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PARTISAN REVIEW
Anderson-as everyone except myself presumably knew long ago–
began his adult career in advertising:
All the time I had a kind of pride in my ability as a word
slinger and most people who buy house paint are, like the people
who are sold anything else, at bottom probably yaps. I was plaus·
ible, thought faster than most people, was always putting others
in the wrong.
You readers must know what this means in America, this
being plausible-a ready salesman. In America no one buys
anything. In America everything, even art, is sold to people.
These two extracts are characteristic of Anderson's attitude to the
American scene and his own moral and artistic evolution. Like the rest of
his generation, he bites the apple of quick·profit industrialism and
is
banished from the rural economic Eden; he descends into the capitalist
inferno, fries there a while, repents, enters purgatory (the poor section
of Chicago), suffers and finally ascends into paradise (the free, declassed
life of the artist who is neither out for the big money nor afraid of mod·
erate poverty). I employ this symbolism because Anderson insists on it
Throughout, he is calling our attention to what he is representing: the
Typical American Country Boy, the Typical American Business Man, the
Typical Free American Artist. How he enjoys himself! How he revels
in each new role, and how he makes us enjoy it-although, or perhaps
because, his performance wouldn't fool a child of six! Typical Business
Man indeed! Typical American! Typical anything! "I was plausible ..."
there speaks the unregenerate individualist, delighting in his ability to
fill one more part, to get himself accepted as a regular guy, a "live one,"
with whom you could "cut a watermelon." But this disingenuousness, this
gay unashamed trickness is very appealing; it is the most attractive thing
about the Anderson revealed to me by this book.
He died without having quite completed the
Memoirs:
some of
the
last sections, we are told, had not been revised. Is it fair to his memory to
quote from them? Yes, I think so. The man I have imagined for myself
as I read these pages would have been quite capable of saying: "It
is
because I am so very male that I can be a real lover of women," and of
asking: "Has any man of my time approached me in richness of living?"
As he speaks, the Anderson of my imagination is watching me out of the
corner of his eye, to see how I'll take it. And "Oh, come off it, Sherwood!"
I exclaim: "You don't have to be that way with me. I'm a limey." Ander·
son looks quickly round the room, but nobody has heard my stage whisper:
they are all too busy taking notes. He clears his throat: "Has any man of
my time-" he begins again; then he glances suddenly in my direction–
and winks.
Was he really like that? I hope so. I am going to try to find out.
Anderson's
Memoirs
have sent at least one reader to his work; and that
is
largely what an autobiography is for.
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD
