SEX, SOCIOLOGY AND CRITICISM
541
more, they lived in a Puritanical culture which likewise imposed its
distortions. Much of what Mr. Fiedler has to say on this score is
true and much of his argument
is
convincing. But like all such
theses-a single explanation for a complex phenomenon-it is not
the whole truth, nor is it without its own distortions within its
own domain. For better or worse--shades of Parrington!-we have
now our first full-scale psycho-sexual interpretation of the American
novel. In fact the very subject matter of the
Main Currents
dis–
appears into the libidinous depths of Mr. Fiedler's interpretation of
Freud, for, so says Mr. Fiedler, the literature of social protest
arises from the frustrations of the thwarted libido: "... the un–
employed libido enjoys marching on the picket lines." It's alto–
gether a stimulating book-not because you necessarily agree with
it, and I disagree with much of it-because it sets the reader to
thinking about all these matters. It is also an irritating book, as
I guess its author intended it to be, although I think he often
annoys the reader in ways other than he intended. For while he
intends to shock by his "fearless" treatment of what, I gather, he
thinks is still forbidden material- and much of the book has the
flavor of a Mencken diatribe written in the 1920's, saying, in
effect, "I'll force you timid, conventional, stupid
bourgeois
cowards
to face the horrible truth at last"-in actuality he annoys by the
simplicity and by the frequent unfairness of his argument.
Against the argument I would have three objections: it is
either careless of or willfully misconstrues facts; it is given to
glittering, plausible, but finally vague generalizations; and it is
monistic, reductivist, and over-simplified in its explanations. I have
a fourth and more general objection to the book as a representa–
tive of a habit of critical "thought," although it is, I think, the
best of a poor lot.
Facts do not mean much to Mr. Fiedler; I think he is rather
proud of his escape from and emancipated attitude toward this
tedious realm, although he is quite willing to use, without acknowl–
edgment, the facts that some "harmless drudge" (my quotes, not
his) has laboriously gathered. He knows, for example, that before
1830 one-third of all our novels were written by women and within
that third were to be found almost all the early best sellers, and he
uses this "fact" as an integral part of his argument. With other
