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PARTISAN REVIEW
which, as I have said, is the investigation of reality beginning in the
social field. The fact is that American writers of genius have not
turned their minds to society." The latter sentence makes sense only
if Mr. Trilling gives a very limited meaning to the word, society.
This becomes clear when Mr. Trilling explains why American writers
have turned away from "society": "Americans have a kind of re–
sistance to looking closely at society. They appear to believe that to
touch upon a matter of class is somehow to demean ourselves."
Which is to say that unless one is concerned with class and snobbery
one is not really concerned with "society." One has turned one's mind
away from "society" unless one is at least in part concerned with
"high society" where, it is commonly believed, most snobbery begins
or resides. And thus, since class, snobbery, and high society must be
involved, the manners in question may after all be the good man–
ners of so-called "polite society."
Recent American novelists have been concerned, Mr. Trilling
says, with society in still another sense of the word, the sociological
and political one. They have been concerned with social problems
and social ideals, social conditions and broad human sympathies
which educated Americans tend to think more important than the
observation of manners. Hence "we have no books that raise ques–
tions
in
our minds not only about conditions, but about ourselves,
that lead us to refine our motives and ask what might lie behind
our impulses." The novel which is truly concerned with the social
world and "society" has been "the literary form to which the mo–
tives of understanding and forgiveness were indigenous." Moreover,
"so creative is the novelist's awareness of manners that we may say
that it is a function of his love," and in neglecting the observation
of manners, "we have lost something of our power of love."
What, it may well be asked, can be the reasonable objection to
a critical doctrine which calls for moral realism, the observation of
manners, the pursuit of reality, and the penetration of snobbery for
the sake of understanding, forgiveness and love? Who can possibly
be against understanding, forgiveness and love? Clearly we can never
have too much of these qualities; we often have too little; and a
vision of the novel which will increase our portion of charity cer–
tainly deserves the most passionate assent and allegiance.
