This was a fantastic overview, I’ve got to read Tarr one of these days. I’m reading a lot of Pound atm and you’re so right about how he was to some extent given a pass relative to Lewis despite being both much worse and seemingly never really repudiating any of it.
It is quite a treat to learn about a lesser-known member of the modernist movement, especially through the lens of the work that seemed to do the most to ruin his standing. What a tail-twister he was! It's in my nature to appreciate it. After reading, I share your hope that his art and writings find a more prominent place in the canon.
I'm glad you introduced me to Denis Williams via Lewis. His "Painting in Six Related Rhythms" is very striking. It's a good thing he was able to avoid a life of poverty.
Hugely appreciate this overview of the most troubling period of Lewis’s career. And congrats on the OUP edition—no mean feat of scholarly labour, I’m sure. It’s a great thing that this scholarly edition of his works is slowly coming into being.
I haven’t read Bridson yet. Does he discuss Isaiah Berlin’s engagement with Lewis? It would be interesting to trace the afterlife of Lewis’s thought in the Cold War Liberalism of Berlin and his more misanthropic acolyte, John Gray. I read somewhere that Berlin encouraged Gray to read The Demon of Progress in the Arts, for instance.
I also recall Alisdair Gray saying that he heard Lewis’s The Human Age being read on BBC radio. And if I’m not mistaken, Hugh MacDiarmid was also a fan of WL. I wonder if there are any further interesting Scottish connections…thanks again.
This is a great piece on a fascinating figure who did much to ruin his own legacy. I learnt a lot from it.
A careful intellectual and political contextualization of the positions of the radical right is an important task. This essay is great on resentment as the engine of Lewis's politics and cultural criticism, the drive that gave him the clarity of anger.
Contextualization is a delicate task, especially in the case of authors we are invested in. I do feel that the account of Wyndham Lewis's convictions here could have been more rigorous. “However, it is incredibly difficult to simply dismiss Lewis as a racist - particularly in light of the help and support he gave in the 1950s to the young impoverished Afro-Carribean painter Denis Williams…” C’mon. This does precisely nothing to complicate our understanding of WL's views about race in the 1930s, when he wrote the works discussed here. First, it seems clear from the essay that WL's views changed considerably after WW2. Second, this whole thing about Lewis's support of Williams is no better than that most miserable excuse of an antisemite: having a Jewish friend.
Lewis was both a fascist and a radical racist in the 1930s. Some of his views may indeed have been to some extent "conventional" in the period, as the essay suggests, but even in the most charitable reading, his was a radicalized version of prejudicial positions that were by no means universally shared. And as a radicalized version, it constituted a stark political and intellectual choice. Not even a complicated one. Perhaps unstable, shifting, and self-contradictory. He was a radical pamphleteer, hardly a figure whose views we would want to explain away as merely following majority opinion. Then there would really be no reason to have a critical edition of his works.
How his views changed is a very interesting story--perhaps to be compared to how Ernst Jünger, another radical thinker marked by WW1 (whose early work, as the essay points out, WL appears to have known), was transformed post-WW2?
But I know nothing about Lewis post-war.
I hope you will write more about him and his world. He is fascinating and hugely important.
Thanks for this Andras, I have been meaning to respond to this - but never got the chance. I think you're right, in general - for example, his early work Paleface - did indeed contain some overtly radical and racist elements, but it was also deeply satirical and ironic. I think that his views were not too far off the majority opinion, but were expressed radically etc. I think in sum he wasn't ever much invested in the notion of race and considered it to be, at base, something of a slightly absurd concept.
Thanks for this. You obviously know WL much better than I ever will—I guess sometimes when we know something really well we don’t spell things out that would be helpful for the ignorant… but back-and-forth clarifies!
I think I read his piece on Lewis. I think he was considering Lewis from the perspective of being amenable to fascist thinking - which was his position to some extent - and quite correctly concluded that Lewis was not temperamentally a fascist at all. Is that correct? Interested to read more if you can recommend something.
I listened to Bowden’s lecture on him. Not sure if that was what you read a transcription of, or if it was a separate piece. I don’t know if the lectures of Bowden’s are still available on youtube. I think it was his series on culture, so it included ones on Devi, Howard, Lovecraft, etc.
This is great. I like how you describe the process of getting this book into print as an "act of faith," which is increasingly how I understand all artistic creation. I wasn't familiar with Lewis before you started mentioning him but have just requested that my university library purchase the book, so hopefully they do...
This was a fantastic overview, I’ve got to read Tarr one of these days. I’m reading a lot of Pound atm and you’re so right about how he was to some extent given a pass relative to Lewis despite being both much worse and seemingly never really repudiating any of it.
Cheers! I do love Pound - i really recommend the letters between Pound and Lewis, very interesting
It is quite a treat to learn about a lesser-known member of the modernist movement, especially through the lens of the work that seemed to do the most to ruin his standing. What a tail-twister he was! It's in my nature to appreciate it. After reading, I share your hope that his art and writings find a more prominent place in the canon.
Thanks!
I'm glad you introduced me to Denis Williams via Lewis. His "Painting in Six Related Rhythms" is very striking. It's a good thing he was able to avoid a life of poverty.
Hugely appreciate this overview of the most troubling period of Lewis’s career. And congrats on the OUP edition—no mean feat of scholarly labour, I’m sure. It’s a great thing that this scholarly edition of his works is slowly coming into being.
I haven’t read Bridson yet. Does he discuss Isaiah Berlin’s engagement with Lewis? It would be interesting to trace the afterlife of Lewis’s thought in the Cold War Liberalism of Berlin and his more misanthropic acolyte, John Gray. I read somewhere that Berlin encouraged Gray to read The Demon of Progress in the Arts, for instance.
I also recall Alisdair Gray saying that he heard Lewis’s The Human Age being read on BBC radio. And if I’m not mistaken, Hugh MacDiarmid was also a fan of WL. I wonder if there are any further interesting Scottish connections…thanks again.
This is a great piece on a fascinating figure who did much to ruin his own legacy. I learnt a lot from it.
A careful intellectual and political contextualization of the positions of the radical right is an important task. This essay is great on resentment as the engine of Lewis's politics and cultural criticism, the drive that gave him the clarity of anger.
Contextualization is a delicate task, especially in the case of authors we are invested in. I do feel that the account of Wyndham Lewis's convictions here could have been more rigorous. “However, it is incredibly difficult to simply dismiss Lewis as a racist - particularly in light of the help and support he gave in the 1950s to the young impoverished Afro-Carribean painter Denis Williams…” C’mon. This does precisely nothing to complicate our understanding of WL's views about race in the 1930s, when he wrote the works discussed here. First, it seems clear from the essay that WL's views changed considerably after WW2. Second, this whole thing about Lewis's support of Williams is no better than that most miserable excuse of an antisemite: having a Jewish friend.
Lewis was both a fascist and a radical racist in the 1930s. Some of his views may indeed have been to some extent "conventional" in the period, as the essay suggests, but even in the most charitable reading, his was a radicalized version of prejudicial positions that were by no means universally shared. And as a radicalized version, it constituted a stark political and intellectual choice. Not even a complicated one. Perhaps unstable, shifting, and self-contradictory. He was a radical pamphleteer, hardly a figure whose views we would want to explain away as merely following majority opinion. Then there would really be no reason to have a critical edition of his works.
How his views changed is a very interesting story--perhaps to be compared to how Ernst Jünger, another radical thinker marked by WW1 (whose early work, as the essay points out, WL appears to have known), was transformed post-WW2?
But I know nothing about Lewis post-war.
I hope you will write more about him and his world. He is fascinating and hugely important.
Thanks for this Andras, I have been meaning to respond to this - but never got the chance. I think you're right, in general - for example, his early work Paleface - did indeed contain some overtly radical and racist elements, but it was also deeply satirical and ironic. I think that his views were not too far off the majority opinion, but were expressed radically etc. I think in sum he wasn't ever much invested in the notion of race and considered it to be, at base, something of a slightly absurd concept.
Thanks for this. You obviously know WL much better than I ever will—I guess sometimes when we know something really well we don’t spell things out that would be helpful for the ignorant… but back-and-forth clarifies!
Bowden was the man who introduced me to Lewis. It is unfortunate how much we share on terms of personality.
I think I read his piece on Lewis. I think he was considering Lewis from the perspective of being amenable to fascist thinking - which was his position to some extent - and quite correctly concluded that Lewis was not temperamentally a fascist at all. Is that correct? Interested to read more if you can recommend something.
I listened to Bowden’s lecture on him. Not sure if that was what you read a transcription of, or if it was a separate piece. I don’t know if the lectures of Bowden’s are still available on youtube. I think it was his series on culture, so it included ones on Devi, Howard, Lovecraft, etc.
Virginia Woolf cancelled for doing blackface
Lol
This is great. I like how you describe the process of getting this book into print as an "act of faith," which is increasingly how I understand all artistic creation. I wasn't familiar with Lewis before you started mentioning him but have just requested that my university library purchase the book, so hopefully they do...
I really recommend his novel Tarr, a modernist masterpiece on par with Ulysses etc.
I'll pick up a copy
Cheers Derek! Appreciate it