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Politics: Reading the Papers
On the first page, review of Brecht by Spender. Asks the tough question last: how come he Clammed up about Stalin? — Because, you see, Brecht could “play games with evil,” with no tender Conscience, for the sake of future good. (I render The prose down to its shred of meat.) Page three, It’s Solzhenitsyn — getting by memory His prose and verse, in the gulag. Old non-bender. And in the News, Bukovsky (Vladimir, I mean): “I don’t like certain ideas because They bring terrible results.” His prose is clear. “The most dangerous thing is when you start To limit your conscience” for the noble cause.… Cold dusk, and time to run … where’s the tide-chart?
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