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pieces about "Utopian thinking" have occasioned an admiring fuss
among some younger writers who now seem a little depressed at look–
ing back upon their political "realism" during the post-war years;
actually, what they find so startling in Goodman has been there all
along, part of his continuous development as an anarchist writer.
The single best essay in the book, "On the Intellectual Inhibition
of Grief and Anger," provides evidence of this continuity, but also
evidence of Goodman's growth as a writer. The essay is a delicate
probing of psychic troubles common among intellectuals. Goodman's
gift is here an unusual one: a gift for the precise, detached yet sym–
pathetic description of states of feeling we all experience but seldom
reflect upon. He describes "persons who have appetites, who show
initiative in approaching and possessing their objects and are there–
fore subject to frustration and loss, but who cannot give way to anger
and grief because they know too much." By "rising above the situa–
tion" too easily, the intellectual "draws back from the feeling of loss
and explains it, and lets his grief dribble away." These observations
Goodman then develops with a notable candor, sweetness and plasticity.
None of the other essays seems quite as good, though some, like
the study of the American avant garde and the piece on pornography,
are packed with enough observations to yield tomes for other writers.
Uneven this collection certainly is, as all such collections must be; but
why complain of that? Good writers have a right, perhaps an obliga–
tion, to show their strengths and weaknesses in their true interdependence.
Some of the weaknesses have become part of Goodman's public
stance, the price he pays for the isolation confronting the radical writer
in our society. Though less often than in the past, he falls back upon
his chosen role of the Artist-Sage, the wise and contemplative daddy of
us all, supervising the kiddies in the sand-box. As a Sage, Goodman
cannot allow his temper to run away with him (cf., "On the Intel–
lectual Inhibitions," etc.) and this means that sometimes he fails to
achieve the polemical thrust his politics requires. The Sage can, how–
ever, permit himself slap-dash, apparently unrevised prose: perhaps it
is an aggression against the audience which does not always recognize
his sagacity. By now, the whole idea of the Sage is a bore, and one that
Goodman can afford to drop.
He might also consider dropping the didactic strategy he has
worked out in this book. He begins with the enunciation of neglected
(.
common truths and values. "When I suggest a practical proposal plain
as the nose on your face, people weep with pleasure for the reminder of
paradise lost" (I believe that, entirely). He then proceeds to show that
