POINTS 1

The premiere issue of POINTS was published in the early part of 1949, the imprint reading No 1, Fevrier-Mars 1949.  The budding literary adventure was underwritten financially by Sindbad Vail’s mother, Peggy Guggenheim.

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

The format of the first four issues was slightly larger than octavo measuring 7” x 9” with subsequent issues conforming to the standard octavo size.

(front cover)

A loose insertion in the first issue invited writers to submit their works for possible publication.  Manuscripts in French were to be submitted to Marcel Bisiaux and those in English to Sindbad Vail at the magazine’s address, 75, boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris (6˚).

(submission request)

The printer’s certification confirmed the date that the issue was on the presses.  In a later issue of POINTS Vail related the history of the journal and how, being the optimist, he committed to having 5,000 copies of the first issue printed.  The print run was soon  trimmed to 1,000 as the reality of selling a small literary journal became apparent.

(printer's mark)

(back cover)

(first page contents)

Contents of the first issue:

ALFRED KERN - The vocation of Francis Leger

BEN FENNER - Voices from the Italian tour

PIERRE LEYRIS - Three stories from the Roman Violier stories

MELTON S. DAVIS - Apartment in Paris

Aleksey Remizov - Neighbors

HOWARD THE FAY - The streets of Naha

ANDRÉ Dhôtel - We always can not whine

SHARON SCIAMA - To sit at the heart of ict angle

TOM A. CULLEN - One Bath Single

MARCEL BISIAUX - The Hotel - The Girl - The Cold

ROY Bongartz - The end begins in about five minutes

MARCEL SCHNEIDER - In the race of the deluge

Mervyn JONES - Readjustment

GAOUA GASTON - The metamorphoses of Sébastien Velpuche

JACQUES BRENNER - Critical presentation

SINDBAD VAIL - critical Presentations

The editor who selected the submissions in French, Jacques Brenner, wrote some commentary on the authors and their works (in English) and Sindbad Vail who edited the submissions in English provided his commentary (in French) reproduced below.

CRITICAL PRESENTATION

It is a mistake to speak of a crisis in periodically literary production. There is no such thing. It is simply que la shoulds that works aren't really be spoken about. Literary criticism in France and probably in most countries today is much too much concerned with metaphysics or politics. Most critics find it much easier to write about the political implications of a book than about its intrinsic artistic value.

NOVELISTS STILL EXIST

André Dhôtel is indeed the writer by whom the old tradition of the novel is today best kept. That is the reason why he writes stories of adventure. His books are fresh and lively, exposed to all the winds of imagination, but they are also the picture of a very unusual universe, ours of course, but seen from an original angle.

One feels that Dhôtel, had he to choose between Freedom and Grace would prefer the latter and that in his lectures (he teaches philosophy), he must devote much of his time to Instincts. Indeed once he has chosen his characters and placed them in a given situation, he lets them grow like plants or animals. Freedom is behind them. That uncertain apprehension which forces them on the paths of the human and poetical worlds is almost an abandon to an interior hidden fatality. Two important characters in Dhôtel’s last novel constantly use the words "automatic" and “mechanical." What finally brings back the feeling of liberty is the part played by "Chance" i.e. the unexpected (by us) events. And mainly that Instincts remain quite mysterious. The characters do not pretend to know themselves and do not try to justify themselves. They are definitely not intellectuals... Sooner or later the logical aspect of Andre Dhôtel’s works will be spoken of.

One can always find in his books an unusual girl, sometimes several. Although their complexes are clearly described, they seem most of the time to act according to a more subtle law. What is really the matter with them ? Dhôtel says of Juliette in Le Plateau de Masagran : "Her retorts were so quick and so precise that she never knew when she was sincere." But she undoubtedly did not hide what she thought. No, the Dhôtelian heroine is not false. She is simply thrown into the world and must live. She is carried away by her own life. She obeys without asking questions. But it is right that the people around her and the readers themselves should run against the mystery she seems to preserve : "One does not know the others." (And how badly one knows oneself !)

Psychological life is undoubtedly very different from everyday life. Some do without it and most men act without any reasoned motive. It is one of Dhôtel’s strong points to make us feel it so well and it is at the same time one of the reasons why his novels should be quite successful in other countries where the ratio-cination of French authors shock... It is not with a drowsy head but with enthusiasm and emotion that one finishes David or Nulle Part.

His work is also full of contrasts : for instance, between the basic simplicity of life and the extraordinary variety of facts he reports.

Let us not forget this other opposition between life’s wickedness and the beauty of this world, that human gentleness which Dhôtel tries convincingly to make us feel.

Dhôtel cannot choose between natural or social order. He takes an anarchistic compromise which is his very own. This sentence of his should express his conception of the world as well as his conception of the novel : "Everything can be connected by a thousand labours and the ultimate chance.”

THE UNDERSTANDING OF DAILY LIFE

Like Andre Dhôtel, Alfred Kern studied philosophy. He also studied history "und leider auch Philosophy", and he likewise liberated himself from any conventional system. He remains alert and interrogative.

In his major work Le Jardin Perdu he introduces us to a young man who the night before his wedding tries to find out where he stands and goes back to his childhood. He realizes that what he was as a child created the man he has become. Kern evokes childhood with rare accuracy and easiness. It is even more than an evocation : for the first time we are able to see a child, and not through the adult's distorted eye.

Kern does not only believe in social influences, in the almost indelible stamp of first encounters, of early feelings and sensations. He also believes in the astral influences and the final judgements of time. His own experiences makes him recreate the old myths. He very concretely exposes eternal human problems and points them out as belonging to a child's world.

But Kern's short stories which force us to question ourselves are realistic documents on the life of average people. His characters can be humble bank clerks, modest civil servants. He doesn't want them to be a Sisyphe or a Prometheus. His world is one of reality. We believe that the way he unites myths to daily life should suffice to attract attention. But other aspects of his works are equally remarkable. Let us at least mention the liveliness of the narration, the brilliant unfolding of the plot and the intimate relation between his style and thought.

TRANSPOSED REALITY

Marcel Bisiaux's short stories are on the contrary openly fabulous and in a most unusual way. Fortunately one does not feel any neo-surrealistic influence in his writing. Bisiaux describes things the way he would have liked to see them. He sometimes suppresses a few details to interrupt the logical succession of events, sometimes adds and sometimes transposes.

We all know that two spectators never see the same thing nor feel the same way. Marcel Bisiaux presents us with his own particular vision, but "exagerates" to be clearly understood.   By showing us things the way he saw them, he wants us to feel the way he felt. He suppresses the demarcation line between what things are and what they are to us. Between objective truth and subjective truth (which could be called poetry). He prefers to feel than to reason.

One can also detect in the way Bisiaux wrote the Pas contes, a refusal to make a difference between experience and imagination. He prefers the expression of his sensibility to any sort of knowledge. He has anyhow, a horror of problems and definitions. It is to his unusual power of sympathy that he owes his amazing intuition, all the better expressed by his indifference to grammar. He wants to express himself with absolute freedom and overcomes any hindrance to it. He masters his field with a magnificent spirit.

THE PATHS OF INVISIBILITY

One is not surprised to find Alexei Remizov, probably the most important contemporary Russian writer, among Bisiaux's favourite authors.                                                   

Born in 1877, Remizov now lives in Paris surrounded by strange objects, wire dolls, cloth puppets, seaweeds and lobster's claws. He is a bent little old man with an unusually clever face. Although he complains of his bad sight, his eyes are sparkling with sharpness, intelligence and sympathy. When in front of him one is overcome by both respect and affection.

Alexei Remizov is difficult to understand, even in Russian. Because he is above all an artist. Very few of his works have yet been printed. Many publishers have had his books translated, but most translations could not be published. Mercenary translators cannot do him justice for they are unable to render his poetry.

But if he is difficult Remizov is also easily understood by those who know how to deal with the fabulous and do not only admit what a long tradition has taught them to accept.

Remizov is in the tradition of the great Russian authors.

He has Dostoevskii's anguish in front of man's fate, his almost 

pathological sensitiveness, his compassion, his sense of reality and complicity with the powers of Evil which he however combats.

Like Gogol, he is familiar with the provinces, appreciates their peculiarities, their most obscure legends; like him, he is not interested in the obvious, has the same ease for working on the absurd to attain superior aims, and also his fascination for dreams.

Like Leskof, he distrusts fabulous traditions, loves common people's tales, authentic documents and even current events. It would still not express Remizov completely to say that he has Dostoevskii's demoniacal spirit, Gogol's whimsical and provincial mind, or Leskof's fanciful and friendly imagination. He is above all an artist and proves himself as such : as he points out in his story "Chinois", Russian writers are not accustomed to attach much importance to style. Remizov though, is fascinated by words and nothing is more captivating than the composition of his works.

The qualities of his style stand out so effectively in certain translations that one is immediately struck by his power. It is in Solomonie la possédée that one readily appreciates these qualities. This story is the sordid picture of the bondage and aberrations of the flesh, with the demons mischievously calling out to the girl: " Satan, our father, has created all that is life. It is he who has given the craving earth its joy : love. Bow before him, and you will remain with us where life is gay." Horror, poetry, realism, mystery and truth compensate each other in this story, which we consider to be one of his best. It was translated by Gilbert Lely. Jean Chuzeville has also made some excellent French translations of Remizov.

A GREAT TRANSLATOR

If we had to name some remarkable translators we would certainly think of Pierre Leyris.   His translation of King Lear — Melville's Benito Cereno and Pierre — Emily Dickinson's Letters — Dickens' Great Expectations and Mugby Junction — and finally T.S. Eliot, are justly praised.

Leyris is a critic as well as a translator. He has often written essays to preface the "chosen" book, for Leyris has probably never translated a work which did not in some way express his own interests.

The perfect elegance and beauty of his translations, as well as the deep understanding and skill of his criticisms, make us wonder that he should have chosen to express himself through other poets only.

A YOUNG TRANSLATOR AND A NOVELIST

Marcel Schneider, who is also a translator (to whom one is grateful for a remarkable French translation of "Six Billets de Faveur" of Sigfrid Siwerts) must be considered one of the best representatives of neo-romanticism. Three influences are noticeable in him : the tales of the Round Table, German romanticism and surrealism. One must observe in such works as Le Granit et l’absence and Cueillir Ie romarin, his idealism, the importance he attaches to feelings, his love for nature and for the fabulous.

These two books definitely do not belong to any literary circle now in vogue, but are strongly in the tradition of the love story. Schneider often spreads poetry out like a protective screen between his reason and himself : " It is with joy that I renounced to the use of reason", writes the narrator of the Granite... (page 99), " in order to plunge into the inexpressible, and I found great peace in feeling that everywhere, I was nowhere, powerless and overwhelmed, free and vanquished, insignificant and valuable, in one world a child, a God ".

The transition is skillfully arranged between simple reality and mysterious lands where the shadows and reflections of the poetical imagination play. We like to be transported and to still believe in fairy tales.

A YOUNG AUTHOR

We would finally like to add a few words on a young writer, Gaston Gaoua whose first novel is appearing in this revue. It is a strange and absorbing adventure story.

Gaston Gaoua is the son of an important figure in the French government. He travelled a lot and saw many things. His life is even more extraordinary than his book. He asked us to underline that " all the characters and circumstances... ". What ! Could this be a true story ?

JACQUES BRENNER

PRESENTATION CRITIQUE

Jacques Brenner, dans sa présentation critiqtie de la section française de cette revue, se donne beaucoup de mal pour analyser les fins et les moyens de ses divers collègues.

Je saurais mal donner les raisons qui m’ont fait choisir les collaborateurs de la section en langue anglaise, la première chose à dire

d’eux étant cependant qu'ils sont tous relativement ou absolument

inconnus.

Cinq d'entre eux sont d'ex-soldats américains, vivant actuellement à Paris où ils poursuivent des études variées avec un Bonheur inégal. Roy Bongartz a déjà été « publié » deux fois. La première dans le quotidien de sa ville natale (Dayton, Ohio), la seconde dans l’édition européenne du « New York Herald Tribune » qui imprima ses impressions d'un voyage en Espagne. Bongartz a beaucoup d’imagination. Il acquerra sans doute bientôt la technique qui lui manqué encore et lorsqu'il saura mieux trouver un dénouement à ses histories il pourra tenir les promesses que « The end begins in about five minutes » nous semble faire.

Tom A. Cullen est sensiblement plus âgé que Bongartz (ce qui lui donne environ trente-cinq ans). Il a sans doute moins d'imagination que ce dernier, est moins inattendu. Il doit probablement à son ancien métier de reporter son goût pour les faits précis ou ce que nous considérons aujourd'hui comme tels. Mais il les rapporte avec une bonne humeur qui nous permet d'éprouver un plaisir certain à la lecture de ses récits des tragédies de la vie quotidienne à Paris et d’y trouver, si nous ne sommes déjà des sages, des raisons d'en devenir.

Melton Davis a sensiblement le même âge que Cullen et jouit d'une certaine réputation journalistique. Son style et ses idées n'ont rien d'exceptionnel, mais il écrit agréablement et, chose importante sait retenir l’attention du lecteur. Son style pourrait être comparé à celui mis en faveur par un célèbre hebdomadaire New-Yorkais.

Howard La Fay a une vingtaine d’années. Il est ardent et passionné. Son humour est amer, son sens dramatique certain. Il me semble que son «Streets of Naha» est, pour en parler comme d'un restaurant, «de tout premier ordre». Si La Fay continue dans ce sens il doit devenir un des personnages dominants de la literature américaine.

Ben Fenner n’a que peu écrit et s'intéresse plus à la musique qu’à la littérature. Je ne connais pas assez l’ensemble de son œuvre pour risquer un jugement définitif sur ses qualités littéraires. Si «Points» publie une de ses premières nouvelles c’est qu’elle nous a paru extrêmement distrayante. Nous n’avons pas plus d'illusions que son auteur sur l’originalité de «Voices from an Italian Circuit».

Si nous essayons de tirer une impression d'ensemble de la production de ces cinq jeunes Américains, nous nous apercevons que, comme tous les autres, ils subissent encore considérablement l'influence des grands écrivains des «twenties» : Faulkner, Dos Passos, Erskine Caldwell et surtout Hemingway. Après avoir lu les nouvelles que «Points» publie aujourd'hui, nul ne saurait avoir de doute sur le pays d'origine de leurs auteurs. Mais c’est après tout notre sentiment qu'il n’y a rien de criminel ni même de regrettable à subir les bonnes influences. Hemingway ou Faulkner n’ont que de bonnes leçons à donner.

La section en langue anglaise de notre premier numéro comprend

également deux œuvres «non-américaines». L'une «Readjustment» est l’œuvre d'un jeune Anglais, Mervyn Jones. Jones est un artisan à l’esprit lucide et dense, à la main sûre. II n'a plus grand-chose à apprendre quant à l’art d'écrire une nouvelle.

Le seul poème publié aujourd'hui par «Points» est l’ œuvre de Sharon Sciama, une jeune Française aussi à son aise en anglais que dans sa langue maternelle. Je ne saurais que vous conseiller de ne pas négliger «to sit at the angle of his heart». L'art de Mlle Sciama est sensible et délicat et son imagination poétique est aussi vive que son goût est sûr. 

SINDBAD VAIL

Twenty issues of POINTS were published from 1949 to 1955.  A short story collection was also published presenting a selection of stories that had appeared previously in POINTS.

Additional information regarding André Dhôtel can be found at the following link

http://www.andredhotel.org/biographie.html