A Bang, Not a Whimper

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 148, 24 April 1942, Page 3

A Bang, Not a Whimper

ON’T imagine, however, that Aldous Huxley had no roots himself. He was not necessarily oné of the men without faith, though he has never had much faith in society. Huxley was doing what so many of the writers of the time were doing, describing life around him, satirising the futile lives of the cultured. Don’t you remember T. S, Eliot and his

poetry? Don’t. you remember his lines written in 1925, two years after Huxley’s Antic Hay and three years before Point Counter Point. Eliot wrote: We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! ... And do you remember how the poem concludes? This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. Well, it hasn’t ended in that way. There’s not much whimpering now, but we are not living in the ‘twenties, and. when you come to think of it we ought to be glad. Wells talked about the ’thirties as the frightened ‘thirties, and it was then that writers all over the world began to see the looming shadow of war and the menace of fascism. A new spirit seemed to be developing not only in English literature, but in world literature. Men were discovering that disillusion was not enough, that cynicism was not enough, that it was necessary to do something, and do it quickly. In many ways, as is generally the case, the writer was in advance of the politician. — (Review of Aldous Huxley’s "Grey Eminence": Book talk by H. Winston Rhodes, 3YA, March 31.)

There has been no substantial change this week in the list of news bulletins on shortwave, and because of pressure on space, we have held it over until next issue