Brecht and America

Abstract

James K. Lyon. Bertolt Brecht in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.408 + xiv pp. Patty Lee Parmalee. Brecht's America. |Columbus|: Miami/Ohio State University Press. 1981.306 + xix pp. These two well-researched books treat quite different dimensions of Brecht's relationships with the U.S. Parmalee considers the early influence on Brecht of American writers and the books from which he adopted ideas and material, then traces, against the background of Brecht's continuing interest in and changing view of America, his study of Marx and his total "conversion" to Marxism. She terminates her study in 1931, the year in which St. Joan of the Stockyards was finished. Lyon, after a lengthy prologue which has to do with Brecht's visit to New York in 1935 and his years in Denmark, Sweden and Finland, concentrates on his exile in America, 1941-47. He focuses first on Brecht's relationships with film and theater people in Hollywood and his attempt to make a living there. Lyon's final sections deal with Brecht's anti- fascist activities, his firm belief in the strong democratic potential of the German people, his relations with the American left, and his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).