130
PARTISAN REVIEW
Brooks does not have a false sense of reality. He knows about the
age of Hitler, he once proposed that Hitler's burning of books be
avenged by a like burning of German books. But Brooks' efforts, which
only an author of genius could accomplish, are directed to creating
a false image of reality. It would be very pleasant, if life and literature
resembled Brooks' version. How easy it would be to survey the period
of 1929-1939-the world of Herbert Hoover, or the world of Josef Stalin
-and to produce an image of week-ends in the country, the winning of
Pulitzer Prizes, testimonial dinners, favorable reviews, the exchange of
complimentary letters, the beauty of the T.V.A., the leisure of the
W.P.A., the liberation of the Scottsboro boys, the profound literary
culture of Walter Duranty when he compared the Moscow Trials to
Dostoyevsky, the increasing interest in literature in America which became
plain in the sales of Margaret Mitchell, Hervey Allen and Thomas Mann.
What a beautiful world! what a beautiful culture! And if the quality
of life has seemed otherwise, if, to some, neither systematic optimism
nor pessimism seem adequate, if the! literary life from the time of Irving
until the time of Brooks seems full of difficulty, conflict, unhappiness,
frustration, misunderstanding, false recognition and false disparage–
ment, sectarian struggle, national tragedy, personal tragedy and mighty
poets in their misery dead-if these things seem representative, perhaps
it is the fault of one's point of view. Certainly it would be wonderful
if Brooks' view were true. But it is untrue.
DELMORE SCHWARTZ
NOSTALGIA AND EXPERIMENT
NEw DIRECTIONS
8 (
1944).
Edited
by
James Laughlin, New Directions.
$3.50.
M
R. LAUGHLIN, in his introduction to the 1944
New Directions
anthol–
ogy, once more reasserts experimentalism as a criterion of choice.
Judging from the quality of the North American section, it seems doubt–
ful whether "experimental literature" is at present particularly valid.
An experiment in the arts is, after all, something which is being tried
out in the hope that it wiU be accepted, that it will work.
If
it does not,
it is forgotten. Now the experiments of the twenties and early thirties
which were the outcome of a real spiritual ferment, gave rise, as Mr.
Laughlin 8ays, to new forms and shaped certain major writers. The
temper of the forties, however, is entirely different-we are apparently
passing through a period of stagnation, there is a sort of concerted hush
in which everyone is waiting for something to happen.
If
there are to
be
new movements, they have not yet begun and perhaps will not begin
untjl after the war. Spiritual and ideological problems have not been
