198
PARTISAN REVIEW
the overwork and fear and humorlessness that destroy all human rela–
tions. The moral rottenness is, of course, even more horrifying and one
might say that the NKVD is the central character in the book, because
all people, both the lowly and those on good terms with the authorities,
relate tragically to it.
In a book of this sort there are many fascinating accusations and
views. One of the most interesting, because it has become one of the
Stalinists' greatest ideological weapons, concerns anti-Semitism. (At least
there's no anti-Semitism in Russia, one hears every day.) When a Russian
woman suggests that persecution of the Jews will be the government's
next excuse for its failures, the narrator looks surprised. The woman
explains, "Innocent foreigner.... Do you not know that the Bolsheviks
were always identified as Jews? The traitor Trotsky was a Jew. In the
Ukraine in 1937 the interrogators beat their victims, crying, 'Confess,
Zheed!'" The Red Army is also accused of anti-Semitism. On the ques–
tion of revolt in Russia, Blunden suggests that it will not come, if at
all, from theoretical conflicts with the regime, but from a human process
of which even the most ignorant is capable: a recognition of the unen–
durable present, the horrible now.
I am sorry the author does not use Stalin's name, but instead refers
to him as He or the Boss, probably from the notion that this gives him
greater meaning as the symbol of terror and authority. However, my
opinion is that, in this case, one cannot be too specific.
Perhaps it is not illogical to follow two political books with a word
about
The Wayward Bus,
John Steinbeck's insignificant new novel which,
in a sexual sense, shows a strange class-consciousness. In this typical
Steinbeck fable about an assortment of people who board a bus in Cali–
fornia, the middle-class characters are either frigid or meanly repressed,
but the lower-class hero, Juan Chicoy, has the
mana
of a sacred bull
and the good-hearted tramp, Camille, has mystical powers that drive
men crazy. Sexual sparks fly everywhere and the bus stops long enough
for a few to ignite in scenes that will attract a wide audience.
Under the Volcano
by Malcolm Lowry and
Dark Dominion
by Ma–
rianne Hauser appear to be the results of enormous literary labors; one
senses immediately the authors' agony of concentration and patience, their
endless revisions and elaborations. This poetic, intense, but undramatic
writing is often abused as if the care and refinement were the sources
of the frequent failures, but I am far from certain that a book like
Dark
Dominion
would be better if it were more simply written. It is true that
the final effect hardly justifies the author's industry, but at least one
respects the scrupulosity of her intentions. However,
th~
honest novel,
built upon a lyric imagination, verbal virtuosity, and extraordinary sensi–
bility, is not rare today, particularly among women writers; to a great
