Letters
SIR,—Mr. F. Bowen Evans and Dr. Carl Bode, in replying to my review of The Young Rebel In American Literature, have thoroughly mis- interpreted what I wrote. I certainly did not suggest any collusion of a sinister sort between the scholars whose lectures are included and Dr. Bode, the Cultural Attaché at the American Embassy. I distinguished sharply between the guest contributors and Dr. Bode. As I said in my review, they are 'thoroughly competent scholars' and the distorted picture of the American writer as 'rebel' that emerges from the book as a whole (the result of Dr. Bode's title and presentation) is `no fault of the contributors themselves.' So far from im- pugning their 'intellectual integrity,' as Dr. Bode says, I endeavoured to show that the onus for the book's unfortunate final impress- ion rested squarely on Dr. Bode's shoulders, and nowhere else. Some of these lectures, reprinted by themselves, would provide very useful introductions to their respective sub- jects, but not in this context. Dr. Bode says an apology is in order. If so, he owes me one for confounding what I said about the title and presentation of this book (an editorial respon- sibility) with what I certainly did not say, imply, or intend, about the contributors themselves.
Mr. Evans writes that there was no 'pre- conceived pattern" beyond the setting of a general title and theme . . .' Surely it should be obvious, even to the marginally concerned, that a central theme and concept such as Dr. Bode devised for these lectures constitute a rigid pattern, and of a most preconceived character. If one of the 'beat' coffee houses in San Francisco or Greenwich Village were to sponsor lectures on Whitman, Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, and Faulkner titled The Young Beatnik in American Literature, a certain approach to the material would be dictated by the circumstances. When the American Embassy in London sponsors a series of lectures on these writers under Dr. Bode's title, a preconceived pattern is no less implicit.
The job of a cultural attaché is to present the arts of his country in a favourable and persuasive light. This is praiseworthy, perhaps
even noble, work. My complaint with Dr. Bode was not that he was doing his job, but that in The Young Rebel in American Literature he was doing it badly. It was certainly legiti- mate for Dr. Bode to aim a counterblow at the widespread conviction that Americans are conformists, but he chose a strategy that has the effect of making conformist 'rebels' out of uniquely endowed artists, and so he contrib- utes to the very impression he is trying to subvert. •
I greatly regret the necessity of expressing my critical disagreement with Dr. Bode's editorial presentation of this book in terms that must sound very unamiable indeed. But my meaning was perfectly clear in the original review, and the misinterpretation of it which Dr. Bode and Mr. Evans express in their letters leaves me no alternative.—Yours
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