tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1706678653651301316.post906502816842488484..comments2024-02-27T00:28:09.103-08:00Comments on Art Blog By Bob: Vortex of VillainyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1706678653651301316.post-47746138783633581022012-12-17T17:51:41.980-08:002012-12-17T17:51:41.980-08:00Although the man was far from pleasant, you're...Although the man was far from pleasant, you're not entirely fair to Lewis here.<br /><br />For starters, I don't think the Vorticists did glorify technology as such. Their published material suggests a decided ambivalence about the very technological future they predict.<br /><br />Nor do I think your interpretation of his self-portrait is correct. I read it, rather, along with his writings on Tyros and disdain for jazz, as an assault on the Roaring Twenties, a statement that it's not all wonderful, to be read in the same context as poets like Sassoon - people who came back from the War and were exceedingly angry about it.<br /><br />I'm not sure you could ever describe Lewis as a fascist as such - the Vorticist Manifesto presents a man of radical individualist sympathies, and while he did write for Moseley's magazine and write hsi first book on Hitler, I don't think these necessarily indicate either his pre-war views, or even a necessary satisfaction with fascism even in the early-to-mid 1930s.<br /><br />I'm also not sure his reputation did sink in 1933 for finding Hitler favourable. In the era of appeasement and the Chamberlain ministry, this wasn't so unpopular a sentiment - people like Churchill were widely regarded as warmongers.<br /><br />His novels chiefly satirise the art establishment and their affectations - in particular the Bloomsbury Group. <br /><br />Lewis actually went to Germany, as I recall, in 1938, and came back and wrote "The Hitler Cult" fairly quickly - a year isn't a long time to turn a book around (as an aside, the title is eerily close to the title of one of the most influential modern histories of the Nazi State, Kershaw's "The Hitler Myth").<br /><br />As for "The Jews, Are They Human?", the book was adapting the title of a book at the time, entitled "The English, Are They Human?" (Lewis had form on this - his book "The Doom of Youth" was pulped because of the similarity of title to Alec Waugh's book, "The Loom of Youth").Chephrennoreply@blogger.com