Thirties Fiction: A View from the '70s

Abstract

Literary history is not, thank God, a succession of neat, self-contained blocks of ten years' duration. It's wrong, I'm sure, and certainly misleading to think in terms of decades; but we do so, at least in case of decades close to us in time. And some adjacent decades do seem significantly different from each other in temper; Nineties, for example, from Edwardian period that follows it; or Twenties, Jazz Age, from Thirties. The Jazz Age, you remember, was the ten-year period that, as if reluctant to die outmoded on its bed, leapt to a spectacular death in October, 1929. Let me throw out a gross generalization: The literature of Thirties was, in widest sense, politically and socially oriented. That, I think, is still common opinion. I've framed it in such a way that I couldn't accept it myself; all exceptions come to mind immediately. But what I find interesting, thirty-five years after Thirties, is that during Thirties I would have accepted it totally. I came of age, both chronologically and in terms of literary awareness, very early in Thirties and I began to write, short stories and novels, during decade. I conformed to fashion-I'm sure it was more than that--completely. I don't regret this. This is obviously subjective, but then, what isn't? And it may very well be biased since I'm an Englishman and throughout decade was only in United States for a few months. But I was passionately interested in contemporary American novel and I discovered, when I got to States, that I knew more about it than my colleagues, unless of course they were young novelists also. In 1935 I was invited by Dr. Norman Foerster to go to State University of Iowa as visiting lecturer in summer session. I went armed with a number of enthusiasms, which you may think, as I do myself now,