VARIETY
his
first and second novel, West be–
came one of the associate editors
of
Americana,
a satirical magazine
which the
Nation
aptly character–
ized as a "symbol and symptom" of
the depression. The tone of the
magazine can best be illustrated by
quoting the conclusion of its open–
ing manifesto: "We are Americans
who believe that our civilization
exudes a miasmic stench and that
we had better prepare to give it a
decent but rapid burial. We are
the laughing morticians of the
present." It featured the drawings
of George Grosz (the other asso–
ciate editor), the burlesques of E.
E. Cummings and S.
J.
Perelman,
essays by Gilbert Seldes, M. R.
Werner, and Lawrence Dennis,
and the work of several brilliant
and savage cartoonists. West had
nothing to do with the first num–
bers of
Americana,
and it was dis–
continued shortly after he had
joined the staff, but his connection
with it is important. Some of its
raucous and Dadaist quality is
caught in his subsequent novels, to–
gether with its bitterness and cyni–
cism and rage hom of breadlines
and national skullduggery.
West's earliest work,
The Dream
Life of Balsa Snell,
excerpts of
which appeared later in
Americana,
was a privately printed little exer–
cize that never should have been
printed at all. Self-conscious, arty,
full of quips and learned allusions
and painstakingly shocking, it pos–
sesses few of the merits of the other
novels, and yet it reveals certain
characteristically Westian touches
99
GBM
The best in Modern Art
and Literature by
promising unknowns and
established moderns
Our Winter Currents now ready,
also a list of Specials and
Little Mags
PENGUIN NEW WRITING
Summer
'46 . • • • .
.40
LORD WEARY'S CASTLE
R. Lowell ....
2.50
SELECTED POEMS
of H. MacDiarmid
2.40
THE WOUND AND THE WEATHER
H. Moss • . . • . • . •
2.00
PATCHEN, MAN OF ANGER AND
LIGHT-Henry Miller
1.00
THE DEVIL'S WALTZ
Sidney Goodsir Smith
2.40
ART AND SCHOLASTICISM
J.
Maritain • • • .
3.50
PRELUDE TO POETRY
Ruth Stephan • .
2.00
COLLECTED POEMS
of Sidney Keys .
3.00
THE LIVING NOVEL
V. S. Pritchett . • . . • •
3.50
OUTLAW OF THE LOWEST PLANET
Kenneth Patchen • •
3.50
POEMS by Daisy Aldan • • •
1.00
MODERN SCOTTISH POETRY,
1920-1945 • . . .
2.40
THE GERTRUDE STEIN
FIRST READER . •
3.00
GOTHAM BOOK MART
41
West 47th St., New York City
19
