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features not of a genuine revolution but of its reactionary cow1terpart, a
destruction and frustration of the revolutionary forces by the forces of the
counter-revolution. To mistake for a genuine revolution the very move–
ments by which Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin destroyed the meager remainders
of the attempts at a revolutionary transformation of European society
made by the post-1918 democratic and socialist movements-this is the
worst that, after so many terrible mistakes and failures, could still befall
the progressive forces of humanity. It is the one thing that could still add
to the misery and serfdom of the workers in a world that is already over–
flowing with death, serfdom and misery.
KARL KoRscH
TO BE CONTINUED
FATHER AND SON. By James T. Farrell. Vang!Ulrd.
$2.75.
The problem of what to say about James Farrell at this stage of the
game has given some of the critics a few, but only a few, uneasy moments.
On the part of many of them it has become the custom, if not so far the
requirement, in dealing with his later novels, to stretch out the phrase
"More of the same," decry Mr. Farrell's geographical preoccupation and
documentary fetish, and ask (hesitantly) the question, "How much longer
is this to go on?" There is some justification for some parts of this method
of treatment, for Mr. Farrell has covered more space in telling the story
of the O'Neills and the O'Flahertys than he allowed himself for the whole
of
Studs Lonigan.
The end still appears to be a long way off. Short of a
mammoth catastrophe that would do away with all members of both fam–
ilies in a chapter or two-a most unlikely eventuality-it seems quite pos–
sible that the series which began with
A World I Never Made
is to be told
in far more volumes than one would care to carry under one arm for any
distance. Mr. Farrell, like M. Romains and M. Martin du Gard, is satisfied
with nothing less than everything; and surely many readers, infirm or
ailing or merely shaken momentarily by the insecurity and precariousness
our civilization tenders us, must be asking themselves in the dead of the
night: "Will I live to finish
Men of Good Will?
Will I still be here when
Danny O'Neill matriculates at the University of Chicago?"
It is probably unnecessary by now to point out that Mr. Farrell is
long-winded, that he is stubborn, that he is often irritatingly repetitious;
luckily for us, he is also one of the finest novelists of our time, and his
faults are faults that he shares with some of the greatest writers. The task
he has set for himself is staggering; that the task is carried out so thor–
oughly and so methodically continues to astonish us.
Father and Son
brings us up to 1923 and is "more of the same" with
a few notable differences. The bitter and the tender are both here, but it
is the latter that is gaining ground. Priests and nuns, for instance, are no
longer treated with the mailed fist Mr. Farrell used to employ on them; it
is their individual differences that are stressed now. Lizz, Mrs. O'Flaherty,
