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sire for a woman worth desiring
and defeated by the natural
strangeness of human beings. It
would not be stretching the essen–
tial definition of tragedy to show
the possibilities of individual tri–
umph in all these struggles.
We should expect the fragmen–
tation of self in the modem novel,
just as we expect it in the man
bound to a factory or office, with–
in a social structure which cannot
use the largest capacities of mil–
lions of individuals. Writers are
responsive people: the complex–
ities of being an American in 1957
are enough to tempt all of us to
tum to partial, limited, maybe
soothing half-views. What a dan–
gerous thing to be all present and
awake before the front page of
the daily newspaper!
Can some novelists stand up
against their confusion and fright?
Yes, and even with courage, hu–
mor, and a will to do good work.
Without naming specific writers,
I suggest that the contemporary
American novel is still the best
place to look for instances of lives
which seek to be whole and un–
afraid. Confidence and freedom of
style are good signs of a writer's
taking the chance. A style which
attempts to use all a writer knows
to tell all he can imagine involves
a moral stance in favor of intel–
ligence and liberty and risk-taking.
With their varying defects and ca–
pacities, such writers have this in
common: they are individuals, not
products; they are making a way,
not accepting a road; they do not
flinch before the mystery of per–
sonality, or when they do, they
give signs of knowing that there
is something vital left out. Their
failures are peculiarly ungracious:
they intend otherwise. They will
try again next time.
At its best, the art of the novel
tells us more than we can find
out elsewhere about love and
death. We commune together be–
fore a guiding image of the always
unfulfilled possibilities of life on
earth. Weare therefore in con–
tinual need of the dangerous, de–
structive moralist which the great
novelist
is.
Herbert Gold
