324
PARTISAN . RBVIEW
still, for instance, no crockery except the hideous "utility" ware or second–
hand sets at impossible prices. The general scarcity makes everyone com–
petitive about small possessions, and when you succeed in buying some–
thing like a wristwatch or a fountain pen you boast of it for weeks after–
wards. The snob note is definitely returning to the advertisements, and
in spite of the all-round shabbiness one can feel a sort of quiet pressure
.to make people dress in a more formal manner again. The other day
when I was passing St. Paul's some kind of ceremony was going on, and
I was interested to see top hats in fairly large numbers, for the first time
in six years or more. But they were rather mangy-looking top hats, and
the aspect of the crowd was such that I could not tell whether the func–
tion was a wedding or a funeral.
Very little to report on the literary front. The newspapers are still
at their reduced size and likely to remain so for some time to come, but
there are constant rumours of the starting of two or three new evening
pa,pers and of a new weekly political review of the type of the
New
Stat.esman
or
Tribune.
Books are as scarce and easy to sell as ever. Most
of the time I can't even buy
copies
of my own books. Scissors-and-paste
anthologies and miscellanies continue to appear in great numbers, and
since I wrote to you last a whole lot more literary monthlies and quar–
terlies have come into being. Most of these are poor little things and
unlikely to live long, but the kind of streamlined, high-powered, slickly
got-up, semi-intellectual magazine which you are familiar with in the
USA is now beginning to appear here also. Two recent example are
Future
and
Contact.
Hatry, the financial wizard, who went into the
book trade after he came out of prison, is said to be behind some of these
new ventures. Thoughtful people watch these developments with dismay,
but it is clear that you can only get a large circulation for the kind of
magazine in which the letterpress exists round the edges of photographs,
and which gives the average reader the feeling of being "advanced"
without actually forcing him to think. It is also well known that a great
part of the British periodical press is hopelessly antiquated, and that if it
does not modernise itself it may be suddenly supplanted by any magazines
which the Americans may decide to start over here. The "digest" type
of magazine is more and more popular, and even the Central Office of
Information (previously the M.O.I.) runs magazines of this type in
numerous languages for distribution in Europe. In the BBC what may
possibly turn out to be an important change is taking place. After years
of struggle it has been decided to set aside one wavelength for intelligent
programmes. One of the great troubles of broadcasting in this country
has been that no programme is regarded as economic unless it can appeal
to millions of people, and that anything in the smallest degree highbrow
provokes storms of indignation from ordinary radio users, who claim
that the time they pay for is being wasted on stuff that can only appeal
