Union of Writers
Writers in Freedom. Edited by Hermon Ould. (Hutchinson. 8s.
WHAT new thing is presaged by this book? The sub-tide is " Symposium based on the XVII International P.E.N. Club Congr held in London in September, 1941," and we are given what I to be the pith of the proceedings. The dramatis personae inclu such architects of social progress as President Benes of Czech slovakia and H. G. Wells ; scholars of our diverse humanity su as Sefior de Madariaga and E. M. Forster ' • wild-eyed but s minded prophets like Olaf Stapledon ; and good plain novelis like Phyllis Bentley and Thornton Wilder. The new idea is writers as a class can work out a common political philosophy a common course of action. It is true that professional writers fo a great and growing element of society. The P.E.N. Club Congress prove of themselves that common action by organised groups writers is possible and practical. There is no reason why write as a class should not exercise a political influence analogous to of the Trades Unions. But there is an important sense in whi writers are not a class at all. Are we not all writers? The P. Club would have to spread its net wide to catch all those who their writings are capable of influencing mankind. Bunyan mend pots. Spinoza ground lenses. Cicero was a lawyer. Fielding was magistrate who refused to take literature seriously: Thucydides a mine-owner and naval commander. Is Winston Churchill " writer " ? Is Hitler ? Literature is as large as humanity, _ it is as absurd to talk of a class of writers as to talk of a class fighters, especially when -there is a total war going on. ' Most of these P.E.N. Club writers (if we may so distinguish th are deeply troubled by the war and seeking to reinforce th individual strengths by establishing a common attitude. I fancy that this, too, is possible in a narrow sense, but impossible broadly. Writers have never taken any single attitude towards war. Aeschylus fought at Marathon (and never allowed anyone to forget it). Tolstoy brought a battery of artillery up to defend Sebastopol. Sir Philip Sidney died on the battlefield. Xenophon successfully conducted the most astonishing "Dunkirk " operation of military history. On the other hand, the Abbe Prevost deserted from the army. Euripides, one feels, was of the stuff of which conscientious objectors are made. There are as many attitudes to war as there are men, and although most writers have been intensely conscious of the waste and suffering of war, they are certainly not peculiar in this respect, or markedly more clear-sighted than their fellow-men. There is more promise in the warm-hearted internationalism of these Writers' Congresses. Here the ancient complex civilisations of India and China are represented, as well as the intricate patch- work of the European literatures and languages. Am I unkind, or do I detect in the utterances of some of our English writers a shadow of that complacency which springs from the purely accidental privileges enjoyed by those who write in the English tongue? For example, E. M. Forster: " I am diffident in saying that I far exceed the average. You all come in here. You far exceed the average, too." Or J. B. Priestley : " During the last ten years a curious thing has been happening : the public mind has been turning more and more towards the writer." Or Calder Marshall, who has a grievance because writers are not taken on conducted tours of the fighting fronts—what would Villehardouin, who recorded the Fourth Crusade, or Diaz, who described the Conquest of Mexico, have made of this extraordinary complaint? I prefer the speeches of Mulk Raj Arland, who has a beautifully mannered plea for India ; and Senor de Madariaga, whose vision of the duty of the artist is no longer clouded by political ambition ; and Langer of Czecho- slovakia, who makes perhaps the most practical contribution to the subject under debate. He proposes that the P.E.N. Club should, first, aim at increasing its moral authority in the world, second that it should organise literary activity throughout the world and finally, that it should become a centre for all serious writers and especially the young. These are limited aims, but strong and wise
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