HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

Reviews 265Leonov's phrase, "treads on our heels inexorably") continued to plague thenew Soviet Adam.Although Thomson's title and subtitle imply a broad approach to modernRussian culture as a whole (leading the Library of Congress to classify it withbooks on "Arts, Modern — 20th century Russia") his book is almost exclusivelyabout literature. Indeed, it is disappointing that Thomson never dealswith similar problems in art, music, and especially film (where the oppositionbetween the old and the new was particularly clear). Although it is fullypossible that Thomson's conclusions would remain unchanged if he hadbroadened his approach, the subtitle is, at the very least, a bit of a misnomer.Thomson's book presents a strong personal statement which at points triesto break the bounds of the traditional academic tome. The book represents apolemic against the Marxist aesthetic and hence against Marxism itself. (Henotes that "any theory of man that treats art merely as an afterthought standsself-condemned.") Throughout the book, Thomson stresses the contradictionsinherent in both the Marxist and the Soviet views of art and notes the paradoxthat the would-be society of the future has not only failed to produce any"new" culture to replace the Venus de Milo, but has in many areas become thearchivist of the old; he argues that "societies get the culture, both official andunofficial, that they deserve."Thomson's personal statements go far beyond politics. While I applaud theprinciple of personality in an academic text, I wonder whether it is reallynecessary for his reader to know that the author loves Bruckner or that CarlNeilsen leaves him cold. Chapter 7 ("Some Properties of Art") reflects a bittoo much of the influence of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of MotorcycleMaintenance (which is never mentioned by name, but, in a form typical of thebook, is clearly implied by the mention of motorcycle maintenance onpage 144 and a reference in the index to an unmentioned Robert Pirsig on thatsame page). This chapter implies that art by its very nature undermines anyrationalistic theory (be it Marxism or "THE" theory of literature currentlyfashionable in the West) because it affirms human nature, which by definitioncan't be placed into predetermined bounds. I assume that these personalcomments represent an attempt to make the book's form fit its content and inthe process imply a belief (if I am reading correctly) that criticism itself shouldstrive to become art and hence should, ideally, read like a novel and present astrong sense of individual personality. That sense of personality is certainly inthis book, and if the work does not always read like a novel, it does read welland does examine in an interesting, challenging, and sometimes subtle wayone of the major dilemmas of early Soviet culture which still lurks there today.STEPHEN BAEHRVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State University