BOOKS
341
in doubt, nor were the odious choices of the perfumer
Fran~ois
Coty .
It's a rogues' gallery of culpable reactionaries, but their pictures have
long been hung and the sting of accusation is gone .
If
the aim is to emphasize "connections between the social and
economic bases of French fascism and its social and economic goals ,"
and to suggest that much of the leftist rhetoric of fascist propagan–
dists was "manipulative sloganeering," Soucy has succeeded. The
book is a good, though incomplete response to Zeev Sternhell and
others .
If
in the process , however, Soucy wants to show that while all
conservatives were not fascist, most fascists were conservative , he
fails to convince. For reasons of self-interest or fear of social revolu–
tion, some conservatives offered temporary support to committed
fascist organizations . The majority did not, however, and many who
did withdrew funds, not only when the economy stabilized but when
their blue-shirted , black-bereted clients turned to violent attacks on
parliamentary institutions.
In the extremity of their actions , fascists created a chasm be–
tween themselves and other political actors over which very few con–
servatives would care to cross. Highlighting desultory alliances and
downplaying significant differences between the conservative and
radical right, Soucy distorts his otherwise lucid and informative pic–
ture of French fascism in the years before the fall.
MICHAEL BURNS
POETS' WORK
HALF PROMISED LAND. By Thomas Lux.
~oughton
Mifflin . $13.95
THE THEORY & PRACTICE OF RIVERS. By Jim Harrison. Winn
Books. $7.95.
GOING NORTH IN WINTER. By Franz Wright. The Gray House Press.
$4.95
In Thomas Lux's
Half Promised Land,
many of the poems
concern social relations, especially work: not just the dull labor we
do to survive in this world, but also the work' we must do to survive
ourselves. The collection opens with a scene of agrarian
beauty-"The Milkman and His Son" dragging a sled of discarded
milk bottles across the snow-covered fields of the family farm. They
haul these empties to the dump:
