Lost Generation

THE ONLY portraits in The Generation of 1914 are on the front cover. Behind the jacket lie minor intellectuals drowned in polemics over the presentation of history as influenced by generation. The result is a book more aptly titled Intellectual Views of Generation in 1914.

Wohl's definition of generation is unique. A generation consists of those who view themselves as members of that generation. Presumably, Wohl's unifying theme is justifying presenting dozens of European intellectuals with completely different viewpoints on the war and society, who all, view themselves as being of the younger generation of 1914.

Wohl organizes his book nationally. He devotes chapters to France, Germany, England, Italy and Spain. In the very first chapter, Wohl presents a cluttered montage of the French intellectual scenario around the war.

It is no wonder that the men Wohl presents share their outlook--they are of the same class. Wohl's French are sons of the university professors and bankers. Before the war they sit in cafes and contemplate their youth because they have little else to do.

Wohl presents ten intellectuals in this chapter ranging from Henri Massis, whom he describes as "not an original thinker," but "an aspiring man of letters who throbbed with the ill-conceived ambition of becoming a French leader of youth and spiritual guide," to Henri de Montherlant, who described himself as "a Knight of nothingness."

Herein lies the frustration of Wohl's book. Amidst portraits of arrogant intellectuals who contemplate the dilettante theories of their predecessors lie intriguing portraits of exciting thinkers like Montherlant. Wohl devotes only three pages to Montherlant, an author whose heroes "enjoy the sensation of being able to dispose of their lives the way they chose." This "knight of nothingness" shines as the only important thinker in the first chapter, and he is an obvious predecessor of the existentialists. Yet Wohl makes no attempt to draw out the connection with existential thought. The analysis of Montherlant is a concise summation devoid of historical, literary or sociological context.

WOHL's most effective chapter is on Spain, which he devotes to the writer Jose Ortega y Gasset. Ortega's thoughts extend beyond the contemplation of generation to historical parallels for what he saw as a world in a state of anticipation of a new type of existence. With scholarly thoroughness, Wohl unearths Ortega's lectures on Galileo that illustrate Ortega's vision of history. This chapter is effective because it centers on one man whose thoughts were important, and who was sensitive to the world trends.

The rest of the book reads like a social register of minor literati. This is particularly true of the chapter on England, in which Wohl highlights two poets, Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon, both members of very wealthy families. Their poetry is important, but both lack any type of world framework or vision. Sassoon's poems are tainted by a masochistic love for the trenches. Brook's works are personal peieces of the impact of the war on his love life. Their perception of generation and the world view stems from the privilege and isolation of their socio-economic background.

The chapter on England destroys the credibility of Wohl's thesis: the importance of the individual perception of being of a generation. The Englishmen, like the Frenchmen, do not perceive themselves as belonging to a generation, they perceive themselves as belonging to an elite.

Their vision stems from the isolation of their social backgrounds. Thus Wohl's attempt to "rescue the generation from myth and restore it to history" is destroyed.

Wohl's stated aim is to "shed light on the politics of early twentieth century intellectuals." In doing so, he skips such intellectuals as T.S. Eliot, Erich Remarque and American expatriates like Ezra Pound and Ernest Hemingway, who had both a political and intellectual vision. The negligence of Eliot is particularly blatant, especially in contrast to Wohl's paeons to the inferior poetry of Brooke and Sassoon.

The myth he attempts to rescue the generation of 1914 from is the myth of Pound's "botched civilization," and the devastation of trench warfare in Erich Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. It is also the personal devastation and drunkenness of Jake Barnes in A Farewell to Arms.

THEIR myth embraces history and society. Robert Wohl's history embraces only itself. Wohl waits until the last chapter to breeze quickly over such vital pre-war factors as growing industrialization and urbanization. There is not even a discussion of the intellectuals who contemplated the human crises this modern world caused--no mention of J. Alfred Prufrock and the isolation and loneliness that Eliot detailed in 1917.

In one paragraph--again at the last chapter--Wohl deals with the "revolutionary changes in European political and social structure" that occurred in the early twentieth century. Socialism is tritely termed the "great social and political movement of the day." Wohl tosses in a discussion of social Darwinism, fascism, and nihilism; but there is no comprehensive examination of the impact of these trends on the intellectual climate of the day.

Wohl's book offers no insights, only frustrations. Occasional insightful analyses of the ideas of intelligent men are buried in philanderings over inferior thinkers. These analyses are further dimmed by a lack of any type of social or historical perspective. Wohl's entire premise is wrong, for the myth he tries to rescue the generation from is, in fact, the true intellectual portrait of the Generation of 1914.