Existentialism and the Modern Predicament by F. H. Heinemann (review)

440 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY Existentialism and the Modern Predicament. F. H. HEINEMANN. & Charles Black [Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada 212. Existentialism is one of the few possible alternatives, in professional the school of OITUO:iOrmv refuses even to consider the all answers as questions themselves as "bogus') and Refusing to be intimidated such pejorative epithets, some of the most minds of our time have the first and most fundamental question of all, the question as to the nature of human existence. Since rather than the traditional as to the nature of being, is their starting-point, these have been the name Because insist that it is status as a that dis· rnll'''hl'''~ him from the rest of nature which consists of objects, the ....,"'~...... '-V" the thinktheir awareness of a dimension of For this reason, they have d.lS,Cl1='lmles. On the other hand, other than that of ,.,.h.,...,..,..", enables them to into the 1'Y\"ct"'M"'~ than other contemporary philosophies. One of the these phIlO:~Ol='hers hl!ns~:U, a condition U\",::IlA .UJ....,u '-'v~..u..u.'-'-V..l.., is ascribed to the trend of our age, which is bound up with the advance of the m2Lcnme and and which leads to the objectification Of, what is the same thing, the of man. Another tialism, while recognizing the stultifying effects of a highly techsees man's alienation from himself is simply the consequences of his prior estrangement from God. All the members this to the antidote to and to find way to inner reconciliation and rp'nt''''lTl''-:.tir.n"n In the book under review, F. H. Heinemann, who has been familiar with and towards the movement for years and in dose contact with its leaders, describes the searchings and probings of its best-known Jaspers, Sartre, Marcel, and Berdyaev. Three of these are definitely .......LJu...I..::l'u.a..u philosophers a fourth leaves the way open for Heinemann thinks that the dialectic of existentialism SHORTER NOTICES 441 ligion (Kierkegaard) through agnosticism (Heidegger) and atheism (Sartre) back to religion (Berdyaev, Marcel, Jaspers). Man, as a subject , can only be reconciled with himself if he is first reconciled with him whose name is I AM. The seven essays on individual philosophers, which fonn the bulk of this work, are unified by the continuity of an easy and graceful style and by introductory and concluding chapters which are full of original and stimulating comments. On the whole, this book appears to be a reliable guide to a complicated and difficult subject. D. R. G. OWEN Henry James: The Untried YearsJ 1843-1870. By LEON EDEL. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott Company [Toronto: Longmans, Green & Co.]. 1953. Pp. 350. $6.00. Although the last fifteen years or so have seen a greatly heightened interest in the writings and personality of Henry James, no adequate, full-length biography has existed. Now Leon Edel has begun to fill that need with this biography of the first twenty-seven years of James's life; two more volumes, covering the forty-six mature years, are to follow. Readers of James have expected much from Mr. Edel's biography , for few, if any, have a more extensive knowledge of Henry James. They have not been disappointed. Earlier writers on James were ridden by the desire to demonstrate theses about American culture, about Puritanism, about James's personality , or about aesthetic form. Mr. Edel's end has been to discover James as he actually was, to speculate about why he was as he was, and to illuminate the life from the writing. His ruling ideas about James's personality seem to have been arrived at inductively and with discrimination. His major conclusion about the young James is that he was inhibited by a complex of family and social forces from direct expression of his strong individuality, and consequently realized his individuality in his "prodigiously creative art." Direct action for James was rendered impossible primarily by the nature of the tight but chaotic James family. The father seemed to the family a dear but ineffectual intellectual j the mother was paradoxically soft and strong. This ambiguous relation between male and female was intensified...