LETTERS
247
anxiety and trouble these people get along, and they know their world
with an intimacy no city dweller could achieve of his environment. The
only real challenge comes with the continual closing, opening and closing
again of the mines: the modern industrial world impinges on this scene
only to threaten it. Mr. Still has struck the balance between lyricism and
realism with great skill, and his novel is a notable rendering of a kind of
life that has meant much for America and still has significance for the
reader as man, not only as American.
Kay Boyle's volume contains three short novels--The
Crazy HUnler,
The Bridegroom's Body,
and
Big Fiddle-all
of which abound in intelli·
gent and sensitive writing. Her canvas
is
limited: she is not concerned
with the social scene but with particular types of consciousness in particu.
lar kinds of environment, and she portrays her characters with a finesse
that is almost excessive. Her situations are always cleverly off the beaten
track, and her characters all possess a peculiar sharpness of sensitivity
which we suspect belongs really to the author. This kind of writing com–
mands our admiration but not our conviction. The rarified emotional
atmosphere in which the characters live represents too great a refinement
on life; it is as though the author contemplated the human scene not as a
bwnan
being but as a virtuoso merely.
DAVID DAICHES
Letters
CORRECTION FROM ANDRE SIDE
Sin:
Kindly allow me to point out one of
the errors occurring in the
Paris Letter
of your January.February number, as it
penonally refers to me.
The
authors of this letter, talking of
the French radio in war·time, state that
""en Andre Gide retails lectures." As a
utler of fact, since the beginning of the
W,
I
have neither spoken at the radio
lOr delivered any lecture, nor published
liT
writing.
I
shall be obliged if you will insert this
correction in your next number, as
I
know
by
experience how long.lived such mis·
IIIlements are.
Yours, etc.
ANDRE GIDE.
Nice,
France
-Fe
wish to express our regrets to M.
Gille
for the misstatement. The authors
t/
Ihe
Paris Letter,
whom
we
queried on
receiving
M. GUle's letter, write that
Le
Tllllps
announced that M. GUle would de–
Iirtr
a
series 01 Government·sponsored
literary lectures on the radw.
11'
e-and
they- are glad to learn the announcement
was lalse.-ED.
POETS AND CRITICS
Sirs:
I
think you've committed a blunder in
bunching your notices of books of poems
received under one title, as you have done
in this last issue of PR, and allowing
them to be "criticised" in the off·hand
manner assumed by your Mr. Jarrell.
It
does not seem like you.
I
am wondering
how it happened.
Don't you think it would have been
more
in
keeping with the spirit of PR to
have given Patchen's verse, the best of
it, for instance, or the work of some other
one of the group you have dealt with, a
bold spread in your pages rather than to
have aired such a wastebasket full of
such trite flippancies as these you
sponsor?
A man whom one respects because of
his achievements is entitled to make un–
supported critical remarks, even silly ones,
