study; by selecting the books of
Tindall and Burgum for critical
evaluation you imply values your
reviewers do not find in them, else
why did you choose them? I am
puzzled at the whole sorry business,
but sincerely hope that it does not
presage the decline of a magazine
I have found informative and dis–
criminating.
Oscar Cargill
New York City
Sirs:
Why does PR waste its readers'
time by trying to revive the literary
reputation of a man like Ernst
Juenger, an
enfant terrible
of the
Weimar period, now safely back in
the fold of "humanism" because
of the defeat of the blood-and-iron
philosophy. And Mr. Clair, author
of the article on Juenger, seems to
be making an effort to inflate the
German writer's achievement as a
novelist by speaking in such exalted
terms of
The Marble Cliffs.
This appears especially anom–
alous in an issue in which you
continue the dissident and icono–
clastic tradition of PR. I was par–
ticularly struck by the vigor and
courage with which your reviewers
handled the books by Burgum and
Tyndall. These books are bad in
entirely different ways; your re–
viewers - Messrs. Bazelon and
Todd-were the only ones I've
read who noticed the specific bad–
ness of each, applying the right
criteria and the necessary energy
of condemnation. The same rigor–
ous standards, if applied to the
work of Juenger, would have re–
sulted in a more adequate treat–
ment of his work.
PR is the only literary periodical
in this country in which one can
expect that a party-line critic like
Professor Burgum would be dealt
with in the right way.
Robert Hyde, Jr.
Chicago, Illinois
In coming issues of
PARTISAN REVIEW
ANDRE MALRAUX, by Nic–
ola Chiaromonte (the first of
a series of critical portraits of
outstanding intellectual fig–
ures)
ON HISTORICAL UNDER–
STANDING, by Sidney Hook
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