Hobbyhorses
Christopher Hawtree
In Anger: Culture in the Cold War 1945 — 60 Robert Hewison (Weidenfeld pp.230, £9.95) English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit 1850-1980 Martin Weiner (Cambridge pp.217, £9.95) 'The sociologizing generalization, that characteristic art-form of the mid-twentieth century, swells in volume and variety as we near the end of the 1950s.' These books are among the latest in the grey flood which has far from abated since Kingsley Antis made that observation. In their different ways these two volumes, neither of which is a work of art, attempt to relate culture to social conditions, and both fall for the myth that the artist is a general practitioner to be consulted on all matters. Although Mr Hewison's book is rooted in many of the facts and figures of the period, it rarely blossoms into readability; Professor Weiner has been similarly diligent and while his book is pleasant enough, his conclusions make it difficult to resist the suspicion that it is a spoof on the products of the fantasy. world of the research grant.
Now that the Twenties and Thirties have been thoroughly ploughed over, books are beginning to sprout on the Forties and Fifties. Under Siege, Mr Hewison's previous book, was useful for its study of the forgotten literature of the war; the best part of In Anger describes the rest of the Forties when, the euphoria of peace, dissolved, disillusion with the blandness of the welfare state set in. 'Socialism was all very well. . but there was no need for all these restrictions,' despairs somebody in Roland Camberton's novel Scamp, sadly neglected by more people than Mr Hewison, Sensing this, the government instigated the Festival of Britain — but the effect faded straightaway, as Roy Fuller found When he visited it: 'behind the colour and novelty little of fresh and permanent significance could be discerned.' Equally futile was the wishful thinking of being 'new Elizabethans'; Shakespeares cannot be produced at the Whim of Arts Council committees. What is depressingly clear from Mr Hewison's book is the extent to which the wartime bureaucracy has grown around the arts since.
This disillusion, and a realisation that the spread of education does not lead to a Spread of ideas, crossed political barriers. While Kingsley Amis, then voting Labour, said that more will mean worse, Evelyn Waugh saw boredom everywhere, 'nothing ahead but a drab uniformity.' It is strange to find Mr Waugh in a letter describing Mr Amis as belonging to the 'Teddy-boy school of novelist and critic' — an expression which has as much meaning as the 'Movement'. In her contribution to the Conviction anthology (the essays in this and Declaration have lasted better than the sloganeering titles would lead one to expect) Iris Murdoch concluded that what was hoped would be a resurgence of proletarian culture had turned out to be 'a stream of half-baked amusements hindering thought and the enjoyment of art and even of conversation.'
In Anger's concern is with middle-class work in literature and art, giving a lop-sided impression. Any account should surely examine Elizabeth David's cookery books and Raymond Postgate's Good Food Guides; as much as anything, these dragged England from the age of egg powder and dried prunes. The degeneration of architecture could have been studied, and music is given short shrift. The sub-title leads one to expect a fuller account of both culture and politics; in particular of the threat of nuclear war, made plain by Bertrand Russell in his 1954 Man's Peril. Lord Russell's work in this decade neatly refutes Mr Hewison's tacit assumption that only the young at any time are significant. Rather too much of this book consists of lists of names; although there are some interesting quotations, their final effect is that of sea-birds stranded on an oil-stricken beach. It will remain useful for the reader, perhaps abroad, who wants to see the effect of some works at the time— Cards of Identity or Look Back in Anger — but it does not explain why John Lewis's reverie before the interview is still very funny, why Archie Rice continues to move, or what makes Everyday Except Christmas more than a documentary film. But it will tell him that Lord Russell was a 'philosopher' and A.J.P. Taylor is a 'socialist historian'.
'If we could apply the power of electrical repulsion to preserve us from ever hearing anything more of them, I should think that we had for once derived a benefit from science.' Dr Opimian's comment in Gryll Grange about Americans often comes to mind when reading that country's academics. Indeed this would have fitted in well at the beginning of Professor Weiner's study. Peacock gives a lucid enthusiasm to all the objects of Weiner's disapproval, Weiner regards all levels of English society rather in the manner Evelyn Waugh once fantasised about Cyril Connolly: 'he will soon emerge as a regional poet with ballades about the nutbrown ale of Kent.'
Professor Weiner discerns the pastoral strand in English literature, and sees it as symbolic of the country's economic decline. He attempts to remedy this by extolling the virtues of industrial industry. It is interesting, but his denigration would be more entertaining around a Peacockian dinnertable where a contrary voice could soon speak up. As an American he does not appreciate the deep effect on the English of the First War, whose horrors were the logical culmination of 19th-century industry. His examples only serve to emphasise his one point. The summary of Dickens's career gives no indication that he is far more than a sociologist, a more considerable figure than, say, Mrs Gaskell or Trollope's mother. He is illuminating on Edwardian writers, making use of Ford Madox Ford's lesser writings. The hobbyhorse flags a while before the end, when it limps past the post by drawing a familiar parallel with the decline of Spain and by praising Margaret Drabble's The Ice Age.
The questions raised by these books are curious but they are not the stuff of literature. To expect the artist to be an unpaid guru is impertinent. After reading these 'sociological generalisations' one is convinced more than ever of Cyril Connolly's comment that views about the artist and this, that or the other 'spring out of a sense of guilt and sterility. Are plumbers the unacknowledged legislators of mankind?'
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