538
CLARENCE BROWN
note in the Proffers' translation (p. 46), though it hardly seems likely,
since there are baffling references to what was left out.
The translation of the prose is generally good, but when one comes
to the translation of the plays, one is up against the problem of speak..
ability. This has very little to do with linguistic accuracy; in fact, manY j
of the lessons of linguistic accuracy have to be forgotten when it comes
t
to speakability. Liberties that are anathema to the literalist have to be
taken, and this has in general not been done. Two examples will have to
serve for many. A man answers the telephone by saying, "I'm listening."
Well, that is literally what a Russian says, but on an English-speaking
stage an actor had better say "Hello" unless he intends some special
effect. The accuracy of the translation is reliable; indeed, I think it is a
great deal too reliable. "That's very wrong on your part, Lena, so wrong
on your part, Lena," says one character in the heat of strong emotion,
and anyone who knows Russian could put that word for word back
into the original, but I would defy him to speak it with any conviction
from the stage.
Claren(e Brown
DOUBLE EXPOSURE
THE AMERICAN INQUISITION, 1945·1960. By Cedric Belfrage. Bobbs–
Merrill. $8.95.
Following the Watergate Show from London, an Englishman
of liberal persuasion may gradually transfer his attention from the con·
tent to the form, so that a creeping alarm diminishes his pleasure in the
remorseless exposure of a corrupt and reactionary Presidential Court by
the fearless knights-errant of the
Washington Post,
by the honest sage
Ervin, and by a host of Grand Juries embodying the Good Sense of the
Aroused People. I say "alarm" because the boisterous style of the show,
the no-holds-barred competition for publicity, the klieg lights, flash–
bulbs, and microphones, the daily leaks and daily press conferences, all
evoke memories of twenty years ago.
"The American Inquisition" (as Mr. Belfrage suitably calls his
study of the postwar, anti-Communist witch hunts) is once again in
session. Certainly, the roles are reversed.
It
is now Nixon, not Truman,
who invokes executive immunity; those subpoenaed to face the music
are no longer pink professors or First Amendment actors, but hard-faced
Republicans from
J.
Walter Thompson and the new-rich sunshine belt.
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