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475
against in her review. I suggest that
she has tried to be for my theory and
against it, and against it to the very
degree and in the same sense that she
is for it. The trouble is that you cannot
get a tragic experience into a book
review, not even when that review
happens to
be
about a book about
tragedy.
Lionel Abel
SIRS;
Mr. Abel is very distressed because,
although
I
praised his book lavishly
(rating it as of far greater interest
than any recent book in English on the
theatre) and concurred with his main
thesis,
I
still devoted a large part of
my review to points where
I
felt he
had overstated or misstated his case.
My experience of his book he deems
"tragic."
I
am tempted to say, in
return, that
I
find his experience of
my review comic.
According to Mr. Abel, where
I
agree with him,
I
am right ; where
I
qualify or question his position
I
am
writing claptrap. This will surprise
no one, since Mr. Abel goes to the
rather curious lengths of stating in his
preface that he has written this book
because he believes what he says in
it to be true. He is correct in thinking
that
I
do not believe everything he
says in his book to be true.
The only proper answer to Mr.
Abel's letter and its truncated and
garbled version of some points
I
raised
in my review would be for me to
restate them again, whole. But since
anyone who cares to can read the
review, I will just note, briefly; I
did not say that "the tragic vision
implied nothing more than nihilism."
I don't see why his contention (surely
open to question) that Brecht is "the
most important of recent dramatists to
have written serious plays" means that
Brecht must
be
a meta-dramatist like
