BOOKS
125
tern of one's life depends to a large extent on the manner in which
one organizes one's own particular phantom chase." And he sums it
up:
"It
all boils down to the same
Zeit-motif,
the same obsession. All
my life I have had emotional measles. . .. The longing to embrace the
perfect cause turned me into a Casanova of Causes; the phantom chase
after Helena followed the same pattern . ... My fri endships with men
were, with a few exceptions, as intense and short-lived as my love af–
fairs; and for a similar reason." This is " true confession," and it ex–
plains why he set out on so many roads only to return by them just
as hastily. "The Road to Marx," as he describes it, is just as fortuitous
as the earlier road to Zionism. There seems to have been no real con–
viction in him, simply a vague longing for some absolute solution to
the problems that continually worried him.
It
just happened that at
one period of his life Marxist Communism was the only cause that
offered a definite, positive program, and his joining the party was
another shot into the blue with the hope that his arrow would finally
hit something, stick somewhere, and remain at rest.
This may seem to be a too negative view of an active and pas–
sionate character, but it is a view of himself which Koestler readily
admits, and which this particular book conveys more clearly than any–
thing else he has written. His studies in sociology and economics were
less extensive than his early studies in physics and chemistry, and yet
he never became a scientist ; only a science editor. Koestler has always
been, it appears, not so much a dedicated man as an enthusiast whose
ardors often peter out rather quickly. In other words, he is a journalist;
not quite an artist, not quite a scientist, and not quite a revolutionary.
However, he is a first-rate journalist, and an instructive guide through
the mazes of contemporary life.
COLLECTED POEMS 1934-1952 by Dylan
Thomas
3.25
I.4USIC IN MEXICO by Robt. Stavanson.
Aztac times to tha present
5.00
POETIC DICTION by Owan Barfiald. A
study in maaning
4.50
THE CORRES. BET. PAUL CLAUDEL
&
ANDRE GIDE, trans. John Russel l
4.00
THE WRITER AND THE ABSOLUTE by
Wyndham Lewis
5.25
THE JOURNALS OF ANDRE GIDE vol. III,
&
IV pub. ea. at $b.Oll--our price aa. $3.00
TROUBLED SLEEP by Jean-Paul Sartra
pub. at $3.5Il--our price
$1.75
Winter GBM Currents
&
other Lists
Free on Req uest.
GOTHAM BOOK MART
41 WEST 47th STREET
NEW YORK
3b,
N. Y.
Allan Dowling
RECENT PAINTINGS
THEODOROS STAMOS
Jan. 5 - 24
WILLIAM CONGDON
Jan. 27 - Feb. 14
HEDDA STERNE
Opening Feb. 16
BETTY PARSONS
GALLERY -
15 East 57 Street
