'THE "N A AZgrere

a man must earn his death before he -could win 111s life,

No Amcrlcan,writer since Walt Wht- ma11 has assumed such risks i h forgmg -a style, and the success of these risks was not accidental. For they were rlsks kssumed 1 , ~ living, and thereby derlved a tenslon that' no merely llterary r ~ s k cduld have achlcved

They were not'alnateur's chances, such as that proposed by o1lc of the beatnik 'saints fn asshmmg that writmg resem- bles d r w n g wlth headlights out and 3 11osefuI o f pot.'-Thc chances Heln111gw;ly took nwrc profess~onal, berng measured, ; I I ~ C ~ wcyc then govcrned by a n iron con- trol They were the kind of chances by whlcl1, should they fall, the t;tker f d s alonc; ygt shollld they succccd, succeed for cvcryone.

They succeeded because \&thli1 the il-on, pass~on' lived And a slngular ten- SI011 W:IS der~ved by Ills control of t l m p " ~ I 0 "

A tension wluch f i x d 111s scenes I n them Iltc-or death- was arrcstcd as 111 a stlll photoglnph whcrcm the same sccnc wcnt on forever

I

I

at emulation lef t the reader wlth noth- ing but an inadvertent self-revelatron by thc emulator'

H I S need of hvmg having become one wlth 111s need of writmg, his commit- ment was total- it went full length. And Its length was the length of his life.

Uoder the perfect control was- always the wolencc of prlde; like tha t of thc ancestral Hebrew prophet who turned a dry place Into a wellsprmg. Hemlng- wxy's dry place mas .a stlllboln waste- la13d of real-estate horrors to whlch Booth Tarkington was then subscribing (in T h c Mzd lande~) , but which left Sherwood Allderson d!smayed.

Thmkulg of money and Success as a bitch and my fellow Rmerlcans as 11nvlng the scent of her long since, thcy trotting at her heels, that pc- c ~ ~ l i a r look in the eyes, tha t look of humillation not real, hope not real. The bttch was trotting the South. She had long since Invaded the Mid- west. Thus Hemlngway arrlved a t his you11g

manhood dead-center Into "the s m h l g s ~ d e of Amerlcan hfe" a t a momeht when the srnlle was turning to a piggy- bank s m r k 'For Europe's arlnics were buy~rig whlle we were sill~ng, and Amer- 1~2's swcctbeart kept swging -

] ' I n gorng t o ors-it ILLllL 50011. J f y szuecthcart's t h c l l l n l ~ i n t h e > ~ o o n

Yet under the roar of the ball-park crowds wlth the Sunday sun strlpect down them, one sportswriter heard cries for help from under the stallds, that se t 111111 laughing strangely going borne from

Amerlcnns of thc Left Bauk, but to a I-Ioosler sportswr~ter who never got out: of the park, tha t I-Iemmgway's spiritual ,1~lcdica~tllknt was closest.

Rmg Lardner, 111 a self-moclcing mock-lxograplly, reported himself as, a r.adlo cnthuslast who had dcslgued his

At first Ilc was' unablc t o gct a n y st;ltlon a t all and his condltlou held

W ; I S always trying 1.0 tune III on Glen F:llls, New Yolk, and I t was not u n t ~ l Ills last dlncss that he le,arned there was no broadcastmg statlon In that place.

FIc had heard the cries He had dls-

'Solrzethi~ly of Value. By Robert

3 87

t hc p r l c It waw't ,;1111011g the. Nhl-

own set

gcrnd t o thc day of 111s death. Rut he

Ruark.

1 . / , r ! A ! A , ) I , ,

111 ; I , * , I. 5 1 I /

I +

L , . . , 8 I.! , ,

cerqed the myths., Tlwrd was:no.thing , wrong with his set., .Yet+he took,hls , d i S -

appolntment too ,big7 ,,,L*ard,n(r ,-$stook the fa!!q-e of , ArnGFjqa!] ,life f o ~ ~ ~ hrs; p?yn : there wqs no s t a t ip l at, Glen ;Falls: He- could ,not obliterate, the cries,,: $0, lie obliterdted himself. < -. , A . I

For Uemingway, there was.,,qo st?- tion. in America. But he, knewlthat t he farlure was not his Qwn. At . the moment

. t h a t Lardners set went-deadiqhis 6egan to work. .

His journey did not, sfop ar ithe close of the 192)Os as James .T. Fafrell, sug- gests in ~ a recent pfe!e defiihg,. Hem- ingway as basicaliy 4 +rite? ,,of the twenties (Nugg,et, Q!8cembei., 1961).

starts with, Lardnkrs ,conclusion:?!, Max- well Geismar perceives, mdre -clearly ( W d e r s in Persp+ide). :Bec,ause i t was not until t+ decadeof The thifties that thd man who had coiistiously ref9sed to have any- further pwt of Western evi- lization-G(ri6 .home to tlle company of mer!. And beclme the clearest toice of the American cohscrence.- , , .

t .

I . . , , , - * 1 , 1

( 6 In Hewingway ye: shavetlie alrtist who

- . , I e . , I

~

. THE Arn-erita of- ~ . x k T1y-aj-n hid.-deen-. one o f Iiard times on tlie river a id hard times in town. But, STepngwajTs was one in which the reduccion .,of life to a cart-race in . a supeimar.t J I1a:d ~ ,already begun. The political isolatiollism, o f .-the Mid-

dle,West derived fro* alpissibn for per- sonal secority thati> reflected! a -divorce- ment ffom life so %!id+ thak,:,it#eigned

innocence of the., i m , whdre , a l l* men +Op into black nothirlgness. ,

What did he f&t?ft was not lear or dread, It was i nothing that he ,knew ~ o o welt. -,,:, .

By the time that !$giyoi$gmeri wyhose pasts &ere so J~r,or$L+rig?, began , t o ar- rive in Paris, ,He@ingw+f:; h a d already been to Death and b,a+:,, 8

, , ,, I , I :, ,:,4 ; I > - , . 1 I , ,

1 - . , : ;, :, * I . 1 ,

, ,

, , I _

I , _ I

,:, *

, ,,

I ,

- , I , . I

I I As th,ey [The Spanish] hnye corn- , rnon sense,.they,arc lntcrested In death ,;(, ,and do not spend their llves avold-

y g ~t ql14 llop~ng I t qoes not exlst, to r e a h ? ,it,.only yhen they come to die.

And- i a prepccupation ,with death was The Spanlsh. Dlsease, what -then was the name of The Arnerlcan fiffllc- tlon? T h a r one of, w h c h Wdllam Camp- bell, in qfie,,story called A Pursuit RGce, lay, abed in a Kansas City hotel?

lism~Cimpbell said. I dont want to take a cure lat all. $1 am perfectly

happy. All m y life 1 hive been per- fectly happy.:

HOW long have yoG been stewed,

Listen, you think Im drunk. You are drunk. Nb, Ib ,not. Youre, drunk and youve had

T ike a look. William Campbell pulled up the riglit sleeve of his pyjjjama jacket under the sheet, then shbved the right forearm out. Look

at that. On, tlie fore,xm,from just - -,&&e; tll-e-.wrjst- to the;elbow, were - -

1 smhl blue clrcles around tiny dark b lue punct~~res The C I I des almost touched one anothk

I donJt want to take a cure, w11- - .

B~lly ? I 1

D.T.s. * I

, I I

. - 8 , , ~ ~ ] b y , - got n cule- for I

No, - Wllllaln I . Campbell said. They havent got a cure for any-

thing. : * - , Nobody had a cure for, anything.

Th i s , was not s o simple a story as that of a man who had extended his arm permissively simply because an a r m that has no palticular use doesnt flinch from being used by a hype. It w,as not a story about an untouchable, but about .an unreachable. Taken -in the context of Herningways work, the affliction for which nobody had a cure was spiritual isolation.,,

I , ,I . I .

, &&xi+ i? a t6ck in a garden of chairs and y a h s -for,aiong time to be over.

, It is easi& fof: a rock in a garden than a +ah ,$hide his ino!her. He decided to be a rock %tie? lie g?t outside. . . I ,,e rock $sks only what is a rock. ,

, , A i,ock jvaitsto be a rock. $ ,rb+ ii, F, longtime waitingfor a longtime

to be ,pver so ,that it may turn and go the other . r i m way; I 1 ,

t$,,r&k awakens into a man. A man looks. A rnanaleeps back.into a rock aa it is better for a rdck .in; a ;garden than a man hside himself trexpbling in red, darkness.

Russall Edsom , 1 %;:: r l

,

A n isohtion t l t n t might lend, ,as y i l l by, b11 d-witching xby heroin, into a nothingness that was one faceof death.

A WITHDRAWAL from expkrience as a copsequence of war IS also pointed up 111 Soldlers Home, the story of Krebs, a youth returned from overseas service In World War I:

Dont look that way, Harold, his mother said. You know we loye you and I want to tell you for ,your own good how matters stand. Yoyr father

,does not want to hamper your free- dom. He, thinks you should ,be al-

lowed to drive the car. If you-w,ant to take some of the nice girls out riding with you, we are only too pleased. We want you to e n ~ o y yoor- self. But you are going to have to settle down to w,ork, Rarold. Your father doesnt care what you start in

. at. All work is honorable as he says. . But pouvegot to make a start at ,

something. He asked me to speak to you this morning and then you cvn stop in and see him a t his, office.

-- - - Yes.-Dont- you-lo~e-your mother, Is that all? ,Krebs said. I

dear boy? No, Krebs said. His mother looked at -him, acl-oss.

the table. Her eyes +ere shhy. She started crying.

I dont love anybody, Krebs said.

It was because he himself shared the sense of loss i n Krebs that Hemmgway was able to put the Biblical warning, , that he who gains the world loses him- self, into terms usable by modern man:

If you serve time for society, de-, - mocracy, and the other, thiags quite

young, and declining any further en- hstrnent make yourself responsible only to yourself, you exchange the pleasant, comforting stench of com- rades for something you can never feel in any other vay than 6y your- self . ..

thah.to pretend that a country which is ilnlshed 1s stdl a good country. Our people went to America because that was the place t o go then. It had been a good country and we had made a bloody mess of it and I would

go, now, solnewhere else and as we had always gone. You could always come back. Let the others come to Amerlca who did not know they had come too late. Our people had seen it at Its best and fought for i t when it was still worth fighting for. N,OW I would go somewhere else. We al- ways wFnt in the old days and there were still good places to go.

And decIinmg either to wrestle the bitch goddess to earth, to protest the new technology by lying down on the tracks as had Vncbel Lindsay; and fur- ther , declining to enlist among rear- echelon r-ndicals, Hemingway severed hlmself deliberately from all that had gone before. , Yet, out of the most remote isolation from the experience of hls times, he re- turned home. He dld come home agarn: to thes center of the human conscience.

When fascism became an open and imminent personal threat, the chief ques- tlon raise,d by those who had been most severe i n condemnation of him was rrWhats going to happen to me? And did not wait for an answer, but saved themselves instead. .

It was Hemingway who risked the ship. HIS voice was that one which litt- ed the chlef question to What is going to happen to men?

It may here be pointed out to vc that he was not alone 111 representing American liberalism in the thlrtles and thls 1s more than true, because he never merely represented. As he had not been merely a writer formed by the ddluslcn- ment folloiving the First World War, now he was not merery a prophet of World -War I1 among other prophets. He was got "basically of either decade For to both decades he brought a magic hue: a dye that did not run For Its singular color was the color of a singu- lar \hfe. And there let the. mystery lie.

Betweell Hail nothing full of nothlng nothing is with thee-it was all a noth- ing and a man was, nothing too and each mans death dlmlnishes me he had completed~ a spiritual voyage whleh s t d sustains us.

That. he hac1 ultimately to fall, that iq the end it would be nothingness once mqre, he must have known. But he also knew that the pomt is to last.

- ,Literature is made upon any oc- dasioki - that a challenge is put to the

And last he did.

YET the close of World .War I1 saw those writers who, had most coura- geously sustained this passion either in flight or gone passionless.

After the final bivouac of that war, its final sea-bell and .the last bar, I re-

turned to fmd the big Milwaukee Ave- nue moon of home stdl working nights above the same brcweries.

Yet strangely changed, burning a t once both darker and more bright. For fluores- cent neon now lit names of bra,nds never heard of before in any bar. Some of the drlnkers had been to the war, some had sat I t out. Yet all were equally sur- vivors

The dlrect impact: of changes past, of depression and of war had formed them, years before, into first-person persons. Now they ,felt themselves to be sur- vivors merely; 111 a world gone thlld- person.

Yet clung to their fmt-person feelings as they held to the prewar brands of beer. When a card dealer told a new player, (Count your money, the young man answered, No. But Ill review my holdings. De&s and drmkers did not know how to talk to the gewcolners; who soon became tile new dealers. T h e y dtd not buther with drinking.

Thcse new owners appearcd from somewhere where it had all been too easy. where llfe was guarded, from nursery to campus, against love and I-ough weather. On the day a new own- ers name appeared LFside hrs fathers on 211 office door, he stood 111 contempt of those with n o frosted-glass, name.

Then old wall mottoes had to come down--LrWho degrades another degrades me., There shall be no difference be- tween them ,and the rest. The kept- woman, sponger, thief, are hereby in- vlted-these were mottoes made of hard times on the rlver and hard times in town, so nobody needed them now. You cant be too careful was -rhetrend of the new mottoes. ?-

And careful the newcomers were. Bc- cause, whde their protagdnrsfs called

legal apparatus by a conscience in touch wlth humanlty.

In I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for con- quered and slain persons, I will not have a smgle person slighted or left away, Walt Whltrnan set the tune.

But marches for the conquered proved not enough. From Stephen Crane through Hemingway, the prevailing pas- sion of American letters became. assault upon the legal apparatus in the name of humanity. Commonly by a single drlven man.

for more courage from everyone, higher morality and more Idealism, they all settled privately, and some too soon, for pcrsonal securlty - usually suburban.

Thus the hard-bought American belief t h a t literature can be made only by a wllmgness to take ones own chances, w,as sold plecemeal by individual sur- render. American literature thus became a dishonest thing, because its honesty had, heretofore, been a higher honesty than that of the merchandlsers world.

I n that world honesty had ,meant rnereIy refrain;ng from open theft; while honesty among writers had meant a wlllrngness to take the kind of personal risk by whlch, if it fails, one fads alone; yct if it succeed, succeeds for all. Now the wrlters began to subserve, rather than to stand against, the businessmans world. What I object to, one of the new fellows complained, IS the writer whd offers me the worlds horrprs without offering, a sohiion. Thus we pei-ckived that FIaubert had been out of hismind to give us Madame Bovary without,+- pending a solution for adultery. , ,,

Hemingway never wrote anythiilg that would distirb an eight-year-old, another revoluntionary thinker added (one whose revolutionary limits were violation of locaI traffic ordinances$. He had overlooked the fact that Hemhg- ways work had been disturbing twenty- tweycnty-year-olds for three decides: Was I t Papas fauIt that the eight-year- olds werent ready for him? j That Hemmgway should ultimately f a d was impllcit from thk day Ize voli unteered for service with the Italran forces. H I S Inner conviction that he who saves himself IoSes his Lfe, #and he who loses it is saved, was (already: at work. HIS hfelong rejectioll of the small, sure success was i ndp ted t h i s early.

And yet; how this ultinlately lent him t o seekers of small but sure success! How many openings in university facul- ties his failure, so easily proved, pro- vided! How many paperfrsll boys frsm campus and office arrived, armed with bIueprints to which the novel arrd short story would henceforward have to con- form a t peril of a bad grade in Ameri- can writing! (A .chair of literature of a $reat Western university is occupied to- day by no further qualification than the fadure of Stelnbeck parlayed onto the failure of Fiulkner and all of it back on the nose of the failure of HeFing- way.) When he sickened, and hi.s real life began failing, the begrudgrs fol- lowed closer, in greater numbers.

Aild, as the new owners had come from a changeless world, their view of

3s9 .

America was t h a t of .encapsulated men ,from a glass-walled exlstence. Through , Li fe and a few bad novels, bu t largely through criticism, they subscribed to the ,merch~andlsers world and saw the fu- ture of American letters in hallowing Amerrcan buslness practlce

Hemlngway hnd tqken the long risk and returned strengthless. They stood on the new smlllng side and their ad- vantage was plain they planned no voyage a t ,all.

We were back a t the smiling side. We were back at the viey that literature should be written for maiden eyes and ears. Only now the maiden was wearing an ivy-league suit.

POOR PAPA. He had made the journey from nothingness to the company of men; and was back a t nothingness. He posed all over the place-but is i t too much to assume that hls final sickness began here? I It is certain that he had known of this partlculnr danger while trailing kudu i n Africa; one wonders whether he knew

. ~ he was being stalked on hls last tour of the Sp_anish__bull_rlngs.. . . . . -~

LExp~ess of Paris dispatched a pro- fessional follower, who returned with a long article, Lets Talk About Hem- ingway, which proposes that the rivalry between Ordonnez and Dominguin was pure publicity; and therefore that Hem- ingway; being a partisan of Ordonnez, was accessory to the trick. By equivalent reasoning, an admirer of Shoeless Joe Jackson must have been accessory to

And how is i t that .he, the reporter, , saw Hemingway drinking the best wine

in town whereas he had once written that vim ordinaire was the best he ever tasted?

, Abe Attell.

But why not admit it [the reporter finally makes his challenge] and put on the gloves? I do not 11ke that old man. Not at all. For certain reasons I have simmered all along in the reading of his books. This man is a

comedian who during all his life-as a friend of mine says in an excellent way-walked around with his testicles for a necklace. But I do suspect he has none, and that he is a comedian whose literature, by means of tricks, realizes nothing more than the as- sumptions of ReaderJ Digest. Ernes- tos virility is wine and literature.

, Don Ernesto is afflicted with an awfully sly and wicked look. Hiding behind his beard, Don Ernesto has a mischievous air, mischievous, very mischievous.

3 90

Let us p u t on the glovesJ-the phrase sparked a memory in me ten years old. That of a Paris roof top on a summer Sunday morning ,with two young Frenchmen, both friends, one a reporter not yet employed by LBxpress. Confronted by an American of unpre- possessing physique and no ring experi- ence beyond occupying a ringside seat a t St. Nicks Arena, armed with gloves the size of pillows, this ambitious youth said Please - ?tot zn the face before a blow vas struck. The American, then, employing his full strengtl!, swung one of the pillows in a vaguely upward di- rection and his challenger threw a right hand resembling that of a ten-year-old girl striking a t a bee. The challenger imrnedlately unlaced his gloves and of- fered to shake hands H e was in a sweat, but not from the French sun.

Standing beside his gun-bearer, MCola, in 1935, Hemingway did not share the gun-bearers joy when they saw the hyena obscenely loping: . . . f$l belly dragging a t daylight , on the p l q n , who, shot from the

stern, sklttered on into speed to tum- . .-ble.end over. .end. .. . . -It was. funny-

to MCola to see a hyena shot a t close range. There was thar comic slap of the bull9 and the hyenas agitated surprise , to find death in- side him . . . to see him start that hantic circle. To see that electric

speed t h a t meant he was racing the llttle nlckeled death inside him. B u t the great joke of all, the thing M C o h waved his hands across his face about, and turned away and shook his-head, ashamed even of the hyena; the pin- nacle of hyenic humor, was t h e hyena, the classic hyena, t ha t hit too far back whde running, would circle madly, snapping and tear~ng a t him- self until he pulled his own intestines out, and then stood there, jerklng them out and eating them with relish.

Fisi, Cola would say and shake his head in delighted sorrow a t . there being such an awful beast. F i ~ i , the hyena, hermaphroditic, self-eating devourer of the dead, trailer of calv- ing cows, ham-stringer, potential biter-off of your face while you slept, sad yowler, camp-follower, stinking, foul, with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves, belly dragging, loping away- on the brown plam, looking back, mongrel dog-smart in the face; . whack from the little rnannllcher and then the horrid circle starting. FY.ri, Cola laughed, ashamed of him,

Eats himself. Fisi . . shaking. .. his. bald black llead.. F&. .

Take off the gloves, M. de LExprers. They do not become the odd slope of your back. They do not become the strange way you run. Only one animal on earth giggles a t the dying. -.

Quest Without Faith , Joseph Taldmeir -

COMMITMENT to an ideology, afili- ation with a cause; a tendency to argue, moralistically, in terms of white and black, indignation, optimism, disillu- sionment; rebelliousness-these are the most essential components for a defini- tion of the traditional social-cr~tical novel. Little American writing today tits the definition. There are the pot- boilers concerned with teen-age gangs, beatniks, Hollywood, Washington, sub- urbia, and crime duing the 1920s And there is the pseudo-social criticism of Cameron Hawley, Sloan Wilson, Her- man Wouk, James Gould Cozzens, Ayn Rand and the Dos Passos- of n/lid- centwry, writers who are in reality apologists of expediency and affiliates of the status qzco. But among the seri- ous new American novelists-those who have done their best work since 1949- JOSEPH WALDMEIR teaches Enghh a t Miclzigan State University.

only a handful are traditional social critics; and among these, most are those World War I1 novelists who identified fascism as a universal ideological im- morality and saw. themselves as cru- saders against it, (I discussed a t Iength the war novelists ideas and attitudes in The Nation, Nov. 1, 1958.)

The majority of the serious new novelists conceive of society and a mans place in it in quasi-naturalistic terms; hence they cannot be social critics in the traditional sense. The spe- cific socia1 villains-factory owner, or- chard owner, inimical environment, systems such as capitalism or Nazi- fascism-against which the social critic has always fought-are for them merely aspects or symptoms of a universal ill- ness. And to attack, even to cure, a symptom is hardly to guarantee a cure of the illness, or even to prevenc the rise of new symptoms. One may defeat Nazl-fascism, for instance, without dis-

T h e NATION