Fast, Howard - Irving Howe (review date 16 December 1957)
Irving Howe (review date 16 December 1957)
SOURCE: “A Captive Not Quite Freed,” in The New Republic, December 16, 1957, pp. 18-9.
[In the following review, Howe objects to Fast's Communist loyalties and offers unfavorable analysis of The Naked God.]
The first though not least important thing to be said about The Naked God is that simply as a piece of writing it is extremely shabby: incoherent in structure, florid in diction, inflated and hysterical in tone. Since books of this kind are generally treated as “documents,” they seldom meet with such criticism; but I am enough of a literary man to believe that Fast's ineptitude is a significant fact in estimating the political meaning and value of his book.
It is true of course that other people, including many who were never Communists, also write badly; but the particular kind of badness found in Fast's book is not that of an amateur or novice: it is a learned badness,...
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