VARIETY
227
examine some
National Geograph–
ic-like photographs of underground
caverns, and fail to finish a noisy
contribution by Nicolas Galas.
"Uncreative, second-rate minds
these modern herologists!' shouts
Mr. Galas, dipping into his well–
stocked exclamation-point supply,
"-incapable of understanding ei–
ther the situation of the masses or
the feelings of the individual!"
Things are quieter in the pages
of
Horizon,
which still arrives each
month from London-a profession–
al, serious, balanced job. Recent is–
sues contained some excellent arti–
cles, such as Rudolph Friedmann's
psychoanalytic study of Kierke–
gaard, Stephen Spender's comment
on the humanist tradition in Ger–
man letters, and a report on Soviet
life by a Polish journalist. How–
ever,
Horizon
might profit by re–
calling Mr. Connolly's pre-blitz
spirit of irreverence. The Winter
issue of
Accent
has a good Cum–
mings poem, and devotes the bulk
of its space to a piece by Richard
Levin and Charles Shattuck, argu–
ing close Homeric parallels in
Joyce's
Dubliners.
Now that Joyce
is safely buried, the Publications of
the Modern Language Association
should be interested. A number of
new magazines have recently ap–
peared:
The Quarterly Review of
Literature,
introducing a new note
-a purple cover; Dwight Mac–
donald's
Politics;
a critical journal,
The American Bookman;
Norman
Macleod's
Maryland Quarjterly;
and a mimeographed publication
from California called
Circle,
en–
closing Henry Miller. A number of
other little magazines still function.
Some of these perform the not un–
interesting feat of assembling ex–
amples of criticism, poems,
and
stories of an exact degree of intel–
lectual emaciation. This is not so
easy a trick to bring off.
The reading of Kay Boyle's last
novel induced in Mr. Edmund Wil–
son a sharp nostalgia for
transition
and
This Quarter.
It is a nostalgia
that is currently stirring in many
a literary bosom. (A number of
the current little magazines would
make one nostalgic for
The Yellow
Book.)
Some intellectuals have not
been content to limit themselves to
the boundaries of this understand–
able response, but threaten at any
moment to sigh longingly for the
pleasant days of Mr. Coolidge,
Sacco and Vanzetti, and Miss Mil–
lay's middle period. Yet the sense
of fresh explorations perpetually
going forward, the dissidence, the
experimentation, above all the in–
ternational spirit that animated the
little magazines of the twenties,
were of great importance. They
survive only in a few caves here
and there; and even the occupants
of these underground hideouts
have about them an air of over–
charged desperation and a culti–
vated awareness that they are func–
tioning with little help from those
who appear to themselves as col–
leagues.
Most of the gifted editors of our
time are dead or have assigned
themselves roles in disappearing
acts-Ford (Ford Madox, not
Charles Henri) , Margaret Ander–
son, Harriet Monroe; have given
up editing (Eliot, Wyndham Lew–
is) ; or are wanted by the Allied
police force (Pound) . As for wri–
ters, a whole generation of "prom–
ising talents" examines its graying
hairs and pouchy eyes in the cubi–
cles of the O.W.I., the Time
&
Life
Building, and in the scenario de–
partment of M.G.M. Many of
them have not only succeeded in
making complete adaptations to
these realms, but have recondition–
ed them into closed worlds of
value.
