PARTISAN REVIEW
141
associations, together with extensive digressions on the doings of Wynd–
ham Lewis, Joyce, Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and others. In this
way Mr. Kenner creates the impression, if not of an "era," as his title
proclaims, at least of a loosely connected cultural milieu, with the rest–
less Pound as its storm center. Mr. Kenner's style is equally impreg–
nated with the Poundian atmosphere; learned, allusive, esoteric, with
its cryptic ellipses and abrupt transitions, its systematic variations be–
tween the colloquial and the academic, or the precious, it is itself strong–
ly reminiscent of the
Cantos
and is likely to attract or madden in much
the same proportions as its subject. We all know critics who go more
than halfway to meet their authors; Mr. Kenner goes all the way, and
even more, for he seems at times almost merged into the headwaters of
the poet's thoughts, so that a mere murmur of "mermaids, that carving"
is enough to waft him to Venice and Santa Maria dei Miracoli.
Mr. Kenner is Pound's ideal reader, perhaps, but this may entail
limitations. He is always lively and often illuminating, with many witty
and perceptive observations; if he does not give us the authoritative
criticism that we are in need of, he does at least offer much that such a
criticism could use (for instance, in his demonstration of the superiority
of Pound's " translations" from the Chinese to Arthur Waley's). What
I
find a little saddening in his book is his readiness to dismiss altogether
from consideration the point of view of that hypothetical common reader
whom the critic, surely, can never wholly abandon.
If
Mr. Kenner's ap–
proach is the right one, Pound will remain a reader for aficionados
only, whereas Eliot's best work seems to have already become part of
general culture. But whether this general culture itself has any prospects
of survival is another matter; and the prognostications of Eliot's prose
writings do as little to encourage optimism about this as does the tragedy
of Pound's literary life.
INTERSECTION
Pitscnell Players,
Thurs.-Sun., 8:30 p.m.
W. W.
Robson
Poetry Readings,
Tues., 8:30 p.m.
Basement Art Gallery and Coffee House
756 Union Street, San Francisco, California
