Page Four
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunday, April 13, 1975
Page Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, Aprif B, 1975
1 27 YOM HA'ATZM
ISRAEL
INDEPENDENCE DA
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YI
A
For objectiVI
BETWEEN EXISTENTIAL- work as a continuous whole.
ISM AND MARXISM, by Sartre's sensibility - his under-
Jean-Paul Sartre, New York: standing and acceptance of
Pantheon, 1975. 380 p., $10.00. paradox, his clear, reflective
thought process, and, most of
By DEBRA HUJRWITZ all, his persistent query into the
TN HIS writings, Jean P a u 1 character of reality - permeat-
Sartre has stood back from es his words and sentences, ind
life in order to be possessed by provides the thread which links
it. He has carried on a constant the essays together.
search to objectify his exper- The fact that he has been
ience; always it has been the writing for so very long fascin-
process of searching rather than ates Sartre. The man known
understanding itself that most primarily for his philosophical
obsessed him. Knowing the treatise, Being and Nothing-
world to be what it is, the na- ness, as well as a number of
ture of experience being one of philosophical-cum-literary works
constant flux, any answer for with, as one critic put it, "such
Sartre is of necessity a tem- loathesome titles as The Flies
porary and relative one. and Nausea," is a man deeply
It is the search itself which committed to literature. Indeed,
Sartre has exemplified in his he feels that all writers, no mat-
writings. Between Existential- ter how apparently detached
ism and Marxism is an eclectic from their work, are in reaity
collection of Sartre's words, ver- committed.
bal as well as written. Inter-j
views, essays, and lecture tran- THE FIRST essay in Between
scripts constitute the book, Existentialism and Marxism,
which is loosely arranged into "The Purposes of Writing," is
five sections: "Self-Descrip- the transcription of a 195) in-
tions," "Politics', "Philosophy/ terview with Sartre conducted
Poetry/Painting," "Psychoana- by Madeleine Chapsal. In it,t
lysis," and "Intellectuals." Sartre maintains that literature,
Though its Table of Contents if not worth everything, is
reads somewhat like a haphaz- worth nothing: "This is what I
ard assembly of generally unre- meant by 'commitment'. (Liter-
lated subjects, the book does ature) wilts if it is reduced to
J
lEAN-PAUL SARTRE
BOOKS
Ftry to4
innocence, or to songs. If a writ-
ten sentence does not rever-
berate at every level of man
and society, then it makes no
sense. What is the literature of
an epoch but the epoch appre
priated by its literature? *
Sartre further believes that
the beauty of literature lies in
"its desire to be everything."
Only a whole, he claims, can be
truly beautiful in any sort of
non-sterile way. Literature's
promise is to convey every-
thing; if it does not, it has fail-
ed. Chapsal, no doubt finding
this statement rather ambitious,
asked Sartre if he felt litera-
ture had fulfilled all its prom-
ises. He replied, "I don t be-
lieve it can fulfill them, not in
my case, nor in that of anyone
in particular." Yet, curiously
enough,-Sartre does not see the
fact behind this statement ;Es
any sort of stultifying f o r c e
Despite the impossibility ' ever
achieving everything, each writ-
er must nevertheless aspire to it
in order to have hopes of ac-
complishing something.
PUT WHY WRITE, asks ' h e
discouraged disciple, if one
has no hope of actually achiev-
ing one's aspiration? A Sartre's
answer is two-fold. First, he,
Secondly, each individual
writer's product is seen in con-
junction with other writings. As
totality is involved in the ac-
tivities of every individual, so
every individual is a part of
totality. The interaction of all
the components which makn the
whole is one characteristic of
Sartre's view of reality. Piece
after interlocking piece, reality
moves and metamo-pnoses, al-
ways maintaining a sort of es-
sential tension between all its
parts.
In "The Itineracy of a'
Thought," Sartre explores the
changes in his philosophical
foundations after the Second
World War. He feels .he war
taught him the "powver of cir-
card ilE
claims writing is a need felt by
everyone: "every single pwrson
feels, perhaps only uncons;:io)s-
ly, the need to be a witness of
his time, of his life - before
the eyes of all, to be a witness
to himself." Writing is a means
of pu. ifying experience, free-
ing each event out of the flow of
reality, expressing an exper-
ience in order to retali it.
Sartre conceives of our impulse
to write as one which arises
from a desire to disengage our
own particular experien ;a from
"all the elements which crush
it."
,
its elf
I cumstances," and tha- this ; s-
son prompted his re il ;atrn of
the complexities of :x; rience.
Where he once thought -- qire
fervently - that the human was
always free to choos . he can
now conceive of inniumerahe
situations in which cic:umstanc-
es render a choice, any ctliicc,
impossible.
('LEARLY, SARTRE envisions
paradox as an undeniable
part of experience. As did Don-
ne and Mallarme before him,
DdILIVa racrar j d.:vArw m'ttprI
c
1
1
t
J
i
1
Sartre regaras paraaox matter- -
of-factly and is finally neither for "every level of man and
shocked nor distressed by it s society," I can tes'ifv to the
ubiquity. In fact, 1is m o s t multiplicity of far of iT y
famous idea is based on para- own experience which respond
dox. In his explication of real- to Sartre's words. Fur:hwr, the
ity, that end toward which all his connective tissue betweet the
works tend, he mainains thatsetosurns out ro by noth-
despite the utter depenaen-e of ing othertthan the ofe'i para-
thought, belief, and action upon doxical, hard-to-gras,, tenets of
circumstances external to the Sartre's philosophy By foring
individual, each per4 o is till the reader to reflect on the ori-
ultimately responsible for what gins of its unmistakean e I o w,
he becomes. Between Existentialism and
j IKE SARTRE'S picturf of Marxism structurall ras well as
reality, this book is a whole
s Sartre's main lines of thought.
which maintains a tenion he-!
tween its parts. And like his
notion of successful literature,
it reverberates at a great many Debra Hurwitz is a Daily
levels. While I cannot speak Editorial Page staff member.
W ith Every
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Sunday, April 13
Both Concerts Free
50 YEARS
At the New Yorker: Brendan
Gill's refined sort of gossip
HERE AT THE NEW YO
ER. By Brendan Gill.T
York: Random House, 195
$12.95.
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FALL-WINTER CONTRAC
FOR WOMEN FOR
N. CAMPUS AVAILABL
THE UNIVERSITY
GILBERT & SULLI
THE YEOME
RK- By DAN BORUS talented founder, Harold Ross ,
New . would not be edited for the little
ALWAYS fancied we had old lady in Dubuque.
pp., rather populist .astes. We Indeed it isn't. The ambience
prefer Raymond Chandler to of The New Yorker - from its -
Albert Camus, pinball to back- creative covers to the urbane
gammon, baseball o polo or e"Talk of the Town ' to he un
tennis. John Ford to lotgmar'"ako h on't i n..........~.
r e never a c deniably droll cartoons to the
sidered ourselves ddie and people bypassed by oter .:
erati, or rich. We -have never and<peple.by<s:ed y< : e
eaiorrc.W hvceeimedia - cries out that this is x.
dreamed of ownin: a '1T.000 dno ordinary magazine, for The
Europea nsports ar, r nkng New Yorker has sta:idards all Army, decided he wanted to es-
from Steuben Glassware, play-Iiydcedhwaedt s
ing the market witn Merrill its own. tablish his distinctive maga-
Lynch's mutual funds, or bob-whchtine. -Not only :does Gill find
nobbing off to Nice With theTHESE STANDARDS,which Ross a Western boor, narly un-
Jet Set. have enabled the magacme lettered and distressingly anti-
ilyto esis th ficle indsof.intellectual, but he sug;;ests that
So it is more than a !it ir:)ricI fashion and fad, have also keptb Ross did not known ow to hire
that we would so eagerlyg wait The New Yorker noised be- the right sorts, either. Gill
the publication of hiere at The tween leisure class frwolit\' and regales us with RoSs incom-
New Yorker, Brada Gl's academic tedium. petence in editing his writers'
inside story of his forty or so Unfortunately, this delicate delicate prose, s h poor man-
as of aourefavzite. wT7 ourT balance incorporating th- span- ners in a world wiere he des-
E sknowledge, no one has ever ac- taneity and curio.;*v of the parately needed the his hat-
cukoedghe, Ne Yon sver a- ~ rich with the depth of the edu- red of Jews and "aks, and
lsse e New Yorker of popcaed is not evident in Gill's his distaste for the mwddle class
Far from it. The New y etast memoirs. He represents the smallness of the Saturday Eve-
always has been, and gkes Imagazine at its mos flippant min Post. Prima facie evidence,
and snobbish. He is the modern however, contradicts Gills in-
evrthe nation's foremo day Eustace Tilly, the da:idy dictment of Ross. The finished
ium for the concerns of the Gld whose profile is the magazine's {roduct, every inch of which
S Liesyihth elgnademblem.! was reviewed by Ross, was tlhe
TS Line stylish, the elegant, and e Gillis a gossip, a society fount of sophisticati >n and tin-
the educated. This was the;page writer who would rather derstatement. It lacked Rozs'
magazine which in the immort- tell us about present edi: .sn alleged crudity, som hng Gill,
al words of its eccentric a n di William Shawn's fear of travel- ever the well-bred Yalie, finds
ling than about his skill wit- a in every Rossian act.
red pencil. His book is a care-
OF MICHIGAN free view of the people who Absent from Gill's bonk is a
VAN SCIETYhave worked with 'iim in the recounting of the magazine's lit-
IVAN SOCIETY last forty years; it is a literate erary triumphs, of the elements
PRESENTS sketch book, not a revealing of its style, of its editorial out-
or polished portrait. look, or its societal impact. It
N OF THE GUARD especialy disanpomn mg that
AS
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IIESPITE HIS omn,.present
civility, Gill is a man out to
gore some reputations. W i t h
relish, he reveals the cruelty of
James Thurber's prac ical jok-
es, the near hypocritical preiud-
ices of John O'Hara (with whom
he had a feud for many years),
the gluttony of A. J. Liebing
and the boorishness of Harold
Ross.
We read of Ross, the news-
paperman from Aspen, Color-
ado, who after a number of es-
capades in New York and the
e .e
Roger Angell, who writes the
best baseball copy in America,
is mentioned only for his unique
ability to jump from a standing
nosition onto a desk. Calvin
Trillin, who writes ne provo-
cative "U.S. Journal," is not
mentioned at all. Trumaa Ca-
pote's "In Cold Blood"' i; men-
tioned for Capote's ecczn'ricity,
not its literary or social impact.
HOWEVER, GOSSIP can hold
our interest, and we have
not found a dull page in the four
hundred or so Gill has writ-
ten.
It was Friday when we fin-
ished Gill's book and though we.
were not terribly impressed, we
hurried downstairs to check the
mail - our New Yorker was
due and we never miss a copy.
i
Centicore Bookshop 4
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