Shorter Notices
Out of the People. By J. B. Priestley. (Collins in association WI Heinemann. 2S. 6d.) Tins specimen of a new series called " Vigilant books " sets high standard for Mr. Priestley's collaborators. Mr. Priestley manner makes him many enemies—if it does nbt make him enemies that he can be suspected of regretting having made! there is in his pamphlet so much sense, courage and energy even those readers who do not think that complicated quests like the role of currency in a modern community would be treat so off-handedly, will be won by the warmth and wisdom of main part of the book. Compared with other Left critics, MI Priestley gains a lot by his suspicion of mere planning, blue-print day-dreaming. He, at least, does not need to hard to explain in what way his attitude differs from that totalitarian organisers of other people's lives. The resources pride, courage and national will to survive that have been covered in the English people by the intellectuals since I were no surprise to him. And his northern origin saved from the complacency that saw England as really not so ba off as long as new perfume factories, new tariff-fostered lu. industries filled up the gaps in the Great West Road and 10 brow bungalows and high-brow cottages spread over the Ho Counties like treacle. The emphasis laid here on the decay religious belief shows a true sense of what matters. For, as Priestley points out, if religion decayed, so did rationalism. There was no fight, no victory, no defeat, just an evaporation of interest. As is natural and right, Mr. Priestley takes time off to pay his respects to the forces that saw little odd and nothing really menacing in Nazism, and he expresses the combined irritation and fear that the man in the street feels when some speech or action reminds him that not all of the old gang who tried to play with gangsters have lost power or formal prestige. Mr. Priestley hopes for a revival in political activity ; his pet abomi- nation is the " Silent Column " of last summer. He expects many things to come out of the people, but above all a spon- taneous effort to clear away a lot of the old rubbish that cum- bered the ground in 1939.
Previous page
