A major study of contemporary literature in terms of its philosophical motivation, evaluations from a metaphysical, rather than literary, approach, -- a contribution for the cognoscente...There are, he believes, two aspects of alienation in the war era, a first toward the philosophy of freedom and individualism, characterized by surrender of absolute standards; secondly, the traditional orthodoxy which has been yielding to communal forces. He illustrates his points through writers who epitomize them - -Nietzsche, Huxley, Heming-way, Dowey, Gide, Silone, Remarque, Dos Passos, Celine...Then the absolutes -- the catholicism -- the tradition -- the transcendentalism, in Hamsun, Lawrence, Belloc, Maritain, Undset, Santayana, Proust, Rilke, Spengler, Odets, Marx, Shaw, Steinbeck, Mann.