The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature

The motives of both types can be united and served by a phenomenon such as “tongue-in-cheek” thrillers.

What are such thrillers laughing at? At values, at man’s struggle for values, at man’s capacity to achieve his values, at man; at man the hero.

Regardless of their creators’ conscious or subconscious motives, such thrillers, in fact, carry a message or intention of their own, implicit in their nature: to arouse people’s interest in some daring venture, to hold them in suspense by the intricacy of a battle for great stakes, to inspire them by the spectacle of human efficacy, to evoke their admiration for the hero’s courage, ingenuity, endurance and unswerving integrity of purpose, to make them cheer his triumph—and then to spit in their faces, declaring: “Don’t take me seriously—I was only kidding—who are we, you and I, to aspire to be anything but absurd and swinish?”

To whom are such thrillers apologizing? To the sewer school of art. In today’s culture, the gutter-worshiper needs and makes no apology. But the hero-worshiper chooses to crawl on his belly, crying: “I didn’t mean it, boys! It’s all in fun! I’m not so corrupt as to believe in virtue, I’m not so cowardly as to fight for values, I’m not so evil as to long for an ideal—I’m one of you!”

The social status of thrillers reveals the profound gulf splitting today’s culture—the gulf between the people and its alleged intellectual leaders. The people’s need for a ray of Romanticism’s light is enormous and tragically eager. Observe the extraordinary popularity of Mickey Spillane and Ian Fleming. There are hundreds of thriller writers who, sharing the modern sense of life, write sordid concoctions that amount to a battle of evil against evil or, at best, gray against black. None of them have the ardent, devoted, almost addicted following earned by Spillane and Fleming. This is not to say that the novels of Spillane and Fleming project a faultlessly rational sense of life; both are touched by the cynicism and despair of today’s “malevolent universe”; but, in strikingly different ways, both offer the cardinal element of Romantic fiction: Mike Hammer and James Bond are heroes.

This universal need is precisely what today’s intellectuals cannot grasp or fill. A seedy, emasculated, unventilated “elite”—a basement “elite” transported, by default, into vacant drawing rooms and barricaded behind dusty curtains against light, air, grammar and reality—today’s intellectuals cling to the stagnant illusion of their altruist-collectivist upbringing: the vision of a cloddish, humble, inarticulate people whose “voice” (and masters) they were to be.

Observe their anxious, part-patronizing, part-obsequious pursuit of “folk” art, of the primitive, the anonymous, the undeveloped, the unintellectual—or their “lusty,” “earthy” movies that portray man as an obscene subanimal. Politically, the reality of a non-cloddish people would destroy them: the collectivist jig would be up. Morally, the existence, possibility or image of a hero would be intolerable to their overwhelming sense of guilt; it would wipe out the slogan that permits them to go on wallowing in sewers: “I couldn’t help it!” A heroes-seeking people is what they cannot admit into their view of the universe.

A sample of that cultural gulf—a small sample of a vast modern tragedy—may be seen in an interesting little article in TV Guide (May 9, 1964), under the title “Violence Can Be Fun” and with the eloquent subtitle: “In Britain, everybody laughs at ‘The Avengers’—except the audience.”

The Avengers is a sensationally successful British television series featuring the adventures of secret agent John Steed and his attractive assistant Catherine Gale—“surrounded by some delightfully ingenious plots…” states the article. “The Avengers is compulsive viewing for a huge audience. Steed and Mrs. Gale are household words.”

But recently “the secret sorrow of producer John Bryce was revealed: The Avengers was conceived as a satire of counterespionage thrillers, but the British public still insists on taking it seriously.”

The manner in which that “revelation” came about is interesting. “The fact that The Avengers is satire was probably the best-kept secret in British television for almost a year. It might have remained that way, but the series came up for discussion during another show called The Critics…” One of these critics—to the astonishment of the others—declared that “surely everybody realized it was being played for laughs.” Nobody had, but the producer of The Avengers confirmed that view and “moodily” blamed the public for its failure to understand his intentions: its failure to laugh at his product.

Bear in mind that Romantic thrillers are an exceedingly difficult job: they require such a degree of skill, ingenuity, inventiveness, imagination and logic—such a great amount of talent on the part of the producer or the director or the writer or the cast, or all of them—that it is virtually impossible to fool an entire nation for a whole year. Somebody’s values were being shamefully exploited and betrayed, besides the public’s.

It is obvious that the modern intellectuals’ rush to the thriller bandwagon was precipitated by the spectacular figure and success of James Bond. But, in keeping with modern philosophy, they want to ride the wagon and spit at it, too.

If you think that the producers of mass-media entertainment are motivated primarily by commercial greed, check your premises and observe that the producers of the James Bond movies seem to be intent on undercutting their own success.

Contrary to somebody’s strenuously spread assertions, there was nothing “tongue-in-cheek” about the first of these movies, Dr. No. It was a brilliant example of Romantic screen art—in production, direction, writing, photography and, most particularly, in the performance of Sean Connery. His first introduction on the screen was a gem of dramatic technique, elegance, wit and understatement: when, in response to a question about his name, we saw his first close-up and he answered quietly: “Bond. James Bond”—the audience, on the night I saw it, burst into applause.

There wasn’t much applause on the night when I saw his second movie, From Russia with Love. Here, Bond was introduced pecking with schoolboy kisses at the face of a vapid-looking girl in a bathing suit. The story was muddled and, at times, unintelligible. The skillfully constructed, dramatic suspense of Fleming’s climax was replaced by conventional stuff, such as old-fashioned chases, involving nothing but crude physical danger.

I shall still go to see the third movie, Goldfinger, but with heavy misgivings. The misgivings are based on an article by Richard Maibaum, who adapted all three novels to the screen (The New York Times, December 13, 1964).

“Fleming’s tongue-in-cheek attitude toward his material (intrigue, expertise, violence, love, death) finds a ready mass response in a world where audiences enjoy sick jokes,” writes Mr. Maibaum. “Incidentally, it is the aspect of Fleming which the films have most developed.” So much for his understanding of the appeal of Romantic thrillers—or of Fleming.

Discussing his own work, Mr. Maibaum remarks: “Do I hear anyone asking sotto voce about the screenwriter’s blushes? If he was the blushing type he wouldn’t be doing Bond screenplays in the first place. Besides, it’s good clean fun, or so he tells himself.”

Draw your own conclusions about the nature of the ethical standards involved. Note also that the writer of the movie about “the two incredible [but sympathetic] kidnappers” did not feel called upon to blush.

“The actual characterization of James Bond…” Mr. Maibaum continues, “was also a departure from the novels… . That concept retained a basic super-sleuth, super-fighter, super-hedonist, super-lover of Fleming’s, but added another large dimension: humor. Humor vocalized in wry comments at critical moments. In the books, Bond was singularly lacking in this.” Which is not true, as any reader of the books can ascertain.

And finally: “A bright young producer accosted me one day with glittering eyes. ‘I’m making a parody of the James Bond films.’ How, I asked myself, does one make a parody of a parody? For that is precisely, in the final analysis, what we have done with Fleming’s books. Parodied them. I’m not sure that Ian himself ever completely realized this.”

This is said about the work of a man whose talent, achievement and fame gave a group of previously undistinguished persons their chance at distinction and at piles of money.

Observe that in the issue of humor versus thrillers, modern intellectuals are using the term “humor” as an anti-concept, i.e., as a “package-deal” of two meanings, with the proper meaning serving to cover and to smuggle the improper one into people’s minds. The purpose is to obliterate the distinction between “humor” and “mockery,” particularly self-mockery—and thus bring men to defile their own