Palinurus His Chart
The Modern Movement. By Cyril Connolly. (Andre Deutsch/Hamish Hamilton, 15s.)
MR. CONNOLLY describes the Modern Movement as the revolt against the bourgeois in France, the Victorians in England, the puritanism of America; and the modern spirit as a combination of certain intellectual qualities inherited from the enlightenment, combined with the passionate in- tensity and enhanced sensibility of the Romantics, their rebellion and sense of technical experiment, their awareness of living in a tragic age. The crucial generation which reconciled these opposites was composed of writers born around 1820, but 1880 seems to Mr. Connolly the point at which the Modern Movement can be diagnosed as an event that is still modern to us. His point of departure enables him to include the posthumous works of Flaubert and Baudelaire, 'our two fallen fathers, ruined, destroyed, tragic, yet each a beacon light glowing for posterity.' The journey continues for seven decades, until 1950, when all the objectives had been gained. rebellion had become meaningless, and the movement ground to a halt. 'The Titans depart,' writes Mr. Con- nolly, 'the theses begin.'
All Mr. Connolly's best writing has been to a large extent autobiographical. He calls his list of one hundred Key Books 'as personal as a cardiogram' and adds that it may well be the -last unsponsored by a faculty. This apparently ingenuous confession paralyses criticism. Why is this work chosen and not that? Because 'for every book I should like to put in there is one that will have to come out.' Why is no mention made of Ibsen or Strindberg or of any Russian or German writers who come within the period? Because 'I cannot absolutely judge a book from a translation.' The choice has been limited to English, French and American writers, because 'the three literatures chosen have always been in close communication.' This is true; but Ameri- can literature, which is insufficiently represented here, between 1880 and 1950—for more or less obvious reasons—came under much wider in- fluences. Mr. Connolly assumes that `we can all read French in the original.' He is surely wrong in this assumption, although many Englishmen imagine that they understand French. And if he is right, why does he include translations of French works, many of them of inferior quality?
What is so agreeable about Mr. Connolly's temphlet is his communication of sheer aesthetic enjoyment. He demands originality and richness of texture. Realism is not enough. His is a literary and one-culture list, containing ho scjentific, his- torical or philosophical works because of 'diffi- culties of evaluation.' (One senses a Puckish grin.) No criticism except James's Prefaces, T. S. Eliot's Selected Essays and Edmund Wilson's Axel's Castle. The only biography is Eminent Victorians, the -only autobiographies are those of Gide and Robert Graves—Henry Adams 'does not write well enough.' The only play (apart from 1- bu Roil) is The Playboy of the Western World. befending his omissions, Mr. Connolly reminds us that great books are not necessarily key books. Not all his key books are key books, either; but there is none that is not admirable for one reason or another, from Bouvard et Pecuchet (Joyce's favourite reading) through so many dazzling titles to William Carlos Williams's Paterson, whicb Closes the list. 'Nothing is good,' he wrote, 'save the new'—which, as Mr. Connolly says, brings us back to Baudelaire : 'Au fond de linconnu Pour trouver de nouveau:
Mr. Connolly's running commentary is always apt and witty, and sometimes illuminating: but it would be a mistake to take this subjective and almost parochial record as a solemn guide. No: the way to enjoy the book is as No. 1 in a new 'Personal Choice' series. It provides a splendid foundation for a house-party game or a weekend competition. Less embarrassing and far more rewarding than the U-game, one hopes that the C-game has come to stay.
JOHN DAVENPORT
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