Volume 21, Number 17 · October 31, 1974
Great Depression
By Irvin Ehrenpreis
Ross and Tom: Two American Tragedies
by John Leggett
Simon and Schuster, 447 pp., $10.00
The theory that art thrives on neurosis was elegantly exposed by Lionel Trilling when he argued that if any component is health-giving in a writer's nature, it is his creative power. Sickness, like war, may easily provide the chaos for genius to shape. It cannot supply genius. There are seasons when readers wish to hear about Bull Run, and there are seasons when they want accounts of melancholia, loneliness, and Bellevue. Expert witnesses to those matters can then get attention that would be withheld from connoisseurs of childhood or savings banks; and the writers who come forward to quench the popular thirst will often be qualified by personal experience to give authentic details of the phenomena. But the ability to convey their experience, to give it depth and color, is something else. Genius always stands ready to supply the omissions of experience, as Anna Karenina and other masterpieces demonstrate.
Review, 2290 words
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