Welsh Journals

COMMENTS ON IN PARENTHESIS" What am I to say about In Parenthesis ? It is the voice of my generation: had I been poet enough, with the eye of a painter and the ear of a musician, it might have been my own voice. For David Jones and I served in France in the same battalion, the London Welsh. The tale I told seven years ago in an infantry man's prose, he has made into poetry, into music, into painting, and into a new legend. I have praised the book elsewhere, and I could praise it again. Its virtue is so great that it ought not to be belittled by over-praise. Read it, and listen to the sound of War in its words. Do not read into it more of Wales than its author would claim to know: he spent years searching for the truth, and he would not thank you for half-truths. WYN GRIFFITH. In Parenthesis is the first truly Anglo-Welsh product. I think it occupies in literature a position exactly parallel to Ulysses which is the first truly Anglo-Irish product. Literature begins with Epic. Homer starts the Greeks off. U is the first born of the irrevocable fusion that has gone too far between Celt and Saxon for us to put the clock back. Similarly In Parenthesis is not folky- Welsh nor aping English. England and Wales have very largely fused, and "In Parenthesis is the first of a new race. In Parenthesis is more likely to make our national peculiarities international than the mouthings of D. T. (Oh dear me Ed.). Further comparison with Ulysses. I respect Jones because he has the good sense and courage to put notes to his work. This is a sign of greatness, I think. Eliot did the same; Pound did not, because his fabric would have been shown up if he had. Joyce could quite easily have put notes to Ulysses, but words are his master-no control. Jones has adequate control. A minor point. Jones stresses the importance of petty dis- comforts-the chafing shoulder strap, blistered toes, etc. These are the things that fill one's whole horizon at the time, as you will know if you have travelled as rough as I. Here at last is a chance to make our national history and literature better known. NIGEL Heseltine.