LONDON LETTER
57
And so the talking and the speculations go on. The truth is that we
are all waiting for the war to take a decisive turn. An eventful day and an
imaginative boldness miglit easily deflate it, since it is so reluctant to get
under way. The air of hallucination persists, and subconsciously peace is
still
the greater reality.
I have not yet mentioned the younger intellectuals, those who might
be
described as the rebel generation. The communists among them have
turned some somersaults over the Russian intervention, and the official
Party has been so split that its leader, Harry Pollitt-who might
be
described as the only popularly known Communist-is now out of office.
A
lot of the 'promising young' are hastily inviting themselves to jobs in
the Ministry of Information or anywhere else where they can exercise
their genius without much danger. A further section, larger than I had
expected and including some I had not anticipated, is 'boycotting' the
war and preparing to face the Tribunals as conscientious objectors.
We hear that it is to .he a good war for hooks. Compulsory black-out
at sunset and restriction of public amusements are making a little boom
for the book trade; but what is good for the sale and circulation of hooks
may be bad for literature. The result so far has been depressing.
The Spec–
tator,
for example, where normally one would expect to find a poem by
Spender or Prokosch, has already debased itself to the level of
"Across the garden of Europe
An
iron plough is drawn,
Blotting in senseless ruin
Pasture and path and lawn:
Across the wells of Europe
A hitter sea is loosed,
Turning to brine, sour and malign,
The waters that we used."
I quote this from a poem by R. C. K. Ensor, which I am preserving
in
my Chamber of Horrors to astound posterity; it contains, I think, every
vulgarity, every technical abuse, every monstrous kind of ineptitude, that
can possibly be exemplified in verse-form. Its appearance, except as a
joke, in a weekly of high repute is a cheerless augury. It is the more
serious because the specialised verse periodicals, and indeed all the 'little'
reviews, are likely to he extinguished by the rising cost of paper.
Poetry
(London)
is apparently dead already, after a short and flighty career.
New Verse
and
Twentieth Century Verse
are also reported as casualties,
and at least one new enterprise has been abandoned on account of the war.
The only encouraging news is the promised debut, in December, of
Horizon
under the editorship of Cyril Connolly and Stephen Spender. Our
other literary events are the publication of Dylan Thomas's
Map Of
Love,
and the death of Ethel
M.
Dell. Dylan Thomas's book of poems and
stories was submerged by the outbreak of war, hut has contrived to hob
