NEPHEWS TO CONFUSION
329
of tradition can only be found outside of literature, in the better detec–
tive fiction, in our best comedians, in jazz music and bebop, in manu–
facture. There we have tradition, but in literature, no. And, deprived of
this tradition, this rapport, the American avantgarde writer often ex–
hausts himself and his audience in attempting to compensate for it. He
over-includes, belabors, explains, and rationalizes. Then, in a sudden
revulsion, he defies, attempts to outrage, and aggressively bores his audi–
ence in order to show his independence. A tradition is like a composite
national ego for writers. Not to have
i~
is to write like a man without
an ego, to scatter and sprawl. But contemporary American writers are
too self-conscious not to feel this, and their struggle to locate their
literary ego clutters their writing.
New Directions 10
opens on a curious irony: the first essay, "Amer–
ica the Beautiful," by Mary McCarthy, contradicts the tone of the
whole book. Most of the volume is fiercely anti-nationalist, while this
article, subtitled "The Humanist in the Bathtub," is a brilliant bit of
home diathermy. A long step ahead of New Direction's cultural lag,
Miss McCarthy anticipates the new trend: the American intellectuals
finally coming to love the parent country. Like all bright children, they
had rebelled against parental influence, or had felt rejected, and had
consequently become Marxists, gallophiles, or expatriates. But now, long
disillusioned with Russia, bored by Sartre
&
Co., and impressed, perhaps,
by America's role in the war, they've founded a new nationalism. So–
phistication eventually laps its own starting points in search of newer,
remoter removes. The word "American" is no longer an unequivocal
pejorative. Our intellectuals are finally beginning to think of themselves
as Americans-with a thousand qualifications, to be sure-but Americans
nevertheless.
In any case, there is certainly nothing in the Italian or Peruvian
anthologies for us to assimilate. The French poets are infinitely better,
but then they're ringers. Michaux, Prevert and Eluard are probably the
three best poets writing in France today. All three of them-Michaux
and Prevert in their superb irony, and Eluard in his clarity and sim–
plicity-seem to be a healthy antidote to the old Surrealist rickets.
However, there are also Julien Gracq and Rene Char to contend with.
M. Gracq is only a slight improvement on the
Surrealistes d'antan,
and
M. Char is, if anything, an even more disastrous retrogression.
The Italian poets seem for all the world like men turned out of
their houses and cities, beating the bushes for objective correlatives.
The Peruvian papayas are pretty soggy. Here's a typical sample: "To die
joined to a head of hair that sweeps the bottom of mines of precious
