source of much questioning
to me to determine why American fiction, as well as the other arts,
fails so conspicuously in presenting a national soul, why it fails to
measure sincerely the heights and depths of our aspirations and failures
as a nation, and why it lacks the vital _elan_ which is so
characteristic of other literatures. We know, of course, that we are
present at the birth of a new national consciousness in our people, but
why is it that this national consciousness seems so tangled in evasion
of reality and in deep inhibitions that stultify it? Mr. Frank suggests
for the first time the root of the cancer, and like a skilful surgeon
points out how it may be healed. His book is the first courageous
diagnosis of our weakness, and I think that the attentive and honest
reader will not feel that he is unduly harsh or spiritually alienated
from us. Briefly put, he finds that our failure lies in not
distinguishing between idealism in itself and idealization of ourselves.
We regard a man who challenges our self righteousness and self
admiration as an enemy of the people. What we call our idealism is
rooted in materialism and the goal we set ourselves virtuously is a goal
of material comfort for ourselves, and, that once attained, perhaps also
for others.

"No American can hope to run a journal, win public office, successfully
advertise a soap or write a popular novel who does not insist upon the
idealistic basis of his country. A peculiar sort of ethical rapture has
earned the term American.... And the reason is probably at least in part
the fact that no land has ever sprung so nakedly as ours from a direct
and consciously material impulse...."

Mr. Frank goes on to point out that because our dreams are founded on a
material earth, they none the less have a hope of heaven, and that the
American story is really a debased form of wish fulfilment. "While the
American was active in the external world--mature and conscious
there--his starved inner life stunted his spiritual powers to infantile
dimensions.... What would satisfy him must be a picture of the contents
of real life, simplified and stunted to the dream-dimensions of the
infant. And with just this sort of thing, our army of commercialised
writers and dramatists and editors has kept him constantly supplied.

"There is nothing more horrible than a physically mature body moved by a
childish mind. And if the average American production repels the
sensitive America