Twentieth Century Writers – Old Magazine Articles

Paris: Literary Capital of America

(NY Times Book Review, 1923)

This article lists a surprising number of American authors who had all found high levels of productivity in the city of Paris, both during the Great War and afterward:

“In Paris the American author seems to get the right perspective of his native land. Three thousand miles away he finds himself better able to interpret or criticize the land of the free. Permeated by the French atmosphere, he suddenly develops a huge interest in America, and this interest, in turn, expresses itself usually in the form of a novel.”

Graham Greene
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1948)

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Anna Katherine Green
(Time Magazine, 1923)

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Rudyard Kipling
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1923)

Literary critic Philip Guedallia (1889 – 1944) reluctantly concluded that the contributions of Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) to the world of letters were genuine – and, no matter what you think of him, his writing will be around for a good while.

“He sharpened the English language to a knife-edge, and with it he has cut brilliant patterns on the surface of our prose literature.”

Marcel Proust
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1923)

In this column, art critic Clive Bell (1881 – 1964) explained why neither Britain or America would have been capable of producing a writer like Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922).

Banned Book$
(Coronet Magazine, 1964)

This is an article about the unintended consequences that ensue when the morality police ban books that, in their eye, will corrupt our youth and degrade society’s splendid ethical code. Time and again these books become bestsellers:

“In our own day, standards have changed so rapidly that books banned and burned only decades ago are now acceptable reading matter in our schools…[banned authors] are so respected that most college students are puzzled to learn of the trouble that greeted these books when originally published.”

A Bewildering American Phenomenon
(Scribner’s Magazine, 1937)

This well-read writer recalls the great novels leading up to the publication of Gone With The Wind (1936). Along the way, she lists some of the many foibles of The Great American Reading Public – in the end she recognizes that she shouldn’t have been surprised at all that the historic romance was an all-time-best-seller and that Margaret Mitchell was awarded a Pulitzer.

F. Scott Fitzgerald at Twenty-Five
(The American Magazine, 1922)

At the peak of his fame, F. Scott Fitzgerald penned this opinion piece for a popular U.S. magazine:

For one thing, I do not like old people – They are always talking about their experience, and very few of them have any! – But it is the old folks that run the world; so they try to hide the fact that only young people are attractive or important.

The Work of J.D. Salinger
(The Hibbert Journal, 1964)

A Literary journal’s review of The Catcher in the Rye as well as the short stories contained in Salinger’s collection Franny and Zooey.

An Interview With James Joyce
(Vanity Fair, 1922)

James Joyce (1882 – 1941) refers to many different subjects in this 1922 interview, among them was Ulysses, his recently released book. The interview was written by Djuna Barnes (1892 – 1982); avant-garde writer, illustrator and playwright.

The 1922 New York Times review of Ulysses can be read here…

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
(NY Times, 1920)

A remarkable book is this latest by Sinclair Lewis. A novel, yes, but so unusual as not to fall easily into a class. There is practically no plot, yet the book is absorbing. It is so much like life itself, so extraordinarily real. These people are actual folk, and there was never better dialogue written than their revealing talk.

A Review of Saroyan’s The Adventures of Wesley Jackson(Rob Wagner’s Script, 1947)

The 1947 review of William Saroyan’s war novel, The Adventures of Wesley Jackson:

What makes the novel good is what makes Saroyan good. In this case his wonderful satires on army life, wangling , and the weird fauns of his private universe. What makes it bad is the overdose of soliloquies, hymns and plain mutterings on love, death life and the appeasement of divine wrath by means of scapegoat.

Hugh Walpole Returns to America
(Vanity Fair, 1919)

A short piece on the British novelist Hugh Walpole (1884 – 1941). This notice concerns the writer’s first trip to the United States following the the close of the First World War and the printing of his novel, The Secret City; which reflects much of what the writer saw in the Russian Revolution during his service with the British Government:

In ‘The Secret City’, as in ‘ The Dark Forrest,’ the author handles very special material at first hand. Mr. Walpole served in the Russian Army during the first year of the war…He was in Russia all through the Revolution. ‘The Secret City’ is real Russia (even Russians admit this), somber, tragic, idealistic, half-maddened by the virus of revolt, yet imposing upon one a quality at once presaging and splendid.

Ulysses by James Joyce
(NY Times, 1922)

Here is the 1922 review of Ulysses by James Joyce as it appeared in the NEW YORK TIMES:

Before proceeding with a brief analysis of Ulysses and comment on its construction and its content, I wish to characterize it. Ulysses is the most important contribution that has been made to fictional literature in the Twentieth Century.

An interview with Joyce can be read here…

George Orwell
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)

No one perhaps has done as much as the British writer who calls himself George Orwell to persuade former fellow-travelers that their ways lie in some direction other than the Stalinist party line.

So begin the first two paragraphs of this book review that are devoted to the anti-totalitarian elements that animated the creative side of the writer George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair: 1903 – 1950). The novel that is reviewed herein, Coming Up for Air, was originally published in 1939 and was reviewed by Pathfinder Magazine to mark the occasion of the book’s first American printing in 1950.

The Prophet of the Beats
(Nugget Magazine, 1960)

Howl is written, says Ginsberg, peering as he does through his glasses with a friendly intermingling of smile and solemnity, in some of the rhythm of Hebraic liturgy – chants as they were set down by the Old Testament prophets. That’s what it’s supposed to represent – prophets howling in the Wilderness. That, in fact, is what the whole Beat Generation is, if it’s anything, – howling in the Wilderness against a crazy civilization.

Willa Cather Gets a Bad Review
(Vanity Fair, 1913)

Writing his review of O Pioneers, DRESS and VANITY FAIR book critic Henry Brinsley wrote:

Miss Willa Cather in O Pioneers! (O title!!) is neither a skilled storyteller nor the least bit of an artist. And yet by the end of the book, something has happened in the readers mind that leaves him grateful…There isn’t a vestige of ‘style’ as such: for page after page one is dazed at the ineptness of the medium and the triviality of the incidents…And the secret of this is the persistence throughout of a single fine quality of the author – her extraordinary sincerity.

William Saroyan on William Saroyan
(Stage Magazine, 1940)

Hundreds of thousands of people regard me, I believe, as something of a success: A well-dressed, well-fed young writer, famous for his ties, who has moved upward and forward in the world of letters with a speed veering on the imperceptible; an Oriental whose name has become a word in the English language.

SAROYAN, n., one with money, a gentleman, a scholar, an artist; v., to slay, butcher, club, strafe, bombard, or cause to spin; adj., pleasing, ill-mannered, gallant; prep., near-by, within, over, under, toward.

What, however, is the inside story? What is the truth? Who is the real Saroyan? Is he a success or a failure? I will go over the entire saga from there to here chronologically…

Click here to read a Saroyan book review.