Forwarded from Alan Wald

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Foibles of Reds who didn't run from God

Graham Barnfield
London Times Literary Supplement June 6,  2003

Exiles from a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth Century 
Literary Left
by Alan M. Wald

Reviewer: Graham Barnfield
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0 8078 2683 9 and 5349 6
Pages: 412
Price: £38.50 and £15.50

Exiles From a Future Time is part of a sustained effort by Alan Wald to 
rediscover and rehabilitate the US poets, novelists and critics drawn to 
Communism. Hence its main focus is on those who stayed Red, not those who 
broke with the "God that failed".

Wald attracted attention in 1987 with The New York Intellectuals , a group 
biography demonstrating the semi-Trotskyist origins of a key clique within 
the postwar cultural elite. Now we have the first of a projected trilogy 
mapping the lives of those against whom the New York "family" cut their 
teeth. Unlike the protagonists of Wald's earlier book, his current subjects 
ended up on the losing team. Despite their predictions, history was not on 
their side.

Cold war-era narratives of literary politics frequently praise the writers 
grouped around Partisan Review for resisting the totalitarianism and 
mediocrity of the US Communist Party at a time when stereotypical images of 
cultural commissars and tenth-rate hacks paid in "Moscow gold" were 
commonplace. An alternative viewpoint arises from examining this lost 
generation of literary radicals. Using interviews and archival sources, 
Wald establishes a daring reappraisal. Exiles from a Future Time notes the 
tragic illusions and monumental errors of pro-Soviet cultural workers, but 
its main concern is to address their broader literary and cultural 
contributions.

His dozens of in-depth biographical treatments create a "humanscape": 
rather than the abstractions pilloried in cold-war historiography, we see 
the individuals themselves (and their faces in 25 pages of photographs). 
For instance, a charming opening section introduces Guy Endore - Hollywood 
leftist, slave rebellion novelist and unrepentant supporter of the 
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. So far, so Stalinist. Yet Endore's eccentricities 
- his interest in vegetarianism, yoga, meditation and mysticism - all 
suggest he was no party automaton. In the same spirit, subsequent chapters 
draw on similar, almost forensic details to reconstruct the lives of US 
literary leftists, sharing their foibles and their fortitude in equal 
measure. Whatever we may make of their politics today, Exiles from a Future 
Time sets such figures in context, usually with an enviable clarity of 
style and a wealth of information.

Rather than being straightforwardly chronological, Wald's reconstruction is 
organised around specific themes. Poetry becomes more important than the 
protest novel. The magazines and formal and informal networks surrounding 
writers are shown as helping to generate a "force field" in which 
collectively inspired creative work could take place. Women and 
African-Americans each receive substantial consideration, noting their 
major contribution to the cultural left. Whenever his accumulated minutiae 
might provoke the question "so what?", Wald makes a case for his subjects.

Failing that, he prompts younger scholars to develop the empirical 
understanding he argues is the basis for any sustained theory or 
generalisation. Ruth Lechlitner, William Attaway, Joseph Kalar and Alfred 
Hayes - out of print and long forgotten - would surely all have been 
grateful for this most thorough attempt at restoring their reputations.

Graham Barnfield lectures in journalism and print media at the University 
of East London.



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