VARIETY
LIBERALISM, LIBEL, AND
ANDRE GIDE
On the occasion of Andre Gide's
death a shocking editorial note by
Alexander Werth appeared in
The
Nation
of March 10. While we do
not expect obituary notices to say
only what is favorable about their
subjects, still it is remarkable that
Mr. Werth's piece contained not
one word of appreciation of Gide's
creative achievement and lifelong
struggle against hypocrisy, the falsi–
fication of values, and the oppres–
sion of man. In fact, the piece
struck us as being more
in
the
nature of a move in the cold war
between Soviet Communism and
democracy than an objective ap–
praisal of the career of one of the
more significant writers of the
twentieth century. Mr. Werth at–
tacked Gide on several grounds:
he was the "dirty old man of
French literature," who had served
for years as the best alibi for homo–
sexuality; his exhibitionistic and
narcissistic qualities were odious to
the entire younger generation, to
whom he had become the embodi–
ment of "all that was rotten, anti–
social, feebly contemplative, and,
in
the last analysis, cowardly in
the French character"; and, finally,
during the Occupation of France
he had behaved "with placid cheer–
fulness," playing Chopin undisturb–
ed. All this Mr. Werth communi–
cated to the readers of
Th e Nation
not by way of speaking his own
mind but by way of reporting, as
he claimed, on the attitude of
nearly all Frenchmen.
Now anyone who is at all aware
of French literary opinion would
at once recognize Mr. Werth's re–
port on Gide for what it is-a
political construction. As Mr. Justin
O'Brien pointed out in a protest–
ing letter to
The Nation
of March
24, what Mr. Werth had done was
literally "to malign the French
press by setting out to tell us what
the French are saying about Gide
Hegel • Ph ilosophy of History
3.00
Schucking • Sociology of Literory
~~
2m
Heidegger • Existence ond Being
5.00
Ellis (ed.) • Sourcebook of Gestolt
Psychology
5.00
Hook • From Hegel to Morx
4.50
Montesquieu • Spirit of the Lows
5.00
Butler • Myth of the Mogus (3.75) 1.50
Bentley • From the Modern Reper-
~re
5m
O'Cosey • Collected Ploys (2 vols.) 5.00
Yeats • Collected Poems (inc. Lost
Poems)
5.00
Fowlie • Pontomime
3.50
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