University Daily Kansan
Friday, May 12, 1961
Page 3
Our Churlish Writers
There hangs over the National Book Awards ceremonies an air of piety, of self-conscious virtue, which is not easy to abide. Everyone present knows he is participating in an-occasion which represents both a reproach to the Pulitzer Prizes (philistine, unimaginative—awarded by judges permitted to indulge their timidity in secret) and the tribute which Commerce pays to Art.
Originally conceived and still subsidized by the publishers themselves, the National Book Awards are presented with the publishers of the winning books conspicuously unmentioned, by judges presumably immune to pressure (I was one myself in 1957) and forced to sit behind the winners at the ceremonies, like the school board at a commencement. Whatever remote hope of profit may have inspired the founders of the awards, whatever dreams of upping sales as the result of newspaper publicity, have long since been abandoned. Surely no more than a handful of readers were inspired to buy Wright Morris' "The Field of Vision" the year (my year!) it won the prize for fiction.
THE PRESIDING COMMITTEE has in a way recognized the failure of its original hopes by giving the successful authors $1,000 prizes rather than the plaques and promises of imminent sales which were the sole rewards at first. Nelson Algren, always quick to seize occasions for sullenness, and perhaps especially aggrieved because he was honored before there was cash involved, has publicly offered his plaque for sale—with no takers. The non-winners, however, have proved even less happy than he, though for the most unhappy of them $1,000 one way or another would make little difference. It is, indeed, the kind of writer who ordinarily cashes in on movie contracts, million-copy paperback reprints, digests, etc., who squawks the loudest at being passed over in favor of some comparatively unknown author like Morris or Bernard Malamud or Ralph Ellison. It is his own conscience that concerns him, not the collective conscience of the American publishing world; he needs to be told he is worthy as well as successful...
ROBERT LOWELL, obviously shaken and ill at ease, managed very quietly the shortest of the speeches: a small poem, in effect, self-contained as an egg and almost embarrassingly honest—so direct that a listener could not remember it in words, only feel it again as an experience later. The whole affair should have stopped when he finished, for his remarks continue to resonate, to be felt as a reproach not only to what preceded and followed it there, but to what I write now.
On March 23 the judges stood firm once more, giving Robert Lowell the poetry prize, Philip Roth the fiction prize, and Richard Ellman the non-fiction award for his James Joyce biography. The list is a little like the table of contents of "Commentary" or the "Partisan Review," all old friends, which is to say, middle-aged ex-avant-gardists, their youngest emulator and behind them the ghost of Joyce and early 20th-century Experimentalism...
Richard Ellman rose to quarrel, not like a poet with language and himself, but like a critic with other critics, defending the long biography, the fat, documented book. His passion remained to me a little baffling throughout, though I was prepared to believe that it must be somehow pertinent to his own deepest concerns, more pertinent than he was able to make it seem.
IT WAS PHILIP ROTH who completed the picture by quarrelling with the audience, as was appropriate to the occasion. Still bleary from a long plane ride that had borne him from Rome to New York, and full of an article in "Esquire" that some stewardess had thrust into his hand, he came out swinging—a little wildly maybe, but swinging all the same. For a while he maintained what seemed to me precisely the right tone, the tone of one participating in a degrading experience for his soul's sake but disengaging from it even as he participated. The writer, he insisted, should refuse to act out the role of the writer for an audience that prefers his public performances to his books; he should never testify, make statements or issue manifestos—except against testimony, statements and manifestos.
But he ended fighting not the prize-giving and the prize-givers so much as certain other writers (one of them me!) cited in the "Esquire" article, while the audience snickered with delight. "When the writer says yes, he is already beginning to lie," Roth quoted with a scorn that tickled his listeners, and he went on to comment, "This pronouncement was made at the first 'Esquire' symposium, and I read yesterday that it was deemed worthy of repetition at the second. Twice spoken on our planet, and I still don't understand it. . . ." Actually, the "pronouncement" had been made not twice, but at least three times, Herman Melville having anticipated "both Esquire" symposia when he wrote to Hawthorne, "For all men who say yes lie."...
This I might have told Roth, but, like so much else, it remained unsaid. I was glad that he had won the prize and the most important thing at the moment seemed getting the first drink.
(Excerpted from "The 1960 National Book Awards" by Leslie Fiedler in the May 16, 1960, New Leader.)
For I have loved women this way.
And have not known until they too had gone,
And did not know they brought me too much,
Overwhelmed me with sight and smell and Being.
SPRING SONG
And knew love only when a faint song Trailed over my heart from some far place.
- H. M. Hershberger
--ever, that these are goals, not facts of life. These ideals were not realized when the Declaration of Independence was written, and they are still not totally realized. But our founding fathers put these aims into words with that Declaration and solemnly pronounced them as the goals to which America was dedicated. The Revolution furthered these goals; the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation carried them further toward realization; and each passing year brings them nearer to fulfillment. But they are not here yet.
Editor:
Racism Explained
The short article in Friday's Kansas by Morad Ghodooshim on racial prejudice in the United States was most interesting, in that it points out quite clearly the impression that this problem makes on our foreign visitors. However, I would like to attempt to clarify the situation for Mr. Ghodooshim and others who are equally perplexed by it.
In spite of appearance and in spite of racial prejudice as it exists today, the ideals of freedom and equality are the goals toward which America is striving and has striven since its birth in 1776.
These, according to Dr. Hardec,
are the main categories:
Advising Freshmen
(1) The automat, typifying the idea that "you slip a coin in and get a schedule out," with the adviser's only contact with students taking place briefly at registration time. This overlooks the really essential help needed to make the right choice of courses and to analyze past achievements and difficulties.
(2) The thousand-mile checkup is only slightly better, with the adviser "arranging a program of courses" and checking six weeks later to see how things are working out.
It should be borne in mind, however, that these are goals, not facts of life. These ideals were not realized when the Declaration of Independence was written, and they are still not totally realized. But our founding fathers put these aims into words with that Declaration and solemnly pronounced them as the goals to which America was dedicated. The Revolution furthered these goals; the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation carried them further toward realization; and each passing year brings them nearer to fulfillment. But they are not here yet.
As college enrollments grow, an increasing number of freshmen, particularly in large universities, are beginning to register doubt about the usefulness of some of their academic counseling. In the April issue of "The Educational Record," the quarterly publication of the American Council on Education, Dr. Melvine Draheim Hardee, secretary of the American College Personnel Association, exposes stereotypes of faculty advising which are coming in for student criticism.
(3) The patch-after-crash concept finds the adviser rushing into the fray only at moments of crisis, either academic or personal. Such action usually turns out to be "too little and too late," Dr. Hardee holds.
Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. — Mark Twain
(4) The malevolent benevolency, with the faculty adviser as "a mother hen, with wingspread like that of an eagle, hovering over the student by day and night—protecting, preventing, paternalizing." While all the other categories keep the student floundering, this one extends his infancy.
Dr. Hardee maintains that the only true and useful faculty advice must combine teaching and counseling. To be successful, the adviser must discern the purposes of the college, understand the aims of the student and help him, without taking all the surprises out of his education. This may seem to require the qualities of magician and crystal-gazer. The key, which is easily lost in the mass process, is that the adviser must be capable of learning about the strengths and weaknesses of each student instead of just moving him along the assembly line.
(Reprinted from "Counseling the Freshman" by Fred M. Hechinger in the April 16, 1961, New York Times)
Short Ones
Racial prejudice is a tragic blemish on any society, particularly one such as our own which espouses the lofty ideals of liberty and equality. An increasing number of Americans is becoming aware of this discrepancy, and of the fact that repression of any group, be it at home or abroad, is an infringement on liberty itself.
Consequently, there have been and still are many who wage a continuing struggle against racial discrimination. Their ranks are growing, both among white people and among Negroes. The struggle is difficult and everyone, the Negroes not least, is aware that it will take time. Prejudice is an attitude which cannot be legislated out of existence, for among those who are burdened with it, it is a deeply ingrained attitude. It will not disappear overnight.
part to the awareness which is growing among the Negroes that they can do much to further the ultimate solution.
The problem is far from hopeless. Great progress has been made even in my own relatively short lifetime and more will be made with each passing year. This progress is due to the efforts of white people and Negroes working together toward a solution, and in no small
I recently read a symposium in a popular magazine about the sit-ins and other actions which Negroes are taking to secure their rights, and I could not but feel a sense of admiration and pride — admiration for these people who, after decades of discrimination, could sympathize with those who oppose them and even pray for them, and pride in humanity that it would continue to struggle against all odds to secure liberty and justice.
I am, in short, optimistic, Mr. Ghodooshim, and only wish that you could be here longer to see for yourself the progress that is continually being made. Much time will pass before the equality of man is recognized by all Americans. Perhaps it may never be completely accomplished. But we will come ever nearer because we do espouse those unrealized ideals with which you were concerned in your article. The struggle toward racial equality is every bit as real and as important as the initial struggle our forefathers made to found this nation.
We have not yet reached our goals. In fact, we are still quite far from them, and we cannot and will not make any pretense about it. But you and the rest of the world should know that the American people of all races and the American government are making every effort to bring the facts of American life into line with the ideals of America. It is not an easy task.
John R. Swanson Baldwin junior
GET IN ON THE GIANT
601 Massachusetts Corner of 6th and Mass.