BOOKS
539
This form of flogging a book with a rod made from its own pages is
common throughout the work.
Mr. Tindall knows that certain English writers have read, and have
been influenced by, Franz Kafka:
"If
one is tempted, however, to
compare Kafka and Warner to the latter's disadvantage, it may be
recalled that the political situation confronting Kafka was not yet
ominous enough to make him indifferent to the reader's claims." From
this it might appear that Mr. Tindall
may
know something about Rex
Warner, but that he certainly knows nothing about Kafka. Those un–
finished, intensely personal books were not published during Kafka's life,
and to suggest that they make any concessions to the reader is so
patently wrong as to be unbelievable.
Some of the sayings in this book deserve to be preserved in aspic.
"The best poet of the Auden generation is Auden." "The early and best
verses of C. Day Lewis use the metaphysical manner of the seventeenth
century and the erudite manner of Eliot to celebrate the individual and
his troubles." The early verses of Day Lewis,
(Beechen Vigil,
1925)
employ the manner of Humbert Wolf, to whom they are dedicated. After
attempting to climb over Hugh MacDiarmid and Sean O'Casey, we
stumble upon this little rock of criticism: "With these loyal Celts to
his left and the Labor Party to his right, moderate Laski surveyed the
empty field." Fee fi fo fum,
I
hear the noise of Winston Churchill mak–
ing an election address!
The Victim
by SAUL BELLOW
Author of
Dangling Man
"He can tell a story . . . interest
is
always fresh and suspense always strong.... A vivid,
compelling, and serious writer, destined, I believe, to oc–
cupy an important position among the novelists of our
time and place."
- ROBERT PENN WARREN
October
$2.75
Vanguard
