384
PARTISAN REVIEW
FICTION CHRONICLE
BERNARD CLARE.
By James T. Farrell. Vanguard.
$2.75.
A HousE IN THE UPLANDS.
By Erskine Caldwell. Duell, Sloan
&
Pearce.
$2.50.
j
!
THE BITTER Box.
By Eleanor Clark. Doubleday.
$2.50.
DELTA WEDDING.
By Eudora Welty. Harcourt.
$2.50.
THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING.
By Carson McCullers. Houghton Mif-
flin.
$2.50.
PASSAGE FROM HoME.
By Isaac Rosenfeld. Dial.
$2.50.
THE SNAKE PIT.
By Mary Jane Ward. Random House.
$2.50.
R
ILKE WROTE, "Art too is only a way of living, and, however one
lives, one can, unwittingly, prepare oneself for it . . . " History
recklessly disavows attempts to set up any system of education, training
or temperament as necessary to the emergence of an artist and affirms
that art can arise from and be nourished by almost any conceivable cir–
cumstances, whether personal or environmental. However, it doesn't
seem too incautious to suggest that the group of experiences and the
temperament described by James T. Farrell in his new novel
Bernard
Clare
seem very unlikely to produce significant artistic creations. In this
biography of a young man from Chicago who comes to New York in
· the 20's to make his way as a writer, Mr. Farrell has not at any point
felt obliged to give his literary hero, Bernard Clare, spiritual or intel–
lectual boldness, delicacy of response, individuality of observation, or
profundity of dedication-any of the traits that might make the reader
believe the character has at least a potential capacity for the difficult
creative task he has chosen. Even Bernard's bare ambition to literature
is expressed over and over in such savage prose as, "God, he wanted to
write! Christ, he wanted to have talent! Jesus Christ, he wanted to use
the pen!" The young man's past contains the familiar pities, expected
rebellions, and commonplace dreams that make, in our literature, the
portrait of an unhappy American. Born in a lower-class Chicago environ–
ment, he rejects the Catholic Church, abandons his unsympathetic family,
yearns for freedom, confidence, and a fruitful life. In New York Bernard
Clare is free but handicapped by inadequate experience, eager but
bedeviled by emotional and financial lacks.
The story then falls into the typical Farrell pattern: Bernard gets
drunk, lives in hopeless shabbiness, takes several boring jobs, experiences
extreme girl-hunger, finally gets a girl only to have his love compromised
by its sordid surroundings just as the girl's soul is compromised by her
economic dependency upon her husband. In addition, the hero finds the
opportunity and demand for several fist fights, the occasion to deliver
many well-meaning but painstakingly obvious opinions on time, memory,
