Chekhov’s Mistess

The Ghosts of Spain, the Politics of Art, and a Project

Today was the first I’d heard of Stephen Koch’s The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles, which was published last June. Jonathan Keats gives it a positive write-up in the Boston Globe and has some interesting things to say about the two writers:

‘’The Breaking Point“ is a deft study in political cynicism, with earnest Dos Passos as hero and Johnny-come-lately Hemingway as bogeyman. But the selfish individualism that made Hemingway so problematic personally and politically was what gave the characters in his novels their extraordinary autonomy. Even in his finest books, the three thick volumes of ‘’USA,” all that Dos Passos could muster was dogma awash in melodrama, occasionally enlivened by technical innovation. There is a good reason Hemingway is still so admired, and Dos Passos barely read. If art has no place in politics, politics has no place in art.

I’m not sure if Keats is reflecting Koch’s thoughts on each man’s writing, but I can’t agree with his opinion of Dos Passos. Saying that his writing is “occasionally enlivened by technical innovation” is to discount his style completely, which of course was completely different than Hemingways and not, in the particulars anyway, comparable in my mind because what you are really talking about is a preference for one style or another, although in my opinion, they’re not mutually exclusive. Aside from that, popularity is a poor measure.

However, when Keats says “If art has no place in politics, politics has no place in art,” he brings up an interesting point for which the conclusion is not so easy as that phrase would suggest. I recall a year or two ago getting into a fairly fierce argument with Stephen Schwartz over the poetry of Pablo Neruda and it really brought home to me the lens with which many people see the world of art. Schwartz doesn’t like Neruda’s poetry, but I felt his opinion was influenced greatly by Neruda’s politics (he had written an article in the L.A. Times some time ago about Neruda’s Communist/Stalinist background). He convinced me that he hated Neruda’s poetry as well as Neruda, so we eventually agreed to disagree, but the exchange was edifying. I had long been used to thinking in terms of a person’s ideologic perspective when I was involved in economics, but until that exchange, I thought art was exempt.

Keats is right to say that “politics has no place in art” but it’s inevitable really, particularly for generations of artists that witnessed the atrocities of the twentieth century. Ultimately it’s up to the artist to pull it off, not denying the politics but putting the art first and foremost over the ideas – keats doesn’t believe that Dos Passos does, but, as I said, I think that might be a matter of stylistic difference.

If the art doesn’t come first, the ideas will have less meaning anyway. For example, when I read Camus or Hesse, I can’t see past the underlying philosophy and they become philosophical works more than novels, thus there force is diluted as either. A more gross example would be Ayn Rand who maintained she was a writer first before philosopher, but that doesn’t hold up when you read her books (except for We the Living).

This all might be relevant for the new crop of “post 9/11” novels out there, but I haven’t read any of them so I can’t comment. The only one that seems appealing to me so far is Saturday.

As far as Koch’s book goes, I suspect it focuses mostly on the historical setting, but it will be interesting to see how these topics manifest themselves there. My only experience with Koch (who used to head the undergraduate creative writing department at Columbia) is his terrific book The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop. It’s difficult to get much of an idea about the new book from his last because they’re so different, but Writer’s Workshop was really well done. Koch seamlessly integrated the words of great writers into chapters on various writing topics.

The Project

I haven’t read Hemingway in quite a while, but I was thinking of continuing the Spanish theme at 400 Windmills and reading For Whom the Bell Tolls along with side reading of Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth Century Icon, and perhaps Koch’s book.

I’ll cut this short (?), but I expect to start this little project within a month or so. If anyone is interested in contributing some pieces on FWBT or Guernica or any other books on the theme of art and literature around the time of the Spanish Civil War, drop me a line. I’m thinking along the lines of 400 Windmills, but everything would be at this site so as not to be so formal about it.

And, if anyone was wondering, come September, we are expecting to have some new content at 400 Windmills. Stay tuned.

comments

Bud, I happen to have an abiding interest in the Spanish Civil War (there’s even a section on it in my book collection). So sign me up. I don’t have fond memories of For Whom the Bell Tolls. But it’s been years since I read it.

    – derikb (08/31  at  04:15 PM)

Excellent Derik - you’re in!

    – Bud Parr (08/31  at  07:51 PM)

I’m definitely interested.  The tricky thing for me is finding the books!  But a month is certainly a reasonable time frame--I should be able to get ahold of something by then.  If not, I’d still love to be a fly on the wall…

Excellent idea, Bud.

    – amcorrea (09/01  at  10:30 PM)

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About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: August 31, 2005
• Filed Under:
  Wise Men Fish Here: Literature

• Comments:3
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