Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

Leaders In Profile J. B. Priestley Fights The Machine Age

[By

LES ARMOUR]

MARCH 28. Priestley is 62 and a little more rotund about the middle than most of the men in the whisky advertisements. His pipe projects from his mouth at an upward angle, a permanently cocked snoot at the world. Beneath the broad-brimmed hat he favours, his face has a slightly to hell with the world" but not unkindly look. There are those who find him and his one man crusade against the machine age a slightly comic figure. There are those who find him downright rude. And there are those who want to kick him swiftly from the rear when he abandons his kindly, perceptive, probings of the human condition to preach. The case of Priestley v. the Industrial* Revolution has its roots deep in the man. He was born in Bradford, the son of a struggling schoolmaster and raised against the dreary background of a Northern mill town. Cambridge brought him a new world. But the contrast was shattering and the First World War m which he served with the Duke of Wellington’s and Devon regiments, burnt itself deeply into his mind. Toynbee saw in the rises and falls of civilizations a forward movement which he likened to the .forward movement of an oxcart which progresses while its wheels turn. Priestley has tended to believe that the cart is laden with dung and headed for hell. But there are ways and ways of making the point. His early North Country novels (typified by “The Good Companions” of which he is not now, it seems, very fond) sought to make the point by portraying human beings striving and struggling against their dreary backgrounds—and triumphing as human beings despite it. 9 Some of his earlier plays, particularly his trilogy of plays about time, sought to show that there might be a better world of the mind which man could perceive if only they shook off their trivial distractions.

These two approaches, however, have not satisfied the man. He became a Socialist and remained one until 1950 when he decided that Socialism might be just another tyranny. In his Socialist days he campaigned in books, on the radio, and in the press for a society ordered to fill human needs rather than to satisfy individual greed. Political theory, however, has not always been his strong point, and his opponents, at least, were often at a loss to discover just how it was that Socialism was to

bring about this desirable state of affairs.

He battled manfully against the forces in society which were currently pushing men around but he seemed to be advocating just another sort of pushing. Five years of British Socialism seemed to convince him that being pushed by bureaucracy is not necessarily better than being pushed by capitalists. The last seven years he has devoted to his private crusade typified by a series of articles in “The New Statesman and Nation” headed “Thoughts in the Wilderness.” Unfortunately, his old friends had become his new enemies and he continued to assult his old enemies as well. The resultant isolation may have tended to make the man a little bitter. And bitter he is at times. Last year in Toronto he was invited to speak at a literary luncheon organised by his admirers. He began by lashing his hosts for making him drink ice water and smoke his own cigar. Then he blew up Toronto’s chief librarian, kindly and quiet Dr. Charles Sanderson, for reading a passage from “The Good Companions.” He asked whether he must always be identified with “The Good Companions.” “Hated Book Weeks” Finally, since the luncheon was connected with a “book week,” he added for good measure that he hated book weeks. Afterwards he refused to autograph copies of his books. Canadians diu not take kindly to this display. Neither did the organizers of the lunch. Of course, Canadians are a rather smug, self-satisfied bourgeois breed and wholly likely to make you drink ice water and smoke your own cigar. (I know. I am one). Furthermore, book weeks must drive even the most calm and unprotesting writer up the wall and it is probably revolting to have the same passages out of the same early novel read at you year after year. But the significance of the outburst is that Priestley has worked himself into an isolated corner in which he is in a state of open conflict with almost everyone. In particular, he is in a state of open war with the worshippers of his early books which preached a conventional bourgeois morality and extolled the virtues of quiet homeliness.

These people often do not realize that their idol is now their enemy and this is perhaps most infuriating of all. But this is the price of the Priestley position. He detests Twentieth Century mass produced civilisation, spattered with gadgets, deluged with advertising, driven by giant engines of mass communication. He would rather see men work a little harder and preserve more of themselves. He would rather see life less comfortable and more exciting.

Above all, he believes in detachment of thought, in economic co-operation rather than competition, and in the intrinsic value of the individual. The difficulty is that most men at most times prefer the easier way. Most men are afraid of detachment and afraid, above all, of loneliness; They like to feel at one with the millions of those who read the mass-circulation newspapers, to own motor cars just like those owned by millions of

others and to dress exactly like the man next door. Priestley is perfectly well aware of all this. He has made the point himself over and over again. It’s just that he finds it damned annoying. And sometimes he can’t control his annoyance at the human race.

Observation Post. Awarua Radio, the southernmost of the Post Office's coast radio stations, is being used as one of the main observation posts for various scientific tests being' 7 carried out as part of the geophysical year programme.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19570430.2.60

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28264, 30 April 1957, Page 9

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,010

Leaders In Profile J. B. Priestley Fights The Machine Age Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28264, 30 April 1957, Page 9

Leaders In Profile J. B. Priestley Fights The Machine Age Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28264, 30 April 1957, Page 9

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert