lOOKS
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cessions to local effects, seldom calls attention to its own niceties or
charms, and stakes everything on a transparent sequence of events.
That Kafka should have been fascinated by Kleist is entirely
understandable, but 1 do not see much point in pursuing, as some
critics do, the supposed similarities between the writers. What Kafka
must have sensed in Kleist's stories was their surrender to the prob–
lematic, a surrender he himself pushed much farther than Kleist;
but as writers, in terms of technique and tone, they really do not
have much in common. Living in the period of romanticism, Kleist
is
still caught up by the idea of energy and the thrust of will, and
this
alone should be enough to differentiate his work from that of
Kafka.
In any case, these remarks barely touch upon the power and
interest of Kleist's tales. Now that they have been so well translated,
they should become the possession of the literate American public,
and Kleist himself should take his place beside such nineteenth–
century figures as Buchner and Lermontov, concerning whom we
can never quite decide whether they are far or near, alien or intim–
ate.
Irving Howe
THE MANY COLORED COAT. By Morley Callaghan. Coward–
McCann. $4.50.
THE GENERAL. By Alan Sillitoe. Alfred A. Knopf. $3.00.
AMONG THE DANGS. By George P. Elliott. Holt, Rinehart
and Winston. $3.95.
THE GLASS BEES. By Ernst Juenger. Translated by Louise Bogan
and Elizabeth Mayer. Noonday. $1.65.
Morley Callaghan's new novel is an abrupt ten foot
drop from the level of professional competence that one remem–
bers him sturdily maintaining in such work as
The Loved and the
Lost
or the stories collected in
Now That April's Here.
With all
due respect for Edmund Wilson's recent effort to restore Cal–
laghan's reputation, I can't agree with his judgment about
The
Many Colored Coat,
which I find to be simply one long cliche on
the problem of personal integrity in our corrupt times, illustrated
