TRUTH IS MORE SACRED

A lively correspondence between two litterateurs, one an American, the other British, has been collected into this book. The subjects under discussion form the bulk of the major innovations in modern literature -- Joyce, Lawrence, Eliot, James, among others. Mr. Dahlberg serves them up in the role of prosecutor before the world literary court. With rapist- like inquiry he calls his witnesses, a roll-call of epic writers from the Greeks down to Shakespeare. Sir Herbert Read finds himself in the role of defending the subjects on the grounds that it is a sick age which produces a literature of decadence. Both protagonists speak with loving care in the re-evaluation of these writers. These were their gods and certainly ours. Within the context of each the letter writers prove their case. The verdict is that the arguments not only reveal much about contemporary literature but of contemporary life as well.