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The Truants: Adventures Among the Intellectuals
Recounts the author's life among the intellectuals in New York City with reminiscences of such people as Delmore Schwartz and Mary McCarthy
- GenresNonfiction
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
About the author
William Barrett
185 books87 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
William Christopher Barrett (1913 – 1992) was a professor of philosophy at New York University from 1950 to 1979. Precociously, he began post-secondary studies at the City College of New York when 15 years old. He received his PhD at Columbia University. He was an editor of Partisan Review and later the literary critic of The Atlantic Monthly magazine. He was well-known for writing philosophical works for nonexperts. Perhaps the best known among these were Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy and The Illusion of Technique , which remain in print.
William Christopher Barrett (1913 – 1992) was a professor of philosophy at New York University from 1950 to 1979. Precociously, he began post-secondary studies at the City College of New York when 15 years old. He received his PhD at Columbia University. He was an editor of Partisan Review and later the literary critic of The Atlantic Monthly magazine. He was well-known for writing philosophical works for nonexperts. Perhaps the best known among these were Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy and The Illusion of Technique , which remain in print.
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January 13, 2020
"Tutelary Spirits"
This memoir is dedicated to two of Will Barrett's “tutelary spirits", Delmore Schwartz and Philip Rahv, both of whom had already died by the time of publication in 1982.
What bound them together, if not exactly uniting them, was the cultural journal, “Partisan Review”.
"The Two M's"
“Partisan Review" was originally published (from 1934 to 1936) by the John Reed Club, a front for, or a vehicle of, the Communist Party of the United States. However, after a few years, it ceased publication, and in 1937 was revived by the founding editors, Philip Rahv and William Phillips, the latter of whom also features in this memoir.
The magazine was devoted to “the modern sensibility in literature and the arts and to a radical consciousness in social and political matters.” This focus was shorthand for what others would identify as “the two M's”: Modernism and Marxism. Barrett says that its future course would be “guided by a twofold policy:
“Partisan Review" supported the political vanguard (i.e., the Marxist vanguard of the socialist revolution), and the avant-garde of the Modernist cultural movement. What these movements shared was a revolutionary attitude to the status quo/ establishment. “Partisan Review" sought to unite the revolutionary temperament in the political and cultural spheres.
Dissident Anti-Stalinist Marxism
While “Partisan Review" supported socialism, it opposed its totalitarian manifestation under Stalin in the Soviet Union (i.e., Stalinism). It believed that “the Revolution had not produced two separate things – economic advance and political regression – from which you could easily remove the offensive part; it had in fact succeeded in producing one unitary thing, an economic and political dictatorship, and that is exactly what should have been expected but what Marxism had never envisaged,” even though Marx himself had anticipated the need for a “dictatorship of the proletariat".
Barrett describes the dilemma in these terms:
Barrett, a self-confessed Liberal by the time he wrote his memoir, argues that “the best bulwark against the fearful lust for power in some individuals is to maintain plural and competing centres of power, which are hardly possible when the economic and political centres of power are under a unified command.”
Nowadays, we would call this solution “Democratic Socialism". However, there is no explanation of whether socialism would still require the public ownership of the means of production, and, if so, how capitalists would surrender ownership, without a State using force or violence analogous to the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia.
“Partisan Review" had Trotskyist, dissident Marxist sympathies, and defined itself as “anti-Stalinist". This led to a conflict with not just the Communist Party and the Soviet Union, but Left Liberals who supported the Soviet Union during World War II. There is no discussion in this memoir of whether Trotsky would have instigated a dictatorship of the proletariat comparable to the State utilised by Stalin.
Delmore Schwartz
The second of Barrett's “tutelary spirits", Delmore Schwartz, a poet, short story writer, critic, and later an academic, wrote a story called “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities", which was given pride of place as the first item in the first issue after the editorial, followed by works by much better known writers, such as Wallace Stevens, Edmund Wilson, Sydney Hook, F. W. Dupee, Lionel Trilling and Mary McCarthy.
By 1945, when Will Barrett had returned from the war, Delmore had arranged for him to become an Associate Editor of the magazine, alongside Delmore himself. However, neither of them was to ever enjoy the same position and power as Rahv and Phillips, even if they were frequently called upon to act as go-betweens and diplomats in personal disputes between the founders.
The memoir commences shortly after Rahv's death and funeral in 1974. Delmore had died of a heart attack in 1963.
Initially, it seems like its objective is to memorialize Philip Rahv. However, bit by bit, its scope expands to embrace Delmore, then just about everybody who was an editor or contributor to the magazine (including Lionel Trilling, Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy).
"A Certain Sectarianism"
By page 82, Barrett confesses that “throughout this memoir I have been haunted by the thought that the reader may wonder whether it is worthwhile dwelling on the infighting within a small circle of intellectuals, whose influence on the life of the nation seems to have been slight (in point of fact, it was not), and whose feuding in consequence might look petty and incestuous.”
On page 92, Barrett comments that “all that we have reported so far might seem only the intramural bickering within the intellectual circles of New York, but in fact the issues were soon to erupt before the nation and become questions of national policy.”
On page 230, he refers to “the usual stock of nastiness, bitchery, and backbiting that are the lot of human nature.” On page 158, he acknowledges that “since the modern movement is divided into contending schools and styles, inevitably a certain sectarianism and spirit of the clique crept in.”
Post-Modernism- An Infantile Disorder
This allegation of sectarianism could also apply to the nascent disputes with the adherents of the Post-Modernist movement. The Post-Modernists sought to overturn the power and influence of the Modernists. However, I would argue that they were only ever a subculture or sub-movement within the Modernist movement, the original goal of which was to revolt against traditional realism.
What was (and is) absent from the Post-Modernist agenda is a sophisticated interest in political issues (notwithstanding the pretensions of what Tom LeClair defines as "systems novels"). Instead, it is largely focussed on metafictional qualities, such as the internality and reflexiveness of the creative work itself. It seems to have been established to meet the need or appetite of New Criticism, which Barrett argues “sought to examine the work of literature as a self-contained object, [trying to escape] from the broad claim of Marxism that the literary work cannot be torn from its social and historical context.” It's largely this absence that tempted the Modernists to regard Post-Modernism as infantile, especially when it came to be associated with the New Left. Barrett makes the following aside on page 194:
This comment might no doubt sound condescending, but it does contain within it the suggestion that the adherents of a new and reactive movement are often attracted more by the self-conscious desire to be associated with an avant-garde than to be genuinely innovative with respect to the underlying creative form. You have to ask what experiments have been promoted by Post-Modernists that haven't already been tried by Modernists. Not many, I suspect.
This memoir is dedicated to two of Will Barrett's “tutelary spirits", Delmore Schwartz and Philip Rahv, both of whom had already died by the time of publication in 1982.
What bound them together, if not exactly uniting them, was the cultural journal, “Partisan Review”.
"The Two M's"
“Partisan Review" was originally published (from 1934 to 1936) by the John Reed Club, a front for, or a vehicle of, the Communist Party of the United States. However, after a few years, it ceased publication, and in 1937 was revived by the founding editors, Philip Rahv and William Phillips, the latter of whom also features in this memoir.
The magazine was devoted to “the modern sensibility in literature and the arts and to a radical consciousness in social and political matters.” This focus was shorthand for what others would identify as “the two M's”: Modernism and Marxism. Barrett says that its future course would be “guided by a twofold policy:
• “It would follow a radical line in politics, a line not dictated by a [political] party but freely chosen by itself...it would advance a generally Leftist position on politics, which would not, however, be subservient to the needs of the Soviet Union or the distortions of the Communist Party; and
• “It would seek to advance the cause of Modernism in art [and literature]...it would maintain critical standards against the deplorable leveling of taste promoted by commercial culture.”
“Partisan Review" supported the political vanguard (i.e., the Marxist vanguard of the socialist revolution), and the avant-garde of the Modernist cultural movement. What these movements shared was a revolutionary attitude to the status quo/ establishment. “Partisan Review" sought to unite the revolutionary temperament in the political and cultural spheres.
Dissident Anti-Stalinist Marxism
While “Partisan Review" supported socialism, it opposed its totalitarian manifestation under Stalin in the Soviet Union (i.e., Stalinism). It believed that “the Revolution had not produced two separate things – economic advance and political regression – from which you could easily remove the offensive part; it had in fact succeeded in producing one unitary thing, an economic and political dictatorship, and that is exactly what should have been expected but what Marxism had never envisaged,” even though Marx himself had anticipated the need for a “dictatorship of the proletariat".
Barrett describes the dilemma in these terms:
“The socialist arrangement of society requires at the least an extraordinary concentration of power simply [so] that government may take over the whole of the economy. And given the drive to power for power's sake, what under this setup can keep the impulse to power from running amok?”
Barrett, a self-confessed Liberal by the time he wrote his memoir, argues that “the best bulwark against the fearful lust for power in some individuals is to maintain plural and competing centres of power, which are hardly possible when the economic and political centres of power are under a unified command.”
Nowadays, we would call this solution “Democratic Socialism". However, there is no explanation of whether socialism would still require the public ownership of the means of production, and, if so, how capitalists would surrender ownership, without a State using force or violence analogous to the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia.
“Partisan Review" had Trotskyist, dissident Marxist sympathies, and defined itself as “anti-Stalinist". This led to a conflict with not just the Communist Party and the Soviet Union, but Left Liberals who supported the Soviet Union during World War II. There is no discussion in this memoir of whether Trotsky would have instigated a dictatorship of the proletariat comparable to the State utilised by Stalin.
Delmore Schwartz
The second of Barrett's “tutelary spirits", Delmore Schwartz, a poet, short story writer, critic, and later an academic, wrote a story called “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities", which was given pride of place as the first item in the first issue after the editorial, followed by works by much better known writers, such as Wallace Stevens, Edmund Wilson, Sydney Hook, F. W. Dupee, Lionel Trilling and Mary McCarthy.
By 1945, when Will Barrett had returned from the war, Delmore had arranged for him to become an Associate Editor of the magazine, alongside Delmore himself. However, neither of them was to ever enjoy the same position and power as Rahv and Phillips, even if they were frequently called upon to act as go-betweens and diplomats in personal disputes between the founders.
The memoir commences shortly after Rahv's death and funeral in 1974. Delmore had died of a heart attack in 1963.
Initially, it seems like its objective is to memorialize Philip Rahv. However, bit by bit, its scope expands to embrace Delmore, then just about everybody who was an editor or contributor to the magazine (including Lionel Trilling, Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy).
"A Certain Sectarianism"
By page 82, Barrett confesses that “throughout this memoir I have been haunted by the thought that the reader may wonder whether it is worthwhile dwelling on the infighting within a small circle of intellectuals, whose influence on the life of the nation seems to have been slight (in point of fact, it was not), and whose feuding in consequence might look petty and incestuous.”
On page 92, Barrett comments that “all that we have reported so far might seem only the intramural bickering within the intellectual circles of New York, but in fact the issues were soon to erupt before the nation and become questions of national policy.”
On page 230, he refers to “the usual stock of nastiness, bitchery, and backbiting that are the lot of human nature.” On page 158, he acknowledges that “since the modern movement is divided into contending schools and styles, inevitably a certain sectarianism and spirit of the clique crept in.”
Post-Modernism- An Infantile Disorder
This allegation of sectarianism could also apply to the nascent disputes with the adherents of the Post-Modernist movement. The Post-Modernists sought to overturn the power and influence of the Modernists. However, I would argue that they were only ever a subculture or sub-movement within the Modernist movement, the original goal of which was to revolt against traditional realism.
What was (and is) absent from the Post-Modernist agenda is a sophisticated interest in political issues (notwithstanding the pretensions of what Tom LeClair defines as "systems novels"). Instead, it is largely focussed on metafictional qualities, such as the internality and reflexiveness of the creative work itself. It seems to have been established to meet the need or appetite of New Criticism, which Barrett argues “sought to examine the work of literature as a self-contained object, [trying to escape] from the broad claim of Marxism that the literary work cannot be torn from its social and historical context.” It's largely this absence that tempted the Modernists to regard Post-Modernism as infantile, especially when it came to be associated with the New Left. Barrett makes the following aside on page 194:
“Youth, when it has intellectual pretensions, fancies what looks like the avant-garde position even though, unknown to them, that position may be shopworn.”
This comment might no doubt sound condescending, but it does contain within it the suggestion that the adherents of a new and reactive movement are often attracted more by the self-conscious desire to be associated with an avant-garde than to be genuinely innovative with respect to the underlying creative form. You have to ask what experiments have been promoted by Post-Modernists that haven't already been tried by Modernists. Not many, I suspect.
January 2, 2016
This book was a great analysis of New York Intellectuals in the '30s, '40s, and '50s. As an Associate Editor of the Partisan Review, along with his good friend, Delmore Schwartz he had a great place from which to observe. Delmore comes across as a Genius but who tragically. was never able to live up to his potential, and in fact went mad. William Barrett, the Author, is not quite a genius but nevertheless very intelligent and able to depict the cultural milieu with uncanny accuracy. He is also able to see not only the brilliance around him clearly, but also the ways that the Intellectuals were wrong about so many things.
Another literary luminary that makes an appearance or two is the critic and professor Lionel Trilling, and of course his lovely wife Diana. I was much less interested in hearing about the two main editors of the Partisan Review, Philip Rahv and William Phillips, but they of course loomed large back then, and they both sound most formidable.
I happen to be a big fan of Delmore Schwartz, though regret that he seems to have failed in his poetic and literary mission. For all his brilliance. I learned about Delmore through reading about Lou Reed, best known as a member of The Velvet Underground. Reed was a student of his and would later write an album about Delmore Schwartz, and dedicate it to his memory. The album was called The Blue Mask. Delmore epitomizes the doomed poet, like Rimbaud, Hart Crane, or Sylvia Plath. Maybe he left even less of a legacy than those other wandering, disheveled stars, but oh, what Might Have Been.
Another literary luminary that makes an appearance or two is the critic and professor Lionel Trilling, and of course his lovely wife Diana. I was much less interested in hearing about the two main editors of the Partisan Review, Philip Rahv and William Phillips, but they of course loomed large back then, and they both sound most formidable.
I happen to be a big fan of Delmore Schwartz, though regret that he seems to have failed in his poetic and literary mission. For all his brilliance. I learned about Delmore through reading about Lou Reed, best known as a member of The Velvet Underground. Reed was a student of his and would later write an album about Delmore Schwartz, and dedicate it to his memory. The album was called The Blue Mask. Delmore epitomizes the doomed poet, like Rimbaud, Hart Crane, or Sylvia Plath. Maybe he left even less of a legacy than those other wandering, disheveled stars, but oh, what Might Have Been.
June 23, 2020
Amazing...feels like you are taken back and present in 1950....
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews