664
PAJl..TISAN REVIEW
But history holds out grounds for optimism, too, in that earlier
"normalization" of Russian literature that began exacly a hundred years
ago. I have in mind the decades that bracketed the turn of the century,
when the so-called Golden Age of Russian literature had plainly ended,
and when disoriented readers were struggling to make their peace with
that, and with the new ("decadent" "symbolist," anti-realistic) writing
that was coming to replace it. Then, too, there was a radical shift away
from the intelligentsia reader; alarm in some quarters at "pornography,"
at the "breakup"
(raspad)
of literature, at all manner of "unhealthy" or
"elitist" tendencies, at the burgeoning of pulp literature and the appear–
ance of new and separate reading publics. Yet it all marked a period of
great literary flowering and renewal, which came to be known as "the
Silver Age ." Allowing for all the differences between then and now, it
may nevertheless be appropiate - let us
hope
it is appropriate - to close
on that hopeful note.
I think I will follow Susan Sontag's example in asking whether any
of the panelists wish to make any remarks first.
If
not, are there any
questions, or comments disguised as questions, from the audience?
Qllestioll.'
I have a question provoked largely by Professor Fanger's wide–
ranging talk, but I think it also touches on a number of other things.
Saul Bellow made a distinction between the writer and intellectual, the
intellectual as the system-builder, the writer as the man who is moved
much more by internal prompting and who responds to those prompt–
ings. Some years ago I attended a conference in Philadelphia on the sub–
ject, "The Social Responsibility of the Writer," Various American writers
and Czeslaw Milosz, who, one might say, is an American writer now
too, attended. I found very interesting the deference that these writers
paid to Mr. Milosz and the fact the these writers were much more con–
cerned with the heroic role of the writer than with the role that Mr.
Bellow articulated as being the writer's essential one. At that conference,
the writer as someone who confronts social forces, speaking for human–
ity, was played up. To one question from a writer, Mr. Milosz answered
that, yes, he had undertaken this role in his lifetime but had done so very
reluctantly. He would have been happier to simply write poems without
having to deal with the various terrible moral responsibilities that had
been given to him.
I was struck by Professor Fanger's comments about the role of the
Russian writer here, and I wonder now whether this heroic conception
of the writer isn't something particularly American in nature. Do we
look too much in the United States for the writer to lead the charge
against the forces of reaction and inhumanity? Do we not take seriously
