The Chapel Hill weekly., 1962-11-25


RY. By Richard S. Kennedy.
The University of North Car
oliaaG Press. 461 Pages. $3.50.
With appendix, bibliogrupIty,
and i9de1.)
By JAMES SHUMAKER
Back in 1854, Thomas Wolfe's
sister, Mabel Wheaton, said to
Richard Kennedy, There is only
truth in your past writings of
Tom. Don't 'whitewash' him or
any of us-just be honest and
truthful and it won't hurt"
At the time, DR.. Kennedy, who
is now an associate professor of
English at the University of Wi
chita, already had completed the
first volume of what had been
planned as a comprehensive two
volume work on Wolfe. Its pub
lication was delayed and SUBJ
sequently overhauled several
times and eventually became a
part of ''The Window of Mem
ory."
Through the long delay and re-
visions, DR.. Kennedy never for
got Mabel Wheaton's admonition.
Honesty and truthfulness give this
critical study the solid ring Of
authority.
DR.. Kennedy has based his
study on a minutely detailed ex-
animation of Wolfe's manu-
scripts, notebooks, diaries, and
letters, on personal interviews
with Wolfe's relatives, friends,
literary associates, and other ac-
quaintances.
He has had full access to all
of the materials under control OF
the Wolfe estate, including I'm
published writings that had pre-
viously been withheld from
others.
What DR.. Kennedy has accom-
plished with this material is a
tribute to his own scholarship
and industry, and a pretty good
case that Thomas Wolfe was a
creative artist after all.
In the doing, DR.. Kennedy lets
the air out of a lot of balloons
that became inflated in Wolfe's
passage through Chapel Hill, Har-
ward and other parts, and ex-
amines in sometimes embarras-
sing detail embarrassing to the
disciples, anyway many of VOL
fe's less than heroic associations
with Aline Bernstein, his editors
and creditors, his anti-Semitism,
his political naivete, and his So
cial unconSciousneSS. But this is
not by any means a Thomas
Wolfe Confidential.
DR.. Kennedy examines each of
Wolfe's novels, tracing the de-
velopment, the various influ-
ences, the circumstances under
which they were written and re-
vised, and the editors participa-
tion in the work.
The evidence reveals Wolfe, in
general, to be not very much diff
ferent as a writer from what had
been popularly accepted. 7 h e
details, however, give new in
sight and understanding to
Wolfe's predicament as an artist,
both of which have often been
sadly lacking.
Besides the act of writing it.
self, Wolfe's greatest struggles
we're to break out of the autobi-
ographical mold, and TO achieve
independence as a novelist and
emotional stability.
He never did manage TO fore
60 the photographed theme,
but he did manage to assume a
curious, and apparently salts
factory, posture concerning it. In
a letter about "The Web and the
Rock Wolfe wrote, 1T is by
far the most objective book /
have written, although, Of course,
like anything that is any good,
it comes right out Of my own ex-
perience.
Bernard De Voto'S slashing,
satirical attack, "Genuis Is Not
Enough" apparently spurred
Wolfe, as much as anything else,
finally to cut himself loose from
Maxwell Perkins and Scribner's,
and undertake the terrible ordeal
Of trying to achieve independ-