POINTS 5


The fifth issue of POINTS was published at the beginning of 1950 and was noted as POINTS Nº 5 -  January-February 1950.


Commentary © James A. Harrod, COPYRIGHT PROTECTED; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

James Campbell discusses Richard Wright’s arrival in Paris

and the small magazine scene in his opening chapter of

EXILED IN PARIS, Un Enfant du Pays:

In 1947—48, there was nothing. The young writer stepping off the

boat, with all the proper names of literary Paris sounding echoes of a

grand society in his head, found that there was nowhere to take his

work. Wright was unusual among Anglophone artists in becoming

actively involved in the French domestic literary scene.

Things improved between spring 1948 and spring 1949, when

three literary magazines came into being. Two of them were bilingual,

with writing in both English and French. One of those was not even

new, being a reincarnation of the 1920s magazine transition. Whereas

the original transition had been a hotbed for American modernism,

however, the revived version consisted mainly of translations of work

by the French avant-garde. It was edited by a Frenchman who wrote

in English, George Duthuit, to whom the title had been sold by Maria

Jolas, and its connection with the generation of Joyce and Co. was

through an Irishman who wrote in French.

Samuel Beckett's contributions to Duthuit's transition were mainly

in the role of (uncredited) translator. (On an occasion when some of

his own poems were printed, Duthuit poked gentle fun at Beckett's

poor spoken French, in the list of contributors.) Like its forerunner,

Duthuit's magazine was open to the work of painters, and Beckett

made one enduring contribution, a set of "Three Dialogues with

Georges Duthuit," an aesthetic manifesto in the form of conversations

about painting.

B. Total object, complete with missing parts, instead of partial ob-

ject. Question of degree.

D. More. The tyranny of the discreet overthrown. The world a flux of

movements partaking of living time, that of effort, creation, libera-

tion, the painting, the painter. The fleeting instant of sensation given

back, given forth, with context of the continuum it nourished.

Not much of a welcome there for the fresh-faced young writer with

his Hemingwayesque short stories in his satchel. For that he would

have to wait until February 1949, when the magazine Points was born.

Points was also bilingual and had two editors, one for each language,

but it was more innocent than transition (note the uppercase "P"). It

also had more money, being owned and edited (in the English depart-

ment) by Sinbad Vail, the son of Laurence Vail, a Montparnasse "char-

acter" of the 1920s, and the American heiress Peggy Guggenheim.

So eager was Guggenheim for the published-in-Paris tradition to be

extended, with her genes, that she bullied her son into it. The money

she provided was sufficient for him to get on with doing the things

he liked best—driving fast cars, playing billiards, drinking—and still

put out regular issues of Points.

The result was a far cry from Duthuit's gnomic "tyranny of the

discreet otherthrown." According to one contributor, Vail's method

of editing the magazine was to "wait until he had enough manuscripts

to fill up eighty-four pages and then take the lot down to the printer's,

and that was that." Try as he might. Vail could not rouse in himself

an enthusiasm for literature. Poetry, especially, bored him. In an

editorial written when the magazine reached five years of age, he

looked back with weary languor on Point's origins:

It was in the summer of 1948 that I first thought about starring a

magazine. I was in Venice on holiday, a holiday from God knows what

as I was not doing anything anyway ... I vaguely thought about

opening an art gallery in Paris, but I knew even less about art than

literature . . .

I often wonder why anyone ever starts a little literary magazine in

the first place. There are vague ideas running around that they are

created to publish writing that never has a chance in the commercial

press, "new" writing, "experimental" writing and even "good writing"

. . . but I think the real reason is to give the editor and his pals an

outlet for their own work plus an egotistical desire to acquire "fame"

or "notoriety" which in other circles are achieved by eating goldfish

in public.

At least now there was a space where the writer could write in

English in Paris, and enough Guggenheim money ("I vaguely thought

of opening an an gallery in Paris . . .") to ensure that it did not

succumb—like almost every other little literary magazine—to a short-

age of funds. Points even paid for the work it published—3,000 francs

for a short story (about £2 or $6), less for a poem. It wasn't much,

but writers used to publishing their work in little magazines might

have been surprised to be paid at all.

Vail continued to favor prose, eventually setting up a Prix Points

and assembling a short-story anthology ("I once thought that all the

stories in this anthology were very good. Now I think I'm bored with

all of them"). He sacked his poetry editor in time for Points 16, and

in the same issue cut out the French writing: "We discovered that we

hardly had any French readers," he wrote in that favored tone of things

going from bad to worse. From having been bimonthly, Points began

to appear as a quarterly, and during some quarters did not appear at

all, falling victim to the law of diminishing returns which affects all

magazines of new writing—the "newer" the writing, the greater the

difficulties of survival.

What kept Points going for so long (it folded in 1955), apart from

money, was Vail's easygoing manner, which attracted some more

serious literary types to the magazine's offices on rue Bernard Palissy.

Vail's highborn ennui ("I've been told to try and be original for once

and not write an editorial; but then I do so little writing and it is so nice

to see one's name in print, even in one's own magazine.") concealed a

knack for attracting contributors of genuine quality to his pages. In

the first six months of its existence, Points published poems by David

Gascoyne, Philippe Jaccottet, Nazim Hikmet; stories by Herbert

Gold, Rene de Obaldia, Henri Thomas, and Michael Hamburger;

articles on French theater (by Arthur Adamov) and on the phenomenon

of Jean Genet, whose Journal du Voleur had just been published in French. 

Not a bad half year for any new magazine.

From EXILED IN PARIS Copyright © 1995 by James Campbell. 

All rights reserved.

As noted by Sindbad Vail in his introductory comments POINTS 5 introduced advertisements for other small magazines and publishers on its back pages.

POINTS Nº 5 differs from the proceeding numbers in

both format and content. After four numbers, figures show

that POINTS sells better to English speaking readers than to

French ones. It was therefore decided to increase the number

of texts in English and decrease the number of French ones.

In future issues there will only be two or three French short stories,

a poem or two and an article on contemporary French

literature.   Also the editors felt that though they personally

liked the old cover, that it was not sufficiently explanatory.

One kiosk dealer told us that a certain lady had bought

POINTS under the impression that it was a knitting magazine.

So a few words have been put on the cover and the size

changed to a more conventional one. We have also decided

to exchange advertisements with other little magazines; so any

other editors wishing to do so need only contact us.  For the

benefit of poets we now have a Poetry Editor, as the under-

signed does not feel properly qualified in that department.

All rumours floating around Paris that POINTS is going

to fold up after this issue are quite unfounded and untrue.

We have more good material coming in than ever and the

possibilities to go on printing for some time.

The next number of POINTS will probably be devoted

mostly to love stories (not the True Story kind). Any good love

stories will be carefully read and considered for publication,

The editors of POINTS wish all success to the new Irish

literary magazine ENVOY printed in Dublin. Copies of

ENVOY may be ordered through our office until proper

distribution is effected in Paris.

Sindbad Vail

Once again the authors published in POINTS 5 would include several who would go on to notable careers in literature.

SINDBAD VAIL — Notes by the Editor

JACK R. GUSS — V-Day Plus

NOEL ROUX — Le Petit Chaperon Gris — La Mort du Consul

JAN RABIE — The Owl and the Morning

MICHAEL HAMBURGER — Mademoiselle Monet

HENRI THOMAS — Le Serpent — Le Retour d’Hélène

W. STUART HENRY — Déclaration d'Amour

WILLIS BARNSTONE — Silent Meeting

OTTO FRIEDRICH — Three Stories (The Man with growing eyes — The Counterfeiter — The movie critic who loved movies)

SHARON SCIAMA — Poem

ADRIAN VAN DER VEEN — The Shadow of the Mill Sails

ROY BONGARTZ — Several Beers in the American Zone (A Trip to Germany)

DANIEL CRIVAULT — Petite Note sur un Grand Sujet (La littérature française)

MARCEL SCHNE1DER — I. — Le Surréalisme

HERB GOLD — Book Review (The Man with the Golden Arm, by Nelson Algren)

GASTON GAOUA — Sehastien Velpuche (finis)

ERNEST LESAVAN — Le Concours et note

POINTS 5 also included brief biographical notes on the contributors:

NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

WILLIS BARNSTONE : 22, American. Primarily a translator (Spanish into English, notably Spanish poets Antonio Machado and Vicente Aleixandre. Now working on a book of verse and teaching English and French in Athens.                                                     

ROY BONGARTZ : 25, born Dayton, Ohio, now studying in Grenoble. Started

writing for college paper in U.S.A. First printed by Points (Nº 1) then (N° 4) and also by Horizon.

OTTO FRIEDRICH : 20, American. Was police reporter on Des Moines

Register and an editor of Harvard Crimson. Has published critical

articles in Signature, Prisma, Theme and Zero. Earns living in Paris

translating movie scenarios.

HERB GOLD : 25, Amierican. Won short story contest of Points (See N° 4).

Is now writing a novel and is working, under Fullbright Bill in Paris.

DANIEL GRIVAULT : 27, French. Works in a bookstore. Chief joy reading

contemporary literature and then writing critical essays on that subject.

JACK R. GUSS: 30, born Sebastopol, Russia, now American. Edited Essai

an Anglo-German magazine in Zurich in 1948. Also wrote for Story.

Now has teaching job with the War Dept. in Germany.

MICHAEL HAMBURGER : 26, English. Contributes to Penguin New Writing

and New Statesman and Nation. First book of poems due out in Spring 1950.

"Mile Monet" is first short story to be published.              

W. STUART HENRY : 24, born Glasgow. A painter who writes occasionally.

JAN RABIE : 29, born of Afrikaan (Boer) parents in South Africa. Has

published four novels in Afrikaan. The Owl and the Morning is first

story to be published in English.

NOEL ROUX : 34, French, Has published one novel, writes for "L'Heure

Nouvelle" and 84.

HENRI THOMAS : 35 Born St-Die, France. Prolific writer, three novels and

three collection of poems published; also translations from English and

German, Writes for Nouvelle Revue Française, Mercure de France,

Mesare, Fontaine, etc. Also an editor of 84.

MARCEL SCHNEIDER : 34, French, has appeared in Points (N° 1) also writes

for La Table Ronde and Gazette des Lettres. Has has four novels published in Pans

(latest just out Le Ghasseur Vert), Is a professor at a big Paris lycee.                                               

SHARON SCIAMA : 22, born Nice. Writes poetry in English for personal plea-

sure.                    —

ADRIAN VAN DER VEEN : 28, born in Holland. Is literary editor of the

Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant. Points published his first short story in

English The Shadow of the Mill Sails which he himself translated from

the original Dutch version.

the spirit of the times

SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES

1945-1955 

Commentary © James A. Harrod, COPYRIGHT PROTECTED; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

POINTS and other literary journals that emerged in Paris in the late 1940s did not come about as an isolated occurrence, rather they were an integral part of the changing cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and political climate of Paris.  The following essay is taken from the JAZZ IN PARIS – SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES – 1946-1956 booklet published by Universal Music S.A.S, France ® 2004, All rights reserved.

It provides a snapshot of the changing times in Saint-Germain-des-Pres when POINTS emerged on the Paris literary scene.

EXISTENTIALISM

IS A CHECK SHIRT

Every man and woman who ever tripped - sometimes literally - down

the stairs into the Tabou was called an "existentialist" by journalists.

It didn't matter that very few of them had ever given so much as a

glance at the cover of Being and Nothingness, the opus that

comprehensively laid down the ins and outs of what was called

"Existentialism", a philosophical theory that created a lot of noise,

both rightly and wrongly. Its author, Jean-Paul Sartre, who was one

of the most visible figures in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, and also lived

there, was to assume paternity for something that didn't concern him

in the least. He attributed the source of this confusion to Juliette

Greco and Anne-Marie Cazalis, who at one time were being plied with

questions on their way of life by a Samedi Soir journalist: they grew

tired of resisting and supposedly replied that they were

"existentialists". The famous text by Sartre published in Jazz 47,

which began with the rather unfortunate remark "Jazz music's like

a banana, it's to be consumed on the spot", should have been enough

to clear him of any possible connection with the music and the

crowds who were fanatical about it. All of which leads us quite

naturally to wonder why and how jazz could have found refuge in a

Quarter so foreign to the capital's nocturnal pleasures...

Jean-Paul Sartre, Boris Vian, Michéle Lèglise Vian, Simone de Beauvoir au café  Le Procope    

"In 1938, if you abandoned a noctambulist in Saint-Germain-des-

Pres after the 'brasserie Lipp' had closed for the night, he wouldn't

have found a single place open to accommodate his thirsty

distress." ① Things would change greatly after the inevitable

interlude imposed by the Occupation; and the Occupiers,

incidentally, were conspicuously absent from a neighbourhood that

lacked as many official buildings as it did pleasure-places. And the

spectacle of the Cafe de Flore's transformation into a poor boarding-

school prep room (thanks to a bunch of numbed intellectuals

absorbed by their writings and divided by their affinities) was

hardly enough to rate a mention in the attractions of Gay Paree. But

it's true that initiates might have seen some aspects of it as

entertainment. Mouloudji, who belonged to the class room and was

a friend to all of them, related: "I think I made efforts to get the two

groups to meet, but nothing happened after my initiative because,

just as the Sartre people were open, but outwardly closed, the

Prevert people were outwardly open but..." ②

After the Liberation, escapees from the October Group, with one side

united under Jacques Prevert, and Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul

Sartre and the editorial committee of the Temps Modernes on the

other, didn't change their habits in the slightest. Or at least not for a

while. Claude Luter: "Even so, it's true we saw an incredible number

of people turn up: painters, writers, actors, musicians... As for why

it happened there, I just don't know."③

Standing as surety for a long intellectual tradition, Saint-Germain-

des-Pres had always provided shelter for a number of writers. From

Alfred Jarry to Robert Desnos, Guillaume Apollinaire, Leo Larguier

or Paul Leautaud. Poet Antonin Artaud, when he was on leave from

the institution in Ivry, could wander the streets again. His

blistering pamphlet Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu had been

brought out by Editions K, one of the many confidential

publishing-houses established in the shadows of Saint-Germain's

belfry, as were several bookshops for refined literary tastes, among

them the Divan founded in 1921.

Intellectual pursuits which had until then remained secretly private

suddenly found themselves in the spotlight when Saint-Germain-

des-Pres was invaded by young people impatient to change

literature, theatre, painting, the cinema... the whole world in fact.

The Quarter lacked everything - money, in their eyes, counted for

less than an exchange of ideas - and so it seemed to have been made

for them. It was full of cheap little hotels (in those days that was

how everybody lived - apartments were out of one's reach),

restaurants that were inexpensive (Les Assassins, Le Petit St.

Benoit, Cheramy), and the cafes were picturesque and cheap. There

were cellars, too, and when they were unoccupied they cried out to

be put to use without fuss. "This sudden fad for the subterranean is

quite a curious tale. Did it come from habits picked up in the war

when there were air-raid warning's? Was it a desire to remain apart

from life, to be marginal? Was it the smell of forgotten wine, and old

furniture with woodworm? Was it a need to create a sort of distance

between adults and the young, the comforting feeling that goes with

knowing who to meet at what time and where? Probably all of those

at once, and for many other reasons, like fear and solitude." ④ Juliette

Greco provided her own answers to her questions.

A respectable number of eccentrics already populated the Quarter;

Armand Fevre, the last Bonapartist, strode along the riverbank in

half-pay uniform looking for a portrait of the Emperor; Raymond

Duncan wore a Greek tunic and Roman sandals, and lived in

Antiquity in his Akademia on the Rue de Seine; and with the wind in

his Karl Marx beard, 'Pere Ratier' tried to persuade passers-by to buy

a copy of Le Libertaire from him.

The most recent arrivals brought something called "wild-man music"

with them, jazz, and they "were provocative dressers. According to

Marc Doelnitz; "In the Jewish rag-trade at the flea-market in Saint-

Ouen we found donations sent by the New York Israeli community for

fellow-believers who'd been stripped of everything; it all immediately

went on the market... Mountains of check shirts, drainpipe trousers

that were often too short, socks in loud colours with horizontal

stripes, basketball boots... their modest prices seduced us

permanently."⑤ The sartorial mores (they were quite eccentric then) of

the new denizens of Saint-Germain-des-Pres found an echo in Boris

Vian's play Le Gouter des Generaux, Monseigneur Roland Tapecul's

lateness was justified by this line: "It so happens that it's impossible

to find violet socks in Saint-Sulpice at the moment, the young people

in Saint-Germain-des-Pres are buying them all."

Many others had something else in common with the young

generation: fitting a maximum number of intellectual pursuits,

generally those that weren't lucrative, into an extremely tight

perimeter. Jean Cocteau was all the more assiduous in his visits since

his friend and collaborator, interior decorator Christian Berard, had

set up home on the left Bank; when Cocteau made Orpheus, he

naturally called up Juliette Greco, Anne-Marie Cazalis and Roger

Blin, not to mention other cellar-rats who remained more

anonymous. When Andre Breton returned from America

accompanied by Benjamin Peret and Matta, he held his famous

assizes at the Deux Magots; Audiberti lived at the Hotel Taranne

opposite the Flore; Maurice Merleau-Ponty, (according to Vian, "the

only philosopher who invites women to dance"), Albert Camus, Jean

Genet, Claude Roy, Tristan Tzara and the playwright Arthur Adamov

could also be counted among the familiar faces in the Quarter.

Between the Deux-Magots and the Cafe de Flore there was a

bookshop called La Hune. Its manager Bernard Gheerbrant

organised a symposium at the Lipp brasserie on a subject so topical

it was red-hot: Was La Chasse spirituelle really a recently-discovered,

previously-unpublished work by Arthur Rimbaud, or was it a

pastiche? The answer was the second alternative. It had been

concocted by actors Nicolas Bataille and Akakia-Viala as revenge on

those who'd seen their show based on Une Saison en enfer and

ordained that it didn't teach them anything about Rimbaud. On the

Rue des Beaux-Arts, Roger Cornaille founded another bookshop, Le

Minotaure, which kept film-buffs, Pataphysiciens and all kinds of

curious people happy for decades.

Artists didn't want to take a back seat; so many art-galleries opened

their doors too. Either working nearby or just strolling around in the

shadow cast by the belfry of Saint-Germain-des-Pres church, were

Atlan, Camille Bryen, Wols, Serge Poliakoff, Afro-American artist

Romare Bearden (who studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1950),

sculptor Giacometti, Yves Corbassiere (whose old chequered Renault

decorated the narrow streets of Saint-Germain) and cartoonist Jean

Boullet who, together with Boris Vian, designed a card sent to

announce the burial of check shirts.

Between 1950 and 1954, the film world was also well-represented by

Jacques Becker, Alain Resnais and Alexandre Astruc, who was to

illustrate his "camera-pen" theory in a film called Ulysse ou les

mauvaises rencontres, shot in 16mm at the Theatre du Vieux-

Colombier. Anne-Marie Cazalis remembered: "Everyone's willingness

was mobilised. Cocteau, who got up at 6 in the morning and locked

himself away in the prompter's hole, played Homer; Daniel Gelin was

Telemachus, and Simone Signoret was Penelope; Marc Doelnitz was

Odysseus, Juliette Greco, Calypso, France Roche and Francois

Chalais were Helen and Menelaus, and Yvonne de Bray was the

Pythia. Christian Berard - we'd spent all night looking for him

through a thick fog in that November 1948 so we could drag him

behind the round window of a flooded dressing-room - was a bearded

Neptune with a crown of seaweed. When we were filming the Cyclops

scene with Jean Genet, Anet Badel discovered that he, too, had a

basement."⑥ Not a single foot of film survived. On the other hand, the

Vieux-Colombier club became one of the temples of jazz in Paris.

© Alain Tercinet  - English translation by Martin Davies

① Guillaume Hanoteau, L’Âge d’or de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Denoël, Paris, 1965.

② Mouloudji, La Fleur de l’âge, Grasset, Paris, 1991.

③ Claude Luter in Catalogue de l’exposition Saint-Germain-des-Pres 1945-1950, Pavillon des Arts, Paris, 1989.

④ Juliette Greco, Jujube, Stock, Paris, 1982.

⑤ Marc Doelnitz, La Féte à Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Laffont, Paris, 1979.

⑥ Anne-Marie Cazalis, Les Mémoires d’uneAnne, Stock, Paris, 1976.

POINTS 4


The fourth issue of POINTS was published in late fall of 1949 and was noted as Nº 4 Octobre-Novembre 1949.  The delay in publication as noted in POINTS 3 was due to the staff taking the month of August as vacation and also to extend the time allowed for submissions to the literary contest.


Commentary © James A. Harrod, COPYRIGHT PROTECTED; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The panel of judges was chaired by Philippe Soupault who had emerged on the Paris artistic and literary scene in the 1920s when he launched the periodical, Littérature, together with writers Andre Breton and Louis Aragon in Paris in 1919. 

James Joyce and Philippe Soupault in Paris in the 1930s.    

The list of authors published in POINTS 4 contained several who would achieve some mark of literary distinction during their subsequent careers, notable among them Herb Gold with, perhaps, his first published work of fiction that split the prize with E. Bennett Metcalfe who would later gain prominence with his association with the Greenpeace organization.

Jean Dutourd’s first work, Le Complexe de César, appeared in 1946 and received the prix Stendahl. Roy Bongartz would later write for The New Yorker and the travel section of the New York Times.  Bongartz also authored a play, The Applicant. Bernard Frechtman was a close friend of Jean Genet and translated many of his works into English.

Sindbad Vail – Notes by the Editor

Philippe Soupault – Judge Not

E. Bennett Metcalfe – It's Easy to Make Friends

Jean-Marie Creuzeau – La trahison de Monsieur Jauve

Herb Gold – And Sat Down Beside Her

Jean Dutourd – Un croque-mort de génie

Bernard Frechtman – The Bedfellow

Clarence Alva Powell – Circle. The Club

Jack R. Guss – Le chat est sous les étoiles

Jean-Jacques Kim – L'Autre

Roy Bongartz – Vit ! Vit ! Szabadsag (A Trip To Budapest)

Jacques Prevel – Poémes

Alain Marchal – Poémes

Roland Febvay – Le Suiveur

Bernard Brugerolles – L'Etrangére

Marie-Claude Meunier – La Couturiére

Chesley Saroyan – The Rosy Crucifixion : A Review

Gaston Gaoua – Les métamorphoses de Sébastien Velpuche

Ernest Lesavan – Le Concours. Notes Et Commontaires

NOTES BY THE EDITOR

This issue of POINTS contains only two short stories in

the English language. This is a radical change from the usual

policy of the magazine and it will not be perpetuated in following

numbers. Both short stories, "It's Easy to Make Friends" by

E. Bennet Metcalfe, and "And Sat Down Beside Her" by Herb

Gold, have won the prize for the short story Contest.

The editor wishes to thank Trevor Bates, Muriel Reed,

Philippe Soupault, T. J. Tees and Jacqueline Ventadour for

consenting to be on the jury. It was very difficult to find five

intelligent  jurors willing to read 243 short stories. Fortunately

it was done by roping in the editor's wife and thanks to Mr.

Soupault's charming persuasion. Let it be added that Mr. Soupault

is owed a tremendous debt of thanks from the editor of POINTS

for not only acting as chairman and chief mentor of the jury but

also for writing "Judge Not".                             

It might interest our readers to know how the contest

Stories were graded. It was decided to grade all stories on the

0 to 10 basis. All stories had to aggregate at least 25 to enter the

finals. The editor had no say whatsoever until this stage. There

was only one 8 out of the lot, but there were plenty of sixes and

sevens (the editor can't agree with Mr. Soupault that 20% of

the short stories deserve publication : perhaps half that number

do). It was decided to publish only two short stories in this

number. Finally non "contest" short stories were filed away

for future use. The two winning short stories must stand alone,

the line being so fine that comparison might prove derogatory.

The jury frankly could not decide between the two finally

selected. It was felt that both were of equal merit though

different. It is perhaps unfortunate that, in both stories, sex

rears its very hideous head. This is accidental. The two winners

just happened to be the best.

To sum up comment on the Contest, the editors of both

sections of POINTS are gratified and happy over the response.

This editor is particularly pleased with the quality of many

contributions. Six months ago, we were told there were no

good young English-language writers today. Now we know

there are. Anyway, many thanks to all the entrants, we were

truly grateful for their enthusiasm. Mr. Bisiaux discusses,

in another section of this magazine his impression of the French

side of the Contest.

Before this editor plunges on, it would perhaps be

illuminating to state our “policy”, if it can be called that. Both

Bisiaux and the undersigned wanted to start in Paris a review for

young French and English-language writers. It would be a lie

to say that the two editors consult each other on the contents of

a number. POINTS actually is two magazines stuck together.

That must be fairly obvious. Each editor chooses his own

material and then shows it to the other. Unless there are violent

objections on either side, in it goes. The two editors are each

trying to see the other's point of view, but it is not easy. The

English section follows, more or less, the Anglo-American style

of little magazines and the French section goes along its own

way.

In this issue, there is a rather long article by Roy Bongartz,

in the style of "Letters From..." which appear frequently in

magazines like the “New Yorker”. There is no getting away

from the fact that this generations of writers is "New Yorker"

conscious. Whether this is good or bad, this editor frankly does

not know, but does know that usually the “New Yorker's"

slick perfection is not reached.

The opinions expressed by Mr. Bongartz in his "Vit ! Vit !

Szabadsag", are entirely his own. This editor, not having been

to the Budapest Festival, neither agrees nor disagrees with the

writer, but merely printed the story for its topical interest.

As promised in our last number, we are starting book

reviews.  Henry Miller's “Sexus", as reviewed by Chesley Saroyan,

will certainly interest many readers.

S.V.

JUDGE NOT

When my friend Sindbad Vail asked me to be a member of

this jury, I, who have never liked the idea of sitting in judgment

over either men or short stories, hesitated. Yet I was pleased.

For Sindbad Vail is a pioneer : well ahead of anyone else he has

discovered that in 1949 the novel is a dead if as yet unburied

genre (the fact that Sindbad himself disagrees is irrelevant).

Personally, if I am sincere, I am forced to say that, classi-

cally desert island bound, I would probably swap "War and

Peace" for Joyce's "Dubliners" and Tchekov's “Tales ".

Of the 250 short stories submitted to POINTS for the con-

test, a relatively high proportion (around 20%) deserved

attention and publication. This proportion is remarkably high

when one considers the very low literary level of most novels

produced today. The fact that so many of the entries were

excellent seems to prove that POINTS' contest filled a need and

corresponded to an urge felt by young writers today.

But, to me, the most salient result of this contest is the fact

that it has enabled us to witness the rapid and characterized

evolution of a genre eminently suited to the rhythm, the gait,

the needs of the present day. The authors of the short stories

submitted nearly all tried to avoid the mistake of novelists who

think they are profound when they slow up the action to explain,

or attempt to explain, what is (literarily or analytically speaking)

inexplicable. Most of the contestants not only concentrated

action and anecdote but managed to eliminate from their style

all superfluous and irrelevant factors.

The high quality of many of the short stories submitted

made the jury's choice a difficult one (an indispensable stock

phrase, I believe. But true). After having eliminated a certain

number of entries which, because of their style or subject matter,

did not seem to us to be really short stories, we found that about

twenty stories, all very different from each other, clearly stood

out from the mass of entries. A few of these stories were more

finished, more successful and polished than the rest. For we

noticed that as a rule most authors have trouble finding an ending

suitable to the meaning and intention of their stories. More-

over many authors fail clearly to distinguish a short story from

a chapter of a novel, a piece of journalistic reporting or a story

written for a newspaper. The journalistic style, even at its best,

is not suited to and runs the risk of destroying the effect of a

work of imagination. The details, descriptions and suggestions

chosen by a short story writer are neccessarily less complete and

less definitely slanted than those used by a newspaper reporter.

Another trouble seems to be that many authors try to get around

difficulties by sneering at the very characters they have created

and by attempting, frequently in vain, to get a laugh or a smile

out of the reader.

A reading of the two short stories which the jury finally

selected after a long debate, will disclose that their authors have

succeeded in concentrating in a very few pages not merely a

relation of an actual or imaginary event but an atmosphere that

is to say, living characters, their world and their past.

To me, the most surprising and the most remarkable fact

about “It's Easy to Make Friends” is that its author has

succeeded in making an every day happening of an adventure

which might have been thought sordid. The ease with which

Metcalfe sets off his characters one against the other has

enabled him to avoid falling into easy imitation of "existen-

tialist" stories such as Sartre's "Nausea". So well constructed

is his story that the reader, no less than the characters themselves,

becomes a victim of fatality. Struggle is useless. The story

completely prevents you from taking sides, a fact which,

according to Tchekov, is the, first prerequisite of any successful

story.

Metcalfe's story, moreover, is excellent in that its style and

manner are evident, that is, the reader cannot imagine any other

being used to set forth this particular adventure. It would have

been easy for Metcalfe to exaggerate, to sicken the reader, to

pile on the most repulsive details. Metcalfe's simplicity or

naiveté (in the best sense of the word, that which the Douanier

Rousseau has taught us to admire) enables him to force us to

accept his story as real.

Finally, I think that once you have read "It's Easy to Make

Friends", it will be impossible for you ever to forget the meeting

which Metcaife has described once and for all and in a way no

other writer ever has before him.

"And Sat Down Beside Her" also, is the story of a meeting

As we imagine the two characters created by Gold, we cannot

help but feel uneasy. These two beings represent different

worlds, that of childhood and that of disappointment and frus-

tration (or revenge). There is nothing mysterious about Gold's

story. As a matter of fact, I believe that he consciously sets

out to kill mystery. The reader feels that Gold, following

Stendhal's injunction, is holding up a mirror to our eyes. What

seems to me most admirable in "And Sat Down Beside Her"

is the fact that slowly, willfully and skillfully, Gold forces us to

stifle. The reader actually struggles and attempts to fight

against Gold as he draws the story to its most extreme limits.

Very few writers can boast of inflicting on their reader actual

physical suffering.

Perhaps the jury could have chosen, among the 250 entries

other stories than "And Sat Down Beside Her" and "It's Easy

to Make Friends". In the literary field, it's always difficult to

award prizes or give grades (would you give Homer a Poetry

Award or an A in Literature ?).

One thing is certain. Indubitably, the two stories chosen

are both excellent. Perhaps they are not better (I hope this

will cheer contestants who did not receive the prize for the very

best short story), but I am sure no reader of POINTS, not even

non-winning contestants can deny that “And Sat Down Beside

Her" and "It's Easy to Make Friends" are both extremely good

and convincing stories.

And after all, the main wish of POINTS' Editor has always

been to publish good short stories, thus proving that his type of

magazine corresponded to a need felt by readers and writers.

today.

Judge not lest you be judged.

PHILIPPE SOUPAULT (© The Estate of Philippe Soupault)