The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939

Rating:
Summary: The Writer As Totalitarian Snob
Review: John Carey's "The Intellectuals and the Masses" is an eye-opening account of the fear and loathing many English writers had for ordinary people during the early days of Modernism. The intellectuals of the time hated and feared the growing power of the newly expanding middle class. Many famous and prominent writers came to dislike democracy and capitalism, because they thought they were losing influence. Carey theorizes that Modernism was invented in order to shut out the common reader of the day; to prove the elite's superiority and to put the upstarts in their places. Wyndham Lewis, a man with an amoral personal life, worshipped Hitler. D.H. Lawrence noted the efficiency of poison gas and imagined a large execution chamber where all the stupid people could be killed. Virginia Woolf sneered at the banality of the conversations she overheard from the women in the lavatory. The Bloomsbury set was especially guilty of the worst class-consciousness.

Some writers did battle with their impulses and the intellectual fashions of those years. George Orwell wrote with a minimum on condescension about "the proles" in his early novels and "1984." H.G. Wells seemed to advocate mass extermination of his inferiors in his non-fiction, but in his fiction his imaginative sympathies were usually with the failures and "losers" of the world. James Joyce's masterpiece was "Ulysses", a tribute of sorts to the common man (although written in a Modernist style that made it impossible for the common man to read it.) But on the whole the snobbery of most of the intellectuals of the day was unforgivable.

This book is an excellent companion to Modris Eksteins' "Rites of Spring" his cultural history of World War I. Both books argue that Modernism was in part responsible for the horrors of the 20th century, with its ruthless elitism and emotional coldness. Shaw, Pound and Forster dreamed of ridding the world of "superfluous" people; did this make it possible for Hitler and Stalin to actually attempt it? The necessary ideas were in the air. And they still are. Carey notes that, as the masses began to catch up in sophistication, post-modernism and literary theory was invented to create a new elite artistic language for its aristocrtatic initiates to revel in. The Modernist loathing for the mass media of newspapers was replaced by hatred of television and America, the middle-class nation par excellance. (And I would add, they really hate the Internet.) If you want to know why so many celebrities seem so sour and cynical about everything but themselves, read this book.

Rating:
Summary: The Writer As Totalitarian Snob
Review: John Carey's "The Intellectuals and the Masses" is an eye-opening account of the fear and loathing many English writers had for ordinary people during the early days of Modernism. The intellectuals of the time hated and feared the growing power of the newly expanding middle class. Many famous and prominent writers came to dislike democracy and capitalism, because they thought they were losing influence. Carey theorizes that Modernism was invented in order to shut out the common reader of the day; to prove the elite's superiority and to put the upstarts in their places. Wyndham Lewis, a man with an amoral personal life, worshipped Hitler. D.H. Lawrence noted the efficiency of poison gas and imagined a large execution chamber where all the stupid people could be killed. Virginia Woolf sneered at the banality of the conversations she overheard from the women in the lavatory. The Bloomsbury set was especially guilty of the worst class-consciousness.

Some writers did battle with their impulses and the intellectual fashions of those years. George Orwell wrote with a minimum on condescension about "the proles" in his early novels and "1984." H.G. Wells seemed to advocate mass extermination of his inferiors in his non-fiction, but in his fiction his imaginative sympathies were usually with the failures and "losers" of the world. James Joyce's masterpiece was "Ulysses", a tribute of sorts to the common man (although written in a Modernist style that made it impossible for the common man to read it.) But on the whole the snobbery of most of the intellectuals of the day was unforgivable.

This book is an excellent companion to Modris Eksteins' "Rites of Spring" his cultural history of World War I. Both books argue that Modernism was in part responsible for the horrors of the 20th century, with its ruthless elitism and emotional coldness. Shaw, Pound and Forster dreamed of ridding the world of "superfluous" people; did this make it possible for Hitler and Stalin to actually attempt it? The necessary ideas were in the air. And they still are. Carey notes that, as the masses began to catch up in sophistication, post-modernism and literary theory was invented to create a new elite artistic language for its aristocrtatic initiates to revel in. The Modernist loathing for the mass media of newspapers was replaced by hatred of television and America, the middle-class nation par excellance. (And I would add, they really hate the Internet.) If you want to know why so many celebrities seem so sour and cynical about everything but themselves, read this book.

Rating:
Summary: "Literary Fascism": "Yes, But We're Not One of Them!"
Review: Scandal about the congress between modernist intellectuals and nazis rubs against our enlightened grain. It's embarrassing to think that, say, Martin Heidegger, an otherwise clever fellow, was a nazi, to boot. What's more embarrassing, though, is to consider that much of the hubris from modernist intellectuals--their loathing of ugliness and poor people and democracy--was driven by the same cultural discontents that fueled the death camps. We have our sacred literary cows--D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Wolfe, E.M. Forster, to name a few. Nietzsche, of course, was their teacher. We don't like to think that these modernist "greats" also harbored mass murder in their hearts. After all, strip malls are not a good thing! Nor are Thomas Kinkade paintings and surburban sprawl--just those things intellectuals really don't care for, still, truth to tell.

This is, no doubt, one of the reasons Carey's book strikes a nerve. It hits intellectuals between the eyes, by reminding them that their all-too-contemporary passions, those they still carry in their hearts, murdered millions. It's a Catch 22. You can live with the book, and you can't live without it!

It speaks to our condition, today, as much as it speaks about the early 20th century. And it has the power to jar those literary sentimentalists who would wish to stick to the STRUCTURE of LADY CHATTERLY'S LOVER!

Stephen Gatlin

Rating:
Summary: the murderous roots of snobbery unearthed
Review: Strange to think that a well-chaired professor at Oxford, that ancient bastion of academic elitism (still, despite the sun setting on its hallowed but crumbling halls), would have so much criticism to level against the dawn of modern intellegentsia. But upon reading the first part of this concise and well-documented book, it became clear to me just how rotten at heart our intellectual heroes truly were. Carey finds a wealth of unnerving evidence that the great figures (self-appointed "greats," as this book shows us) of the modern literary canon festered with hatred of the common man, so much that they advocated (oftentimes straightforwardly) wiping out all of humanity. Moreso, the various case studies in the book's second part uncover further details about just how much these great writers loathed the "masses," and the strange, selfish reasons behind their disdain.

This is an excellent read for anyone struggling through "Ulysses," "To the Lighthouse," or even "The Wasteland." Carey's thorough research and well-argued points shed much-needed light on the dark side of our past century's most celebrated authors: why they wrote in such an unreachable voice, why they crafted their themes to be so alien to most people, why they lived where they did, and (most importantly) how much worthier they took themselves as human beings. I did groan a bit during the final chapter, which was about Wyndham Lewis and Hitler. Dropping the "H-bomb" can make anything seem evil and was therefore too easy a potshot for Carey to take at the intellectuals. Also, the two back-to-back case studies on H. G. Wells were somewhat redundant; Carey would have done better to write two case studies on two separate writers. Still, this book gives the reader an exciting, enlightening, and shocking view at the world of the intellectuals between 1880 and 1939 (and, in the Postscript, a look at similar currents in today's postmodern world), and I highly recommend it to any fan of modern literature who is not afraid to explore the ugly side of the great writers.

Rating:
Summary: Does not shirk from its stringent stand
Review: The Intellectuals & The Masses: Pride & Prejudice Among The Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939 by John Carey is an informed and informative analysis of the elitist views of respected and influential literary icons during the late 1800's and early 1900's, including H. G. Wells, D. H. Lawrence, G. B. Shaw, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Elliot, and others. A scathing and iconoclastic account attacking the negative side of intellectual views (such as a running thread of contempt for common humanity that allegedly intertwines with the philosophy of Nietzsche and an environment that brought about Adolph Hitler and World War II), The Intellectuals & The Masses does not shirk from its stringent stand or its unflinching scrutiny of smart people's biggest flaws. Highly recommended for academic Philosophy and Literary Criticism reference collections and supplemental reading lists.