By way of comparison, read Mr. Koestler's remarks on Gide, (whom he admires no more than does Mr. Hemingway), in The French 'Flu, one of the collection of war essays entitled The Yogi and the Commissar.

He says, "Gide's writings have always shown a touch of esoteric arrogance; there is a thin, rarefied atmosphere about him and his books. His influences on the younger French generation was deplorable (not because of his twisted eroticism, for which the Vichy Fascists reproached him: one does not become an invert by reading books), but because of the arrogant spiritualism it imparted, an attitude of being initiated, the illusion of belonging to some exclusive order, of sharing some exquisite values, which, however, if you tried to define them, ran like sand through your fingers. Gide's message to the young intelligentsia was like the Emperor's new clothes: nobody dared to confess that he could not see them."

Harsh words? Perhaps, but admittedly fair and a result of careful thought rather than consciously clever slander. You will notice Mr. Koestler deliberately goes out of his way to criticize the older writer for what he thought, not what he was, an important distinction between the intellectual and other men.

But even more interesting examples of Mr. Koestler's unexcited toleration of various controversial thoughts and ideas can be found in his great novel Arrival and Departure, which I have read with increasing enjoyment several times.

Here, in the third section of this book, we find a dialogue between an old medical doctor and a young female psychiatrist, who are repulsed by each other's beliefs, yet the author never loses balance. Both are presented fairly, truthfully and with equal censure and sympathy.

Later, a second dialogue between two young men, one a Communists, the other a Nazi, is handled with the same revealing clarity, the result again being a refreshing comprehension of two easily obscured ideoligies for the reader.

And the author's few paragraphs describing the Lesbian relationship between the psychiatrist and the hero's mistress are perhaps unique in their unruffled brevity, knowledge and beauty. When Odette, the mistress, tells the hero, "I wish all men were not so stupid . . . Why can't you understand that sometimes one gets fed up with the lot of you and your ridiculous jungle-act-all rut and sweat and panting and hostile intrusion," one feels that everything necessary to the situation has been said and words haven't been wasted.

Yet Arrival and Departure is not concerned primarily with "abnormal" or "unnatural" love. The incident between the two women is of practically no importance to the movement of the plot. It is treated as just what it is, a detail of sufficient importance to get itself included. Imagine how other writers of lesser talents (myself included) might distort and exaggerated such a bit of information, and of course, the result would be an exaggerated importance placed by the reader on a thing that should be forgotten in the contemplation of the greater issues of the story.

But neither can Mr. Koestler be accused of a dangerous complacency on any subject. In no way does he approve or disapprove the conventional standards of Western society. His attitude is forever one of uncomplicated acceptance and examination. Decisions are left to his readers. Which causes one to wonder how much better off the world would be if there were more authors of Arthur Koestler's wisdom and generosity.

James Barr

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