PARTISAN REVIEW
27
history, still kept safe from the white man and his predations. Every–
where, if you keep your mind open, you will find the truth in words
not
written down. So never let the printed page be your master.
Above all, you should know that the fa ct that you have to spend
one year, or two years, on one book, or one author, means that you
are badly taught - you should have been taught to read your way
from one sympathy to another, you should be learning to follow
your own intUItive feeling about what you need: that is what you
should have been developing, not the way to quote from other
people."
But unfortunately it is nearly always too late.
It
did look for a while as if the recent student rebellions might
change things, as if the students' impatience with the dead stuff they
are taught might be strong enough to substitute something more
fresh and useful. But it seems as if the rebellion is over. Sad. During
the lively time in the States, I had letters with accounts of how
classes of students had refused their syllabuses, and were bringing to
class their own choice of books, those that they had found relevant
to their lives. The classes were emotional, sometimes violent, angry,
exciting, sizzling with life. Of course this only happened with teach–
ers who were sympathetic, and prepared to stand with the students
against authority - prepared for the consequences. There are teach–
en; who know that the way they have to teach is bad and boring–
luckily there are still enough, with a bit of luck, to overthrow what
is wrong, even if the students themselves have lost impetus.
Meanwhile there is a country where . . .
Thirty or forty years ago, a critic made a private list of writers
and poets which he, personally, considered made up what was valu–
able in literature, dismissing all others. This list he defended lengthily
in print, for "The List" instantly became a subject for much debate.
Millions of words were written for and against - schools and sects,
for and against, came into being. The argument, all these years later,
still continues . . . no one finds this state of affairs sad or ri9icu–
lous....
Where there are critical books of immense complexity and learn–
ing, dealing, but often at second or third hand, with original work -
novels, plays, stories - the people who write these books form a
stratum in universities across the world - they are an international
