José Carlos Mariátegui

Author(s): Waldo Frank

Source: Books Abroad , Oct., 1930, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Oct., 1930), pp. 299-300
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40045742

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 JOSE CARLOS MARlATEGUI
(Courtesy of 1930, RevUta de Avance, Havana, Cuba)

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 BOOKS ABROAD

JOSE CARLOS MARIATEGUI

By WALDO FRANK

death of Jose Carlos Mariategui, last

weaknesses - the sophisms of submission and
April, in Lima, Peru, deprived American
pessimism which rot our radical movements.
These
life of one of its few profoundly sophisms,
original equally evident in doctrinaire
literary
marxism,
figures. In this young Peruvian in liberal
mestizo, pragmatism and in the
still
in his early thirties, there were
sickly organically
dualism which calls itself "humanism"
fused those values in thought,- are all, in one form
aesthetics andor another, the stamp
public action, which Americaof the machine,
must upon those very men who
incarnate
and put into effect, if a true America - aclaim
decry it, or who realto have found the means
New World - is ever to be created. to master it. Mariategui was a revolutionist
Mariategui was dedicated to the severe without mechanalotry; even as he was an
necessity of a new economic body, and of the artist without undue aestheticism. He was,
social revolution. But he was no doctrinaire miraculously, able to devote himself to the
communist despite his adherence to the cause of common humanity without depreciat'
principles of Marx. In him were also activeing the factor of the individual soul whose
the artistic and spiritual values of our time,failure, of course, must mean the failure as well
whose assimilation and integration in revo-of men in the mass. He had therefore the in'
lutionary thought can alone bring vitality totegration which alone can save the current
economic action. He realised that a revolution revolutionary and intellectual movements from
can well repeat, in new terms, the old failuresthe ideological poisons of capitalistic anarchy
of the world; that it can bring forth a new and of "herd'democracy."
death essentially not different from the old His book Seven Essays in Interpretation of
one, unless human values - the culture of thethe Reality of Peru, had more than a merely
mysterious depths of the individual soul - -are national import: its general vision can be
incorporated in the revolutionary movement.applied to the whole American and to the
This is what made him so brilliantly superiorwhole modern scene. It is true, however,
to most of what passes for sociological thoughtthat the acuteness of the condition of the
in our arid day. laborer and of the Indian peasant in oppressed
He was himself a writer of acumen and Peru made him ever stress the immediate
deep insight. He was a great editor; and a problem, so that his written works, because
fearless fighter. But perhaps his finest con* of their fighting quality, lack the broad form
tribution to the cultural life of our time was which a literary masterpiece requires. It is
himself. As a man, he was intatt: untouched therefore probable that Mariategui will sur*
vive in South America rather as a heroic
by the failures and heresies of our day. Not
alone was he free of the current diseases of figure - a standard-bearer and a symbol-
the postwar intelligentsia: the lust for power, than as a writer. In his few years, he managed
for position, for money; he was also free of the to gather about him an extraordinary legion
subtler and even more dangerous ideological of young men: poets, painters, economists,
COPYRIGHT 1930 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS

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300 Mariategui BOOKS ABROAD This and That

novelists, archeologists, leaders of labor.The AsSecretary General of the Chamber of

they proceed in their creative work, the life has issued a systematic analysis of
Deputies
of Mariategui will find its real fruition. seven
- T^ewyears of Fascist legislation: La. legisla*
Tor\ City. zione fasrista dal 1922 al 1928 (Confederazione
Generale Fascista dell'Industria Italiana, 100
lire).
Henri Barbusse's enthusiastic volume on Professor Giotto Dainelli of the Italian
the Russian policy in Transcaucasia is tartlyAcademy has edited a second edition of his
answered by the Georgian D. Charachidze, in Fiume e la Dalmazia (In the series: Geografia
H. Barbusse, les Soviets et la Giorgie (Paris,d1 Italia in Monografie Regionali IlluStrati).
Pascal). Published in Turin by Unione Tipografico'
Ahmed Emin has written what is acclaimed Editrice Torinese. Contains 2 maps and 180
the standard work on Tur\ey in the World War illustrations. Of special interest to persons
(Yale University Press). anticipating a visit to Dalmatia.
C. L. Freeston, in The Roads of Spain (Lon- Otto Stolberg, the Berlin publisher, is
don, Humphrey Toulmin) maintains that theissuing the collected works of Bismarck. Vol.
Spanish roads are the best in Europe. 12, containing the public addresses from 1878
Frederick Whyte has translated and editedto 1885, and Vol. 13, containing those from
the Letters of Prince von Billow during the1886 to 1897, have just appeared.
years iqo3'IQO9, while the Prince was The most recent additions to the Modern
Imperial Chancellor (London, Hutchinson).Library, New York, are Bayard Taylor's
A revised and enlarged third edition oftranslation of Faust, and Havelock Ellis'
Realia for Modern Language Instruction, bytranslation of J.'K. Huysmans' Against the
Mrs. Alice M. Dickson, editor of he PetitGrain.
Journal, has been mimeographed at Middle' Miss E. W. Schermerhorn, in Malta of the
bury College and can be secured for 35 cents
Knights (Houghton, Mifflin), narrates the
of Dr. Stephen A. Freeman, Middlebury,
exciting history of the Knights Hospitallers
Vermont.
who for centuries held a Christian outpost
The University of Washington Press an'
against the Moslem.
nounces for publication this fall: Mexico,
Twelve Woodcuts, by the cosmopolitan Los Andre Maurois recommends very highly
Angeles artist Prescott Chaplin. the Vie de VEmpereur Julien (the Apostate),
Professor Bianchi of the University ofwritten by Professor Bidez of the^ University
Bologna, specialist in Italian influences onof Ghent and published by the Editions des
Goethe, has recently translated certain worksBelles'Lettres, Paris.
of Goethe into Italian, with explanatory notes. Paulo Setubal's Domitila (New York,
Professor A. Pinloche, writing in the RevueCoward'McCann) is the life'Story of the
de VEnseignement des Langues Vivantes of La charming Marqueza de Santos, who turned
Crise de Vallemand, analyzes the problemthe august head of Dom Pedro I of Brazil.
due to the unpopularity of the study ofIncidentally, the book is practically a history
German in French schools, owing to its of the first Brazilian empire.
difficulty as compared to Spanish, Italian and Liang Chi Chao's History of Chinese Polv
English, and urges that it be made a compulsorytical Thought during the early Tsin period is
subject. a recent Harcourt, Brace publication.
Before the war, books which sold a hundred
J. Haller's analytical study of the history
thousand copies in Germany were very rare.
Since the war there are dozens of them, and of Germany, The Epochs of German History,
has been translated into English for Har*
Thomas Mann's Buddenbroo\s will no doubt
court, Brace.
reach the million mark soon.
During the year 1929 the publishing house N. R. Wreden has Englished "or the Van'
of Chiantore, Turin, commenced a new series guard Press the novel of Soviet Russia by
of monographs on subjects relating to phil- Lev Gumilevsky whose English title is Dog
Lane.
ology and folklore. Thus far three numbers
have been published. Each issue is limited Donia Nachshen has made both the English
to 300 copies. The series is edited by Prc translation and the illustrations for Irina
fessors Leicht and Neri. and Dr. Suttina. OdoevtzevaY Russian novel Pied Piper.

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