions would be more accurate-of South–
ern people, against any attack by me. I
praised the book highly, and my review
made clear where my sympathies lie as to
the people presented
in
the volume. The
statements about my having enough to eat
and about the remoteness of the social
milieu of the book from my own urban
experience were intended not as gibes or
smug boasts but as an indication of the
orientation from which I approached the
book. Nor can I see any reason why only
Southerners are competent to deal with
books on the South.-D.M.
WANTED-MORE KAFKA, SILONE, STEIN
Sirs:
May I say that I enjoyed greatly your
first three issues, but not so much your
doldrum (last) issue. Somehow my con–
cept of a quarterly envisages a weightier
central feature than a lot of catch-as·
catch-can opinions by writers as to audi–
ences, usable pasts and the like, which
are good enough for supplementary pages
in the rear.... Let's have more of Kafka,
Silone, Gertrude Stein in fiction; more of
the authoritative analyses of the cultural
endeavors throughout the world, not ex–
cluding the U.S.A. (I mean films, plays,
art and music development) ; more of
analyses of works on economic theories
and social findings; for instance the last
issue missed a fine chance of discussing
the state of theoretical science, especially
Russia's attitude to genetics. In brief,
your quarterly should aim to become a
real ART, SCIENCE
&
SOCIETY. What
do you say?
Sincerely,
A SUBSCRIBER,
Chula Vista, Calif.
-We say we agree-though not as to the
"doldrum" issue--and we refer "A Sub–
scriber" to the present number as to some
extent conforming to his standards.-THE
EDITORS.
WANTED-SUCCESSIVE PAGINATION
Sirs :
Why not page-number successive issues
of pARTISAN REVIEW consecutively and
publish an index per volume for con–
venience in binding and reference? The
present arrangement is exasperating.
GRATTAN FREYER,
Trinity College,
Dublin, Eire.
-We are glad to adopt this suggestion.
Beginning with the next issue, the first of
the six-times-a-year
pARTISAN REVIEW,
pages will be numbered consecutively
throughout each volumr.- THE
EDITORS.
