THE
LITERARY REVOLUTION
Not so long ago Aldous Huxley was my literary guru, or spiritual
guide. I read everything by him that I
could lay my hands on, and read it, for the most part, with considerable
pleasure. These days, however, I am no longer
the respectful disciple but rather more the disrespectful rebel, a critic of my
one-time mentor. Like Nietzsche, I have
rebelled against my master and gone my own separate way, dismissing Huxley with
the ease and willingness with which Nietzsche was to dismiss Schopenhauer. To some extent I am a twentieth-century
Nietzsche, a kindred spirit of the author of The Anti-Christ, Beyond Good and
Evil, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, just as,
to some extent, Huxley was a twentieth-century Schopenhauer, a kindred spirit
of the author of The World as Will and Representation, The Parerga and Paralipomena, and
lesser works. There are, of course,
certain differences. But, broadly
speaking, it is possible for me to identify with Nietzsche, and not simply as a
rebel against a former master but, more importantly, as the advocate of a
short-term positivistic attitude to life which radically conflicts with the
long-term spiritual views upheld by both Schopenhauer and Huxley. For they were largely negative in their advocacy
of non-attachment to the world through a form of Buddhist renunciation. They were pessimistic in their attitudes to
social progress as reflecting the welfare of the masses, the social collectivity, and were consequently inclined to stress the
importance of personal salvation through individual effort. They distrusted political means of improving
the world and, because they rebelled against the social collectivity,
were obliged to uphold the individual in the face of large-scale communal
effort. In sum, they were
philosophically and politically conservative, if not reactionary.
Nietzsche, by contrast, was revolutionary, which is why he has
had a much greater influence on the twentieth century than Schopenhauer. Like him, I too am revolutionary, and to the
extent, I hope, of having a greater influence on the twenty-first century than
Huxley will. At present, Huxley is still
regarded as an outstanding writer and thinker, probably the most outstanding
writer and thinker in
As a novelist, Huxley was superior to the great majority of
novelists of his time by preferring an approach to the genre which gave far
more importance to theory than to practice, to speculation than to action, to
truth than to illusion - in a phrase, to philosophy than to fiction. He disliked story-telling, which is of course
the traditional or conventional approach to literature, and endeavoured,
especially in his late novels, to grant as much space to philosophical
discussion and speculation as possible.
This, alone, is the mark of a higher type of literature, a type of which
the twentieth century has witnessed the development, and which may be said to
reflect the predominance of the superconscious over
the subconscious, in accordance with its author's degree of spiritual
sophistication. To some extent, the
environmental shift, over the past hundred or so years, from the town to the
city has contributed to this change in priorities from illusion to truth,
fiction to fact, insofar as the modern sophisticated city-dweller no longer
experiences the sensuous influence of nature to the same extent as his
forebears, and consequently is in a position to cultivate more spirit. Being cut-off from nature to a greater extent
than ever before, the modern intelligent city-dweller is less under the sway of
subconscious dominion than would otherwise be the case, and therefore is more
disposed towards the superconscious. In the case of writers, such a disposition
leads to the traditional criteria of literature being superseded by criteria
reflecting a superconscious bias, in which truth, or
something approximating to it, will take the place of illusory fictions, and a
new type of literature, broadly termed philosophical, duly arises.
Now this new literature will only arise, it goes without saying,
from the most intelligent writers, those who are the recipients of a greater
degree of superconscious influence than lesser men,
and it will even be possible for such writers to continue writing in their
predominantly philosophical style whether or not they spend all of their time
in the city. Provided they don't spend
too much time amid the subconsciously-dominated plant world of nature, they are
unlikely to become any-the-less intelligent.
For one can flit from one environment to another, one town or city to
another, and still maintain this higher kind of writing - as, indeed, Aldous Huxley managed to do, despite a distaste for large
cities. He was, however, too much of a
bourgeois, and therefore too fond of suburban environments, to be wholly
content with a metropolitan context, and mostly lived, in consequence, on the
outskirts of cities. Had he been less
bourgeois in this regard, he might have become an even greater writer. But his suburban integrity necessarily
restricted his mode of thought to a level compatible with bourgeois ethics, and
so prevented its development into the reaches of what might be termed higher
proletarian writing. For it must be
stressed that the highest writing, the greatest thought, can only emerge from a
writer of superior intelligence who is resident in a large city, where the
sensuous influence of nature is negligible and a truly transcendental mode of
writing can accordingly develop. Those,
on the contrary, who confine themselves to the provinces or to the country
inevitably detract from their spiritual development and, to a greater or lesser
extent, fall behind the times. They
develop a complacency in nature and, frankly, such a complacency is
incompatible with higher spirituality, with writings that reflect a severance
from and contempt of nature!
As an example of this, I might cite a remark made by Colin
Wilson in the first instalment of his autobiography, Voyage to a Beginning,
in which he claimed to be the foremost genius of the age - indeed, one of only
two geniuses then at work in the world (the other apparently being a relatively
unknown friend of his, whose name eludes me).
Now Mr Wilson claimed priority in respect to his pre-eminent genius on
the grounds that he had gone beyond Existentialism and furthered the
development of a philosophy with a positivistic rather than a nihilistic
outlook. No doubt, there is a
justification of sorts for such a claim.
For, these days, anyone who doesn't go beyond Existentialism, in one way
or another, has no business considering himself a serious writer and thinker,
let alone a genius! In fact, he is
unlikely to be published. However, what
especially intrigues me here is that the author of this immodest autobiography
doesn't find his confinement to a small cottage on the Cornish coast a
hindrance to his genius, but, on the contrary, regards life in Cornwall as
generally very acceptable, if not preferable to the city. Clearly, his genius isn't disturbed by the
close proximity of temperate nature, but is able to live in harmony with it, in
spite of its sensuous essence.
Now anyone who lives for any length of time in such a simple
environment, as Mr Wilson has apparently done, isn't likely to develop the most
anti-natural sentiments, to become a contemporary Baudelaire or Mondrian, and consequently his range of thought will be
restricted, in its formation, by
complacency towards the natural, whether inorganic or organic. The fact that Mr Wilson hasn't waged a verbal
war against nature would seem to be borne-out by the content of his writings,
in which no overtly, nor even covertly, transcendental attitude is to be
found. He does, however, prefer writings
of a philosophical order to mere story-telling, and this is something for which
we can admire him. But whether he is the
foremost genius of the age is, under the circumstances, a somewhat debatable
issue, especially in light of certain more recent developments in contemporary
thought which have led to a condemnation of the natural and to a reappraisal of
the transcendent, with particular reference to what I have called the
transcendental Beyond. That Mr Wilson
may have had a justification of sorts for considering himself the foremost
genius of the age some thirty or more years ago, we shall not question. But whether such a justification still holds
true now is highly questionable, and had better be left for posterity to
decide. No doubt, it ought not to be
forgotten that he was evaluating himself in relation to his contemporaries, not
in relation to either his predecessors or his successors. He wasn't, for example, comparing himself
with Aldous Huxley.
But was Huxley a genius, then?
There have been times when I was inclined to think so, bearing in mind
the content and scope of his work, particularly his late work. Nowadays, however, I am not so sure. There is a tricky borderline between men of
genius and the clever-clever, and sometimes it is possible to confound those on
the one side of that borderline with those on the other side of it. The clever-clever may, at times, have the
appearance of genius, but they are generally either too pedantic and pedagogic
or, conversely, too flashy and superficial.
Huxley undoubtedly had a fair amount of the former about himself, while
Evelyn Waugh might serve as a useful illustration of the latter. Genius, on the other hand, doesn't labour
over textbook citations or strive to impose a superficial cleverness upon
one. It is somewhat unique in that its
recipient is motivated by deeply personal or original thoughts which fight shy
of textbook authorities. Besides
possessing the necessary intellectual credentials of exalted thought, the
genius is rather one who pursues his own vision over the heads of and beyond
the reach of lesser men, and to such an extent that it often takes generations
for the more progressive members of society to catch-up with him and to
properly appreciate what he had to say.
Rather than being hampered by textbooks or numerous citations, the
genius remains in the grip of his particular thought, regardless of how radical
it may be from a traditional viewpoint.
He is something of an outsider and a rebel, a challenge to the literary
establishment and a champion of a higher sense of freedom. He leads the intellectual or creative field
by dint of his innate ability to transcend the narrow boundaries of the
conscious self. He has 'intimations of
immortality', in Wordsworth's oft-quoted phrase.
Now, given these criteria, there was doubtless something of the genius about Aldous Huxley, though not a very great deal, considering
his dependence on and, like so many well-educated Englishmen, gentlemanly
deference towards traditional authority.
At best, he might be described as one of the clever-clever who
occasionally attained to a level of genius - in short, as a minor genius. For it should not be forgotten that exalted
thought was not always to be found in Huxley's writings, and that he was more
often than not a pedant and expounder of other men's theories, including, as we
have seen, those of the American psychologist, W.H. Sheldon. Moreover, he wasn't always particularly
consistent with himself, and if consistency is a hallmark of genius, as I
incline to believe, then his lack of it with regard to intellectual positions
must inevitably tell against him.
Nevertheless, what he did achieve in terms of intellectual clarity
and earnestness is sufficient to distinguish him from the majority of his
contemporaries, and to accord him an honourable place in the eyes of
posterity. In a generation that produced
no outstanding revolutionary genius, his status as a minor genius is certainly
not without merit. It simply wasn't
given to him to be another Nietzsche or Strindberg. And neither, seemingly, was it given to
anyone else.
Yet it was given to D.H. Lawrence to be an outstanding
traditional genius, and this fact we must readily acknowledge, if we are not to
do the man a grave disservice. For it
has long been contended among reputable literary critics, including Richard Aldington, that D.H. Lawrence was the finest English
novelist of his day, a contention which, strictly within traditional terms,
isn't without some justification.
Compared with Huxley, Lawrence's novels are indeed stories, not philosophical
tracts under the guise of literature but genuine tales, replete with skilful
characterization and delicately-handled plot.
Admittedly, they aren't entirely devoid of philosophical
significance. But, in contrast to
Huxley's most characteristic works, this significance is directly related to
the story and rarely detaches itself from the flow of events. It is subordinate to the literature-proper,
thereby maintaining a traditional approach to the novel genre. And this is so even of the late work, like Lady Chatterley's Lover,
in which the story-line greatly preponderates.
How different from Huxley's late work!
Take, for example, Island, in which the story-line, or what
passes for such, is often completely swamped by the philosophical content! What greater contrast, both thematically and
stylistically, could one hope to find than between the last works of these two
contemporaries? Lawrence remaining until
the bitter end an upholder of traditional subconsciously-dominated creativity,
Huxley tentatively aspiring further into revolutionary creativity under the
aegis of a superconscious bias. The former an advocate of sensuality and the
'dark gods of the loins', the latter advocating spirituality and 'the peace
that passeth all understanding'. And yet, bearing in mind the criteria of genius,
Lawrence was no minor revolutionary figure but a major example of traditional
literary genius. He was the most or, at
any rate, one of the most - if one cannot discount the overwhelmingly brilliant
creative genius of John Cowper Powys - outstanding fiction-writers of his
generation, but, for all that, he remains a lesser figure than the
clever-clever Huxley, who had scant regard for tale-spinning narrative
traditions.
Now anyone who judges writers solely by traditional criteria
must accord Lawrence a creative superiority over Huxley. But for anyone who realizes that the
twentieth century was a transitional age from illusory story-telling to
literary philosophy, then it should be apparent that Huxley's approach to the
novel was intellectually superior to Lawrence's and, consequently, that he was
a more important writer. Yes, he may be
a minor genius in his own context, but that cannot alter the fact that his work
is generally more important than the traditional work of a major genius. It exists on a higher plane of literary
evolution.
Nor are Lawrence and Huxley the only examples of this
transitional dichotomy. Of more recent
writers connected with the English literary scene, one might cite the
difference between Lawrence Durrell and Arthur Koestler in this respect.
Fundamentally, Durrell is aligned with the
story-telling tradition and is thus more given, like D.H. Lawrence, to the
illusory. Also, like Lawrence, he is
something of a major genius, having produced a body of novels which must rank with
the finest traditional literature of the age.
By comparison, Koestler is at best a minor
genius, a writer who, being predominantly clever-clever, only occasionally
frees himself from pedagogic predilections to soar into the realm of creative
genius. But, unlike Durrell,
his work is generally of a philosophical nature, both in terms of essays and
his intensely intellectual approach to the novel, and so stands on a higher
level of literary evolution. His last
novel, The
Call-Girls, which focuses on an Alpine symposium of various scientists, was
so intellectually biased as almost to be a work of philosophy in itself, and
compares favourably, in this respect, with Huxley's Island, to which
novel it remains stylistically aligned.
Contrasted, on the other hand, with Lawrence Durrell's
last fiction, which was heavily illusory, it becomes clear that Koestler's late literature is at least as far removed from Durrell as ...
Huxley's late literature was from Lawrence. It is difficult to conceive of anyone being
further apart, the likes of Kingsley Amis and John Fowles, or Anthony Burgess and Iris Murdoch not excepted.
But what applies to England is also applicable, in varying
degrees, elsewhere in the world, where the transitional nature of the age is
likewise clearly apparent. We need only
cite the long-standing opposition in France between Camus
and Sartre as an example of that generation's dichotomy. Camus was, of
course, aligned with the story-telling approach to literature and, as is
well-known, prided himself on his fidelity to traditional criteria of creative
excellence. His was the pagan, sensual,
subconsciously-dominated approach of D.H. Lawrence and Lawrence Durrell and, like them, he wasn't exactly bereft of
genius. His novels, particularly The Outsider and The
Plague, remain masterpieces of narrative literature. Nevertheless they must stand on a lower rung
of the evolutionary ladder than such a revolutionary philosophical novel as
Sartre's Nausea, which pertains to the strictly contemporary, and is a
mode of avant-garde writing diametrically antithetical to that generally
practised by Huxley. By which I mean
that whereas Huxley primarily relates to the internal, religiously-oriented
world, Sartre, by contrast, relates primarily to the external, politically-oriented
one, and is therefore closer in spirit to Koestler,
with his scientific bias. Huxley's, one
might argue, is the subjective approach to the world, Sartre's, by contrast,
the objective approach to it. Translated
into painterly terms, this would mean that Huxley was aligned with
Transcendentalists like Mondrian and Kandinsky, while Sartre was aligned with Social Realists
like Lurçat and Guttuso. It is the difference between essence and
appearance - the former ends, the latter means.
Both, however, are justified and necessary.
However, before I deal with that subject at greater length, let
me go on to point out some further examples of this transitional dichotomy, as
manifested in twentieth-century literature, this time German, and thereupon
equate Thomas Mann with the traditional approach and, conversely, Hermann Hesse with the revolutionary one. Mann wrote primarily with a view to telling a
story, Hesse with a view to propounding his religious
philosophy. The former philosophizes in
moderation, the latter makes of philosophy his raison d'être. Between their last novels, The
Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Trickster
in Mann's case, and The Glass Bead Game in Hesse's, there is that radical distinction we have already
noted with regard to, amongst others, Huxley and Lawrence. Of the two writers, Hesse,
with his philosophical bias, is the greater, though it could well be argued
that Mann had more genius. If this is
so, then we mustn't forget that being a major genius in relation to the
tradition is one thing, being a minor genius in relation to the revolution
quite another! Better, in my opinion,
the latter than the former.
Which state-of-affairs applies no less amongst Americans than
Europeans, so that we may accredit Henry Miller's work a special priority over
that of, say, Ernest Hemingway, despite the latter's unquestionable abilities
from the traditional point-of-view.
Hemingway spins stories, and does so well enough to win world-wide recognition. Miller, by contrast, dedicates himself to
telling the story of his life, and spices this up with speculations of a
philosophical order. He eschews literary
fictions in the interests of autobiography, which could be defined as
subjective fact, and to this is added the subjective truth of philosophy - at
any rate, of theoretical speculations and contentions about life in its
entirety, both as experienced externally and, especially, as reflected upon
internally. From this twofold approach
to literature he scarcely ever deviates, so that his novels remain consistently
revolutionary and, in the best sense of the word, contemporary. It would be a mistake, however, to describe
him as a major genius. For, at best, he
is only a minor one, and a minor one, at that, without even the compensatory
factor of being clever-clever. Yet his
consistently radical approach to the novel is sufficient to establish him as
the most revolutionary American author of his generation, and to accord him an
honourable place in the ranks of the international avant-garde. As a type he approximates more to the
subjective approach to the world than to its opposite, and may thus be
described as a transcendentalist. He is,
in a way, a less sophisticated version of Aldous
Huxley. His nearest contemporary
equivalent in American writing is probably Norman Mailer, whose philosophical
approach to literature may be contrasted with the story-telling approach of,
say, Gore Vidal, an author who, on the whole, would appear to be aligned with
the narrative tradition.
We see, therefore, that the twentieth century gave rise to a
split between what in historical terms could be defined as the ancients and the
moderns - in other words, between the tail-enders of the literary tradition and
the pioneers of the literary revolution.
Generally speaking, the former have been blessed with more genius in
their own sphere of creativity than have the latter in theirs, nor need this
surprise us. For as a tradition reaches
its climax, it stands to reason that the finest writings in that context will
occur at the end rather than at the beginning of its development, to round it
off in an appropriately climatic fashion, in accordance with the dictates of
literary evolution. Consequently, where
the finest works of authors such as D.H. Lawrence, Lawrence Durrell,
Albert Camus, Thomas Mann, Ernest Hemingway, and Gore
Vidal are concerned, the literary tradition would seem to have reached its peak
and is unlikely to surpass itself. The
fruit of the past three centuries has attained to full ripeness in the great
works of these men, on whose shoulders rested the responsibility of its
fulfilment. The narrative tradition was
brought to a fruitful end. Not
altogether surprising, therefore, if its practitioners should generally be
blessed with more genius than their revolutionary counterparts!
In terms of painting, one might cite the difference, in this
regard, between, say, Salvador Dali and Piet Mondrian, the former having been blessed with a
considerable degree of genius to bring an egocentric representational tradition
to full maturity, the latter not requiring any great genius to execute his
simplistic, post-egocentric paintings, which were destined to initiate a new
development in art. Admittedly, to some
extent Dali is also post-egocentric, insofar as his work, particularly when
surreal, often reflects a looking back and down upon the subconscious from a
higher psychic vantage-point. But the
fact that he uses a highly-accomplished egocentric technique in the service of
figurative painting renders his work more closely aligned with the tradition
than that of virtually any other Surrealist of his or, indeed, any other
generation. Paradoxically, however, one
is obliged to contend that, despite his considerable representational genius,
he ranks lower in the evolution of art than Mondrian,
who should therefore be regarded as his artistic superior.
Returning to literature, we may infer that, in contrast to the
tail-enders of a tradition, the pioneers of a new development are unlikely to
be men of outstanding genius, but either men of no genius at all or only very
minor genius, its being understood that only towards the climax of a tradition,
especially an egocentric one, can great genius come to the fore, a level of
genius commensurate with the perfecting and completing of that tradition. Thus we needn't be surprised that the
post-egocentric writers have not, on the whole, been men of outstanding genius
but, rather, highly-talented foundation layers for the subsequent erection of
the higher, predominantly philosophical literature. Whether in the guises of Huxley, Koestler, Sartre, Hesse, Miller,
or Mailer, they have initiated or furthered a break with the fictional
tradition, and so paved the way for a much greater fidelity to fact and truth
in literature. We must respect them as
pioneers and leave it to other men, of greater genius, to complete the new
tradition in due course, whether or not such a completion is likely to occur
during the next hundred years.
I spoke a little while ago about appearance and essence in
literature and, in expanding on that subject, must now draw the reader's
attention to the fact that avant-garde writing in literature, as in art, is
divisible into that which focuses primarily on means and, conversely, that
which attends more closely to ends. The
first of these two categories, whether in terms of politics or science, has
found its leading practitioners in writers like Sartre, Koestler,
and Mailer, who may broadly be described as Social Realists. The second category, essentially being
concerned with religion and art, has found its leading practitioners in writers
like Huxley, Hesse, and Miller, who may broadly be
described as Transcendentalists. Those
in the first category are aligned with appearance, and thus means. Those in the second category, by contrast,
would seem to be aligned with essence, and thus ends. The first category adopts an extroverted
approach to the world, the second category an introverted one. Both, as already remarked, are necessary and
justified, but they aren't necessarily so at the same time. It could well be that, in the necessity of
putting means before ends, those who adopt the objective approach are more
relevant in the short term, whereas those whose approach is subjective appeal
to long-term solutions, and are accordingly less relevant at present. The former would be equalitarian, the latter
elitist. However, the former's art would not be the highest but, rather, a
comparatively second-rate art which was simply of more applicability to the short-term
goals of social evolution. The highest
art could only issue from the Transcendentalists, who, by concentrating on
essence, point the way towards Eternity.
For, in the long run, spirit must take priority over matter.
Clearly, then, in an age which stresses equalitarianism and is
tending, willy-nilly, towards a more equal society, the Social Realists are the
most relevant of avant-gardists. It may seem strange that Socialist Realism
should be equated with the avant-garde, but its approach to the world is
contemporary, if from a completely different angle than Transcendentalism. After all, there is nothing more
contemporary, from a revolutionary standpoint, than the urban proletariat. In the West, with the general acceptance of
Transcendentalism by the Establishment these days, the Social Realists are the
only genuine revolutionaries, whether in art or in literature. The Establishment can accommodate the
long-term solutions of Transcendentalism because it doesn't feel directly
threatened by them in the short term. In
the former Soviet East, on the other hand, the Transcendentalists, as
traditionally manifesting in unofficial avant-garde art, have been regarded as
a revolutionary or subversive threat to the short-term interests of the
Socialist State. For their persistence
in long-term elitist solutions distracted from the immediate equalitarian goals
of socialism, which could only be encouraged by Socialist Realism. The situation in the Soviet East was
therefore quite the converse of that in the Liberal West where, by contrast,
Socialist Realism was and, in some sense, continues to be perceived as a threat
to the bourgeois status quo. The East
put means before ends, and thus concentrated on appearance. It had an objective and extrovert approach to
the world. The West, by contrast,
allowed the practitioners of ends to flourish, at any rate in a relative way,
and generally at the expense of means.
Viewed from a higher perspective, it would seem that the latter was
effectively in the wrong, even though it wasn't wholly given to a subjective
approach to the world but, in accordance with the paradoxical dictates of
bourgeois relativity, permitted the practitioners of means a certain amount of
creative freedom. Such freedom hasn't,
however, acquired the backing of the Establishment, nor can we reasonably
expect it to do so. For its
revolutionary nature isn't such as to approve of or encourage bourgeois
freedoms, of which the capitalist exploitation of the worker is traditionally
the most salient.
At the beginning of this essay I remarked that I was once a
disciple of Aldous Huxley, but had subsequently grown
beyond him. Seen in the light of the
above contentions, my reasons for no longer regarding Huxley as my guru should
be sufficiently clear. I do not wish to
make the fatal mistake of putting ends before means and concentrating on
essence when the world cries out for a short-term solution in appearance. Like Nietzsche, I have turned against
essence-mongering in the interests of world betterment. I can no longer sympathize with the
individualist, elitist attitude propounded by Huxley; for it is destined to
failure, no matter how earnest its practitioner may happen to be. The attitude of de-centralist Ghandi-like
self-sufficiency, as illustrated by the guru-like figure of Propter
in After
Many a Summer, is totally inadequate to meet the requirements of ultimate
salvation. For such a salvation can only
be brought about through the most rigorous adherence to urban civilization and
the accompanying development of higher technology. Naturalistic means of cultivating spirit in
close proximity to nature are invariably limited in scope, restricting the
practitioner of such means to a spirituality hampered by the sensual and, above
all, by the natural body itself. Unless
we develop our technology, in centralized cohesion, to a point where it will
enable us to gradually supplant the natural body with an artificial
support-and-sustain system for the brain, including the brain-stem and central
nervous system, we shall never attain to holy (pure) spirit in the
transcendental Beyond. Unless we
concentrate first on appearance and then on essence, making the transformation
of the phenomenal a precondition of enhanced noumenal
sensibility, we shall remain the sordid victims of a delusive philosophy.
The modern world and, indeed, the modern novel have need, above
all, of a correct philosophical approach to the difficult problems which
confront the age. We needn't dismiss the
Transcendentalists out-of-hand, but we would be well-advised to give Social
Realists more credit in the short term.
Their political and scientific approaches to the world will serve as a
foundation for and springboard to the highest culture. They will pave the way for the greatest
genius!
