538
PARTISAN REVIEW
Laurence Sterne said, "Human nature is the same in all the profes–
sions."
ELIZABETH HARDWICK
THE HAMMER AND THE QUILL
FoRCES IN MoDERN BRITISH LITERATURE 1885-1946.
By
William York
T vndall. Knopf.
$4.00.
I
N THIS BOOK the wisecrack disguised as criticism comes into its own.
Mr. Tindall seems to think that the neat answer serves to turn away
thought (that horrible and disturbing phenomenon), but he does not
realize that a smart or even witty remark, suitable for the pages of a
periodical publication like
Time,
becomes a bore when embedded in a
book; reviewing his work
I
read it through twice, and the humor was
either flat or flatulent on the second reading.
Mr. Tindall has looked at everything, or nearly everything, but
it does not seem to have done him much good. His book will doubt–
less become a textbook on the subject of what happened in English
literature between his dates, a terrifying prospect. Even the living are
filed away with a neat docket, and heaven help the writer who tries to
move from his ordained position. The disapproving finger is upraised
and the fatherly nodding of the head recalls the delinquent to his proper
place in the class.
On the back of the dust-jacket Mr. Tindall's publishers have fav–
ored him with a selection, under the heading "Some Tindalliana from
This Book." These consist of remarks on the same level as this one:
"Although less contemptible than recently supposed and less bucolic,
the Georgian poets are sometimes contemptible and commonly bucolic."
While it is difficult to suppose that this sort of thing will excite anyone
into buying the book, an examination of Mr. Tindall's phrasemaking is
of interest, in the same way that a
sottisier
is interesting.
"Lawrence chose a gamekeeper for hero because gamekeepers are
closer to nature in these civilized times than other Englishmen. Since
they would not be gamekeepers if nature had not deprived them of
intellect, they are suitable vehicles of the unconscious." Thinking of the
gamekeepers (and the peasants and gypsies also cited) whom
I
have
known,
I
have tried to understand what Mr. Tindall means; the only
answer seems to be that anyone who does not play booksy games on
Mr. Tindall's level has been deprived of intellect by a cruel nature.
This is pernicious nonsense, derived from the character of the game–
keeper in
Lady Chatterley's Lover.
Mr. Tindall has taken that character
and has proceeded to generalize from him about all gamekeepers and, ap–
plying this back to his source, has served up the results as criticism.
