260
PARTISAN REVIEW
Here is some more talk about Joyce by Harry Levin. Let us evaluate
it as talk. It is friendly, philological, well·intentioned and, in a super·
ficial way, orderly. Levin has really read Joyce, including
Finnegans
Wake.
He gives the impression of having enjoyed this work, and when
his analyses, dissociations and speculations as to the "true" meaning of
Joyce's wisecracks become a bit wearisome, there are always cleverly
selected quotations to keep the conversation lively. But what is surprising
about Levin's rhetoric is its lack of critical conviction. Precisely because
literary discourse cannot completely quantify its judgments does it become
necessary for the critic to prove, by the quality of his ·rhetoric, that the
values he presumes to find in the work really exist for him. Levin's lack
of style correlates nicely with the indecisiveness of his evaluation. He
appears to invent weaknesses in Joyce in order to give the appearance of
impartiality. For instance: Levin remarks that Joyce would not have
been able to describe the death of Princess Bolkonsky or the incoherence
-of Peeperkorn. This is like· saying that Joyce has the defect of being
neither Tolstoy nor Thomas Mann. Now what kind of talk is this?
Foolish talk and one wonders at it coming from a critic as intelligent
and serious as Levin. Does it come from a desire to appease the literary
reactionaries who in the last few years have become so arrogant
and
voluble? Or is Levin, so competent at philological analysis, incapable of
making a literary evaluation?
In any case it is just at the point where critical judgment begins that
Levin ceases to be interesting as a conversationalist.
LIONEL ABEL
POEMS IN EXILE
Fuerchte Dich Nichtl By Berthold Viertel. New York. Barthold Fles Verlag.
$2.00.
This is a very important book. First, because it is the first volume of
verse by Berthold Viertel since 1921; secondly, because it presents, from
a new angle and in a new manner, the spiritual autobiography of the cen·
tral European Jewish refugee.; thirdly, because it is an original collection
of poems in the German language published by a German in wartime
New York.
Viertel the poet is already known to a considerable circle of readers
in this country. But there are few people, perhaps, who are acquainted
with the whole range and capacity of his talent: his stories, his critical
essays, his vigorous political writings, his dramas, his translations, his
extraordinary novels. And another kind of public, ignorant of imy of
these productions, will remember his pioneer spirit in the German theater,
and his film-work in London and Hollywood. To that many-sided talent,
Fuerchte Dick Nicht
is a wonderful introduction.
"One sings to one's self in the dark," writes Viertel in his preface,
"and the tune is not a lively one. A man doesn't want to lose touch
entirely with his beginnings. He tries to remember how things were; to
