Caldwell, Erskine (Vol. 14) - Malcolm Cowley
MALCOLM COWLEY
Mr. Caldwell is a literary child of the "occult" magazines…. What I dissent from in Mr. Whipple's review [see excerpt above] is that he attacks precisely the portion of "American Earth" in which the author's original qualities are most evident.
I refer, of course, to the "disconnected bits of fact and phantasy" which compose the third section of the book. Here Mr. Caldwell achieves a sort of violent poetry, simple, romantic, arbitrary and effective; it is a mood unique in American prose…. His figures of speech are expressed in terms of hyperbolic action. (p. 131)
I don't mean to imply that the whole third section of the book is on the same high level. There are trite and sentimental passages which move one to personal fury against the author; there is also, as Mr. Whipple says, a good deal of preciousness and affectation. But for [certain] figures of speech …, and for the episodes which surround them, one could forgive any amount...
[The entire page is 238 words long]
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