Irving Howe
THE SENTIMENTAL FELLOW-TRAVELING
OF F. 0. MATTHIESSEN
F. 0. Matthiessen is one of the few literary intellectuals m
America who, contrary to current fashion, have continued to engage in
active politics. He identifies himself with "the cause of a people's de–
mocracy, whether at home or in China"; he has delivered a seconding
speech for Henry Wallace at the Progressive Party's Philadelphia con–
vention; and his most recent book,* an account of a six months' teach–
ing-assignment in eastern Europe, is essentially a statement of his at–
titude to European Stalinism and to the Wallace movement in America.
Since he is probably the most distinguished literary fellow-traveler in
this country, his political writings acquire an uncommon, quite sympto–
matic interest.
Even the mildly kno.wing reader should have no difficulty in recog–
nizing the atmospheric touches in Matthiessen's new book. Here, once
again, is the slightly sad, slightly ridiculous eagerness to sidle up to
"the people" (he meets "guys" and "cookies") ; the synthetic appeal of
the foreign correspondent stricken with a sense of history (" . . .. we
didn't know when we would meet again.
It
might be in America. It
might be never"); the pulpy
schwiirmerei
of progressivist festivity (" ... .
we had a keg of beer on the terrace and eased gradually into an evening
of songs . . . . 'Roll out the Barrel' and 'Joe Hill' and at one gay moment
.... the 'Internationale' led by Alfred Kazin"-and sung with a gang
of future culture commissars) ; and that falsely-charged prose style of
the fellow-traveler atremble before the glories of the "new world"-a
style that might be called
vibrato intime.
If
nothing else, Matthiessen's
book is classic evidence of how a· usually sober sensibility can
be
vic–
timized by dubious politics; all too often one feels that one is reading,
not a literary critic, but that bashful master of English prose who ghosts
Henry Wallace's speeches.
*
From the Heart of Europe,
F. 0. Matthiessen, Oxford University Press,
$3.50.
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