BOOKS
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What we have in
Politics and the Novel
is not a series of critical
"readings" of novels-there is nothing, for example, comparable to the
brilliant chapter on
Winesburg, Ohio
in Mr. Howe's book on Anderson–
but rather a collection of critical character sketches which explore with
great subtlety the nuances of ideological commitment as they are repre–
sented in important novels. These critical sketches, taken together, con–
stitute an impressive repertory of ideological roles which enjoy the
advantage of having been subjected to all the complex criticism and
moral fastidiousness of the novelistic imagination at its best. They con–
form rigorously to the novelists'
donnie;
at the same time they are
animated by an urgent need to discover what it is that the serious
novelistic mind can tell us about the meaning of commitment in our
time. Thus, in a curious way, the novel as a sovereign form of cogni–
tion receives high tribute in the pages of Mr. Howe's book even as he
slights the narrative structure of the works from which his critical ma–
terials are drawn. His conviction throughout is that the novel can speak
to us on the subject of commitment as nothing else can, nof for its
political opinions or programs of action but for its concrete represen–
tation of emotion, will, and social fact as they modify-and are them–
selves modified by-the commitment to total political purposefulness.
One merit of this critical approach-this is another distinguishing
virtue of the book-is that it does not indulge any facile oppositions be–
tween literature and ideology. It takes for granted their common in–
terests as well as thelr disparate functions, and, rather than mobilize
the literary mind as a weapon against ideology, its effort is to engage
literary intelIigence for the humanization of ideology. And to the extent
that this criticism is successful, it furnishes a necessary corrective to the
efforts of liberal critics to disavow ideological commitments in favor
of cultural quietism (as if this were itself innocent of ideological
maneuvering) .
Yet, it is the scope of Mr. Howe's book that one finds disap–
pointing. He disclaims any intention of writing a "definitive study,"
and no one is likely to mistake his work on that score. For all its
achievements, it remains fragmentary and inconclusive, it remains
somehow isolated from its own goals; and I think this isolation and
fragmentation can be traced directly to its critical method and, beyond
method, perhaps indirectly to the ideological dilemma of which this
fragmentary quality is emblematic.
I have already remarked that Mr. Howe pays high tribute to the
novel as a form of cognition; in this respect he has admirably absorbed
the lessons of modern criticism and found a pertinent function for them.
.Yet in critical practice the tribute remains rather abstract, more often
