298
IRVING HOWE
tions He cannot confront. It
is
an idea which transforms the
tra–
ditional Jewish view of
galut
or exile from a condition of
history
into a stamp of fate.
Alas, if only the presence of such themes insured the quality of
the work! For the simple truth is that, despite an occasional capac–
ity to move us through a mere announcement of its subject,
The
Last of the Just
is sentimental, rhetorical and parochial. When Mr.
Schwarz-Bart tries to rise to the enormity of his material, he suc–
cumbs to melodrama; when he tries for effects of irony, he demon–
strates a certain exposure to French literature.
Perhaps there are some experiences which do not permit a
fictional treatment, if only because the power of the remembered
fact is so great that the imagination stands paralyzed before it.
1
write the sentence,
six million innocent people were slaughtered,
and for a person of adequate sensibilities may
it
not be as affecting
as an embodiment in a conventional narrative? The Yiddish poets
have not made the mistake of trying to
represent
unspeakable
horrors; they strike the subject glancingly, through invective, reflec–
tion or mourning. For all its notorious flexibility, the novel seems
unable to cope with certain subjects, and Mr. Schwarz-Bart's book
is further evidence that we have thrust too many burdens upon it,
demanding that it do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Tempo di Roma
is a beautiful minor work in which form and
matter live together in a rare harmony.
If
in most novels the dis–
covery of meanings is left to the reader or allowed to emerge at
intervals in the narrative, here one finds an almost complete re-–
versal of technique and purpose. The plot and characters stay well
in
the background, yet are more than a mere convenience for the flow
of contemplation which is the dominant matter of the book; for it
is the plot, in its simple curve of possible human failure, and the
characters, in their modest representativeness, which provide the
secure perimeter for the contemplative passages.
M. Curvers employs as his central figure one of those rootless
young men, all eyes and little conviction, who have become so fre–
quent in the modern novel. But his· Jimmy is neither rebel nor
psychopath, neither manic celebrant nor disconsolate alien; he
is
a
man who accepts a certain detachment from common life as the
price of
his
freedom, and then tries to employ this freedom in
