The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-29
Partisan Review
Marked byHigh
Literary Level
PARTISAN REVIEW, No. 3, pub
lished at 400 Sixth Ave. 20 cents
a copy, 81 for six issues.
Reviewed BY
oBED BROOKS

Reviewed BY
OBED BROOKS
THE third number Of the Partisan
L Review. carefully edited and with
high literary level for all the
contents, is particularly interesting,
I think, for it's criticism. In the
book section David Ramsey takes
Mumford's Technics and Civiliza-
ton to pieces with scholarly and
MarXist thoroughness. Edwin Berry
Burgum contributes an exceedingly
keen understanding Of what NAL
raux has done, psychologically and
politically, In his two novels on the
Chinese Revolution. The other crit
ical material includes two sharp
polemic pieces against Max East
man, and long, considered state
ment Of editorial policy.
In a few deft and ironic para
graphs Boris Pilnyak knocks over
all Max Eastman's fabricated gossip
about his humiliation" Max East
man "the man under the table,
who across IL years and 1000 miles
knew more about Pilnysk's most in
innate feelings than Pilnyak him
self, and wept, going away from
the masses, at Pilnyak's "humilia-
ton" in going toward them. This is
complemented by review Of
Artists in Uniform by Leon Dennen
with more examples Of the patch
ing and cutting, omission and dis
tortton that make up the particu-
lar Eastman brand Of Truth.
In an editorial preface called
Problems and Perspectives in Rev.
dictionary Literature, Wallace
Phelps and Philip Rahv consider
the great developments in creative
revolutionary writing in the past
year, and try to mark out a criti-
cal line which will be at once Marx
list, and profitable to reader and
writer. They plot their line be-
tween the oversimple Left Of mech
anists, sloganists and ultimatists,
and the Right Of emotional revo-
lutionaries who are dominated by
bourgeois values and forms, and are
afraid of the dialectic.
Their survey raises important
problems in the relation Of the
revolutionary writer to the various
strata of his audience, in the class
struggle within revolutionary lit
erature, In the attitude toward lit
erature of the past, in the union of
sensibility and ideas.
THE short stories in this number
Of the Partisan Review are all
good to read, but they illustrate
some Of the points discussed by the
editors. They tend to be fragmen-
tary or marginal; they don't take a
significant conflict and develop it
intensively, give it individual COM
pleteness within the frame of the
larger struggle. Observation seems
more important than theme or de-
velopment, and most of the writer's
revolutionary energy goes into Wig
orous description. In the often un-
successful violence Of imagery,
think this emphasis becomes a dis
equilibrium, a diversion Of power. It
is true, for instance, Of Ben Fields
sketches, although those included
here, are, I feel, some Of the best
of his recent work.
The stories, however, are all alive
in experience and character; there
is no question of dogma or dis
tortion. Two are particularly ma
tive in feeling John Wexley's study
Of the relation between a drifting
white worker and Negro, although
its wiSecrack ending is let-down,
and suggests even an amused &C
ceptance of the status quo in its
detachment: the other, Barney Co
nails Notes on a Character" which
is one of the most understanding
conversion stories I have ever
read. The section from Edward
Newhouse's novel, although it deals
with familiar material, is rich sub
jectively. Arthur Pense's 1.-THE Ka-
marinskaya Comes to the Shop"
manages skillfully and lightly an
almost poetic pattern of exploita-
ton, melody and revolt.
THE verse is less satisfactory. I
liked best Lloyd Collins blank
verse "Out of This House" There
are two polemic pieces, one by Al
fred Hayes against Archibald Mac
Leish, and one by Herman Spector
on the Objectivists. The method
used seems questionable. In the
first place, the mood and techniques
of most modern poetry makes it i'll
adapted to the kind of critical con-
troversy that Dryden and Pope en-
gagged in. In the second place, both
these poems adopt the manner of
those whom they are opposing.
Since manner and imagery are
much more considerable in poetry
than explicit statement, a criticism
that uses the qualities critioized
without being parody, reveals the
mixed state of mind in which revo-
lutionary poets often find them
selves. Such poems are really
struggles within the consciousness
of the poet between revolutionary
intention and particular poetic
sensibility, and since 1t is a poem,
the sensibility comes out on top. A
poem like that of Hayes seems to
say, II could write the way Mac
Leish does, but -" But the but"
is weak, and there is no reason for
writing that way. Spector's poem is
flrmer, but it has some Of the vio-
lence Of imagery spoke of in con-
nection with the short story: