30 / CHRONICLESnEz and Old VORTnby Brian MurraynPound/Lewis: The Letters of EzranPound and Wyndham Lewis, editednby Timothy Materer, New York: NewnDirections; $37.50.nAmong Wyndham Lewis’ nearly 50nbooks are found such classics as Timenand Western Man (1927) and the novelsnTarr (1918), The Apes of God (1930),nand The Revenge For Love (1937). But atnthe time of his death in 1957, Lewis wasnprobably better known for his personanthan for his writings or the brilliantnpaintings and drawings that he alsonproduced for more than four decades.nIn fact, for too many students of modernnliterature, the name WyndhamnLewis continues to evoke little morenthan the image of the sneer-andsombreronwearing “Enemy” who allegedlynbacked Hitler and smeared Jewsnand who—according to anecdotes leftnbehind by Ernest Hemingway andnothers — enjoyed nothing more thanngetting into brawls on street corners andnat literary teas.nAn older and wiser Lewis recognizednthat he was personally responsible fornmuch of the growth of his unsavorynreputation. In the 1920’s and earlyn30’s — when he was far edgier, lessnsecure—Lewis put on a tough-guy posenand, in essays and conversations, didn’tnhesitate to bludgeon his opponentsnwhenever his pistol failed to fire. Duringnthis period he also wrote appreciativelynof those movements hatched bynthe Mssrs. Hider, Mosely, and Mussolini.nApparently convinced that suchnfellows would not only ward off thenRussians but grant a privileged role tonsuch men of genius as himself, Lewisnannounced—in The Art of Being Ruledn(1926)—that “the disciplined fascistnparty in Italy can be taken as representingnthe new and healthy type of ‘freedom'”;nthat, moreover, “for anglosaxonncountries as they are constitutedntoday some form of fascism would probablynbe best.”nLike Ezra Pound—or like T.S. Eliotnor H.L. Mencken, for that mattern— Lewis was never able to express unqualifiednpraise for democracy in itsn20th-century form. But quite unlike thenBOOKSHELVESnincreasingly unstable Pound, Lewis frequentlynand vigorously condemned fascismnas it became clear that Germanynand Italy were engulfed in insanity andncareening toward national suicide.nLewis savaged Der Fuehrer in The HitlernCult (1939); he exposed some of thendangers and absurdities of anti-nSemitism in the ironically titled ThenJews: Are They Human? (1939).nAfter the war, Lewis went after “thenpresent archaic division into ‘nations'”nof what “are really competing businesses,neach with increasingly devastatingnweapons.” Aligning himself with thenlikes of Henry Wallace, Lewis propagandizednfor the establishment of somethingnlike a one-world governmentn—“not a Utopia,” he made clear, “justnsomewhere in which armed groups arennot incessantly menacing each other,nand throwing all ordered society backninto primitive savagery every fewnyears.”nDespite his suspicion of democracynand his disdain for “the horrors ofnHollywood,” Lewis was thoroughlynconvinced that the United States wasnthe perfect model for his “novel cosmopolis.”nThe U.S.—writes Lewis innAmerica and Cosmic Man—is “a placenwhere those conditions of fraternisationnand free intercourse, irrespective ofnrace, class, or religion, already prevail,nor enough at least for a start.”nAs he became a booster of both thenU.S. and of what Clare Booth Lucendescribed as “globaloney,” Lewis alsongrew steadily more skeptical of politiciansnand theorists who looked at collectivenschemes as a means of assuringneconomic salvation and social calm.nThe meditations and short stories innRotting Hill (1951) express Lewis’ fearnthat, in Britain, well-intentioned followersnof Bevin, Attlee et al. were doingnlitde but setting up “an assembly-linenworld” and a vast governmental apparatusnthat could easily be abused. “Thendanger,” notes Lewis in Rotting Hill, isnthat “in its hour of triumph socialismnwill forget, ignore, or violently discardnthe ethics by means of which it was ablento gain acceptance and mount to power:nindeed that it may strip away all ourncivilized Christian freedoms and thrustnback into a system of villainy and worse.nSocialism without ethics is a terriblenthing.”nnnIn fact, quite unlike Pound, Lewis asnhe aged became increasingly interestednin orthodox Christianity. In severalnpieces in Rotting Hill, he frets aboutnthe collapse of Christian belief in postwarnBritain; in The Red Priest (1956), annovel, he unsympathetically portraysnan egomaniacal Anglican clergymannwho is far more interested in fame andnpower than in the humble performancenof his priestlv obligations. Monstre Gain(1955) and fdalign Fiesta (1955)—thenfinal volumes of Lewis’ The Human Agentrilogy—take place in a brilliandy renderednafterlife and focus on a oncefamousnsatirist named James Pullman,nwhose arrogance and contempt forncommon humanity cause him to becomenan associate of the Deil and a ‘nprime candidate for eternal roasting.nIndeed, when he set out to completenThe Human Age, Lewis observed in anletter to a friend that “as a theologian Inam inferior to what Eliot is supposed tonbe.” “That,” he explained, “must benremedied.”nLewis and Pound met in London inn1909. Lewis was 27, Pound 24; bothnwere energetic, combative, and eager tonrid the arts of lingering standards andnpractices established in the days of Macaulaynand Millais. Lewis thus completednthe Nietzschean Tarr; Pound producednImagist verse and workednovertime promoting the work of Lewis,nJames Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and countlessnother writers, painters, and sculptorsnwhose work he admired. TogethernLewis and Pound launched Vorticismn— a literary and artistic movementnwhich drew some inspiration from bothnFuturism and Cubism, and which statednits tenets in Lewis’ short-lived, pucejacketednjournal. Blast.nLewis and Pound never again w’orkednas closely as they did in the years justnbefore the First World War. Eventually,nthey found themselves separated by angreat many miles, and by conflictingnbiases on a wide range of issues. Hencenwe find Lewis in 1946 remindingnPound that “what appeals to you—thenhistorical—leaves me cold”; that “Inenjoy many things that have,not thensame appeal to you: the wonderful landscapesnmet with everywhere in America:nand simple pleasant people (butchers,nbakers, and candlestick makers)nwhom you would despise.”n