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REVIEW
skeptical and even nihilistic, but that is not the answer. These are inade–
quate reactions to the great puzzle of existence. Thirdly, to put the poet
or writer against society is the wrong way to put it, because it assumes
that the writer's status is contingent on the status of society. Had it been
so, we wou ld have had a far small er - or greater - amount of literature.
Art is not dependent on society or even on the reality of the world. You
may survive Hiroshima or a concentration camp and produce not one
line of literature, whereas a one-n ight stand could give birth to an
immortal lyric . So it is a completely different kind of logic, and to
inquire of a writer how he should behave under certain social cir–
cumstances is rather silly. In essence, the writer owes the society absolutely
zilch. And another thing, a writer psychologically is a member of a
greater body, of civilization, than that merely of his own society. So it is
not for soc iety to ask what a writer shou ld do for it. Rather, it is for
soc iety to meet him halfway, so to speak. Don't ask a writer how he
thinks he shou ld behave. At best, society for a writer is an audience. It is
either present or it is absent.
Qllestioll:
When Eastern European writers are published in a magazine like
Partisall Review,
Mr. Phillips, what kind of a reception are they likely to
get?
William Phillips:
A reception that is, to the extent that we reach a
certain number of readers, and to the extent that we have a certain
amount of influence, good. Actually, it's worked both ways. We've re–
ceived a lot of information from so-ca lled Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union that the magazine had a certain underground reputation there. I
think it's been favorable and positive. Sometimes the reputation exceeded
the readership, but that's a different question.
