To the Editor:
I want to congratulate Theodore Solotaroff on his courageously perceptive appraisal of Harry Golden [“Harry Golden & the American Audience,” January]. . . . Mr. Solotaroff’s article is so well documented and his analysis is so well reasoned that he is—I hope—uncontradictable. . . .
(Mrs.) Corinna Marsh
New York City
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To the Editor:
At long last! Golden brought to account! . . . In another magazine Golden had once expressed amusement at what I thought were pretty serious aspects of anti-Semitism. . . . Instead of being outraged by some always dangerous expressions of bigotry, he’d merely been moved to laughter. I can’t envisage any thoughtful—and vitally involved—person contemplating evil and danger with such detachment. . . .
Joseph Gancher
Albany, New York
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To the Editor:
I am Harry Golden’s secretary, from whom he has learned much about Calvinism.
I have just read the article about Mr. Golden in your January issue. It came on the same day that Gerald L. K. Smith’s article arrived in his The Cross and the Flag where he says that Mr. Golden is the most evil Jew in America except for Sammy Davis, Jr.
I am not terribly concerned with Mr. Solotaroff’s dissenting opinion (which as a good Presbyterian I can only say—smells), but I am deeply concerned about his use of the English language. On page two: “He [Golden] was praised as fulsomely [my italics] by the Nation as by Hearst’s Chicago American. . . .” Now what in the world does Mr. Solotaroff have against the Nation? “Fulsome,” according to Webster’s, . . . means: “disgusting or offensive, especially because of excess or insincerity.”
In the interest of good English I would hope that you would publish this letter. It will give me the added satisfaction that there is at least one thing we can teach the Yankees—the meaning of the word fulsome.
(Mrs.) Maureen Titlow
The Carolina Israelite
Charlotte, N.C.
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To the Editor:
Mr. Solotaroff seems to find it somehow reprehensible that Harry Golden should be “so popular” let alone hosannahed by the critics. This is possibly an expression of another American tradition: the one in which “success” remains unacceptable to an avant-garde intellectual. . . .
Be that as it may, Mr. Solotaroff makes a substantial point when he says that Golden reflects and encompasses the ambivalence that pervades American life. It could be said that any writer . . . of substance . . . reflects the main currents of his time.
There are aspects of Golden’s work which Mr. Solotaroff entirely misses or about which he is quite wrong. Prior to his “success” and long prior to the Eisenhower era, Golden published his Carolina Israelite and . . . reached a significant and fertile cross-section of Americans who read. Golden was unambiguous about McCarthy and the “race question” way before the former’s TV debacle and the 1954 Supreme Court decision. It is in considering this last aspect of Golden’s work that Solotaroff is most unfair and incomplete. . . . The pure fact of it is, that if he is not remembered for anything else, which is doubtful . . . Golden will and must be remembered for his immense contributions toward the resolution, however miserably slow, of the race problem. . . .
Golden’s journalism may not suit Mr. Solotaroff, but it has the immense virtue of often being engaged. It is committed. . . .
David Wallas
Charlotte, N.C.
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To the Editor:
I was shocked by Theodore Solotaroff’s article on Harry Golden. To me it was a personal attack on Golden under the guise of being an examination of his “acceptance.” . . .
Golden is not a historian; he is not a sociologist. His books and articles are his personal reminiscences and opinions. He speaks only for himself; he does not pretend to be the messenger for or the representative of anyone other than Harry Golden. . . .
Literary criticism, it seems to me, must examine the literary effort within the framework of the author’s background, philosophy, and intent. Solotaroff’s criticism, in effect, examines Golden’s writings outside of this framework, and, hence, in a fashion, out of context. Solotaroff has not analyzed Golden’s work; he has ruthlessly, and without cause, emasculated it. Not having the courage to do this openly, he does it under the pretext of concerning himself with the reception accorded Golden by the newspapers. . . .
I am thankful that he has informed me that a crowd of “two different people” in one whole week have expressed dissatisfaction with Golden’s works. I am fascinated by the thought that perhaps by now ten people have expressed dissatisfaction. How abominable my taste must be—I like Golden’s work.
As a psychologist, may I suggest, to paraphrase Solotaroff’s closing sentence, that he call his next article “Sour Grapes.”
(Dr.) Herman D. Arbitman
Euclid, Ohio
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Mr. Solotaroff writes:
I appreciate Mrs. Titlow’s concern for precise usage; however, as it happens, I knew the meaning of fulsome at the time I wrote my article. The reviewer in the Nation praised Golden’s “remarkable sympathetic view of the white South in its desegregation travail,” and—fulsomely—related this to Golden’s being a Jew: that is, “the unapologetic product of a close-knit, embattled, defensive community.” Since a good many of the “proud, embattled, defensive Presbyterians of Charlotte” to which he was said to extend his “Jewish” sympathy, made themselves notorious by lining the street to spit at a Negro girl on her way home from a newly integrated school (see James Baldwin’s article in Partisan Review, Winter, 1959, and Golden’s own, rather curious account in For 2/?/ Plain), I found the terms of the Nation reviewer’s praise rather offensive and disgusting, as I imagine most Jews would.
Dr. Arbitman and Mr. Wallas accuse me of making a personal attack on Golden and of misrepresenting his work, their implication being that I did so because I was discomforted by his success. However, my intention—which still seems to me perfectly clear—was to analyze as well as criticize not Harry Golden the man but the writer and cultural phenomenon, and also what could be called today, Harry Goldenism: that is, a form of ingratiating, soft, equivocal, superficial social thinking. In order to establish these views solidly and fairly, I quoted extensively from Golden and from his reviewers—that is, not out of malice or cowardice but respect for evidence.
Dr. Arbitman’s argument that Golden is not a historian or sociologist is beside the point. Golden’s personal opinions often deal with historical or social matters, some of them crucial ones, and since these opinions apparently have a wide influence and effect, they are certainly subject to examination. Thus, I spent about ten pages of my article talking about his “philosophy” and—where demonstrably clear—about its “intent.” I was not writing “literary criticism” and deliberately chose a larger and more revealing “context” in which to view Golden’s appeal. In his haste to attack me, Dr. Arbitman has clearly missed the point of my article.
Finally, I am accused of underrating and emasculating Golden’s achievement. Mr. Wallas points to Golden’s good works in the South, though I thought I gave him credit for them to the extent of my knowledge. I am quite willing to concede and be pleased that Golden’s personal behavior in the South has helped integration, but that was not the subject of my article. Again, I was not writing about the man (this is being done all the time and doesn’t require still another hand) but about the writer and the positions and attitudes he expresses in his books. And there I do not find him being at all “unambiguous” or “committed.” Instead I find, for example, Golden writing that the way to have settled school integration in the deep South was by “humanity”: to accept the Supreme Court decision, but also “to ask men of good will of both races” to accept the fact that “there are sections of the South which will not integrate schools in our generation.” As far as one can make clear from the vagueness of this proposal, the effect of applying it would be to subvert completely the implementation of the decision. In any case, it hardly speaks for Golden’s being “unambiguous” and further bears out my general point that he is simply not the “wise and altogether unafraid” social critic he is taken and praised for. It is not the praise itself that disturbs me, Dr. Arbitman’s professional opinion notwithstanding, but its basis—the extent to which Golden, as Mr. Wallas says, “encompasses and reflects the ambivalence that pervades American life.” That he does so is nothing for him or Mr. Wallas or myself to be happy about.
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