Cowley's Exile's Return

Though Cowley wrote about American writers who were in self-imposed exile, one can say that it is more important to note in Cowley’s Exile’s Return that when the writers felt that they were in a political and social climate that was not to their liking, they left. These people (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, etc.) saved their money to leave their country of origin to escape an “aging” generation with such different beliefs from them, and wrote in other countries, which provided refuge. It is the ultimate protest.
When something is not to a person’s liking, rather than complaining, or not doing anything at all, leaving is a way to say that the insult endured is more than can be tolerated.

The Audience of Borderlands, Anzaldua

Anzaldua writes in a way that does not seem as though she is speaking to any one Audience. Although there is definitely a sense that there are some things that only Mexican-Americans can relate to, -because of the some Spanish slang that is only understood in Mexico; for her, the reader is everyone: the Immigrant, the Homosexual, and the Feminist, to name a few. So many can relate to the story this woman is telling.
Part of why this is could be due to her being a "hybrid-identity." Nowadays, in America, there are so many people who might be seen as being hybrids. With the interactions of so many cultures in schools and the workplace, there seems to be less of a trend for someone to define themselves as any one thing.
It is so provocative to think that in America, everyone is everything (or at least more than they used to be), which allows all people to identify with others through ever-growing ties that bind and almost forces all to recognize that they are responsible for, but more importantly, are like, one another.

Exile's Return

One of my favorite things about reading a text is when I am reading and I am getting quite bored, but then I come across something unique and interesting. I can say this of Section II of Cowley's text, in particular when he lists from 1-8, the "system of ideas." I found this so interesting because it sounds like something that would not only pertain to that time, but to the mid twentieth century and even the present. The quest for artists, writers in this sense is a never-ending quest for knowledge, individualism, and social acknowledgment. The artist is forever in exile. As much as he writes of recognizable things, he looks for his reader to interpret the not-so-recognizable.

I find one hypocracy of this text, however, if the writer, the artist is searching for individualism, where does that individualism begin and end? If one were to dissect this text, they would find various hypocracies. The narrative voice is obviously very intellectual and well educated. However, in promoting and supporting the individual artist, why does he list various other artists with a demeaning voice at times? Was his intention to impose judgment?

One other comment on the era: the writer does an excellent job of taking the reader through specific events of WWI. The impact of warring times on writership and vice versa is a great one. The historicity in this text was perhaps the most interesting aspect in my opinion.

Exile's Return:
The most intriguing part of the reading in my opinion was the section entitled: Mansions in the air. Towards the end Cowley speaks about what he thinks was the final effect from the war . He describes it as " the honest emotion behind a pretentious phrase like "the lost generations". Cowley speaks about feeling uprooted both physically and spiritually and "scattered among strange people". i want to focus particularly on the part where he says they were "infected with the poison of irresponsibility- the poison of travel too, for we had learned that problems could be left behind us merely by moving elsewhere". I find it interesting that he would describe their nomadic lifestyle as being a poison. one definition of poison is: a substance with an inherent property that tends to destroy life. Cowley ends this section speaking about how they returned to New York and speaks describing it as the "homeland of the uprooted" and he no longer has the view point of the lifestyle being a poison but now it was simply back to their normal lifestyle. Later Cowley explains the effects of that lifestyle. (46-47)

"In college we never grasped the idea that culture was the outgrowth of a situation-- that an artisan knowing his tools and having the feel of his materials might be a cultured man; that a farmer among his animals and his fields, stopping his plow at the fence corner to meditate over death and life and next year's crop, might have culture without even reading a newspaper. Essentially we were taught to regard culture as a veneer, a badge of class distinction-- as something assumed like an Oxford accent or a suit of English clothes."
Coming from an honorary member of the "Lost Generation", I found this statement particularly striking. Since so many people who belonged-- or felt they belonged-- to that group of unique traveling intellectuals defined culture as something to be achieved through deliberate pursuit, it was surprising to see that Cowley saw it differently. As Cowley himself suggests in the above passage, he and many of his colleagues were taught that the truly cultured individual needed a deep, comprehensive knowledge of the world, its politics, languages, and high societies. To me, the fact that Cowley was later able to admit the possibility that culture might come naturally-- as "an outgrowth of a situation"-- made me respect him and appreciate his work more. It removed it from unappealingly lofty intellectualism and served as a reminder that someone smart and "worldly" could also respect the culture of a simpler existence.

Time in Exile's Return

I noticed an interesting transition between section I and section II of Malcom Cowley's Exile's Return. Section I ends with the following: "We returned to New York, appropriately --to the homeland of the uprooted, where everyone you met came from another town and tried to forget it; where nobody seemed to have parents, or a past more distant than last night's swell party, or a future beyond the swell party this evening and the disillusioned book he would write tomorrow," (Cowley 47). This represents the prevalent attitude that members of the "Lost Generation" began to take on. Section II demonstrates how this lifestyle played out. During "The Long Furlough" Cowley begins to describe life in Greenwich Village. The post-war passage of time is intriguing. Cowley rarely, if ever, comments on time transitions in the first part of the book, but this section is filled with reminders. His diction is critical in fully capturing the mood of these changes; "February blustered into March" (49), for example, shows the suddenness and extreme nature of the change. Just a paragraph later, "It was April now," (49). Cowley essentially does a month by month breakdown of what is going on, and even within this, there is an odd fixation on time. The happenings of each day of the week are described at length. The good times weren't to last forever, however: "But it couldn't go on forever. Some drizzly morning late in April you woke up to find yourself married," (50). Before long it was "late June," and eventually the furlough was over. Life's seriousness continues to build from month to month, and with each passing month the mood changes. This is in stark contrast to how Cowley describes life in much more general terms pre-war. Perhaps a recognition of the passage of time and the changes that time brings was something born out of the war experience.

I also found this quotation to be very telling of the exile experience: "We had come three thousand miles in search of Europe and had found America, in a vision half-remembered, half-falsified and romanced," (83). The search, for many, was more hopeful and less depressing than what was ultimately found. This may be a commonality to many exiles, which is why they may not truly be able to return "home" in the symbolic sense, or appreciate home in its literal sense. The notion of home may never truly even be what they idealize, but that won't necessarily stop an exile from desiring to return there.

Home

"---a parcel of the soil not wide enough
or firm enough to build a dwelling on,
or deep enough to dig a grave, but cool
and sweet enough to sink the nostrils in
and find the smell of home, or in the ears,
rumors of home, like oceans in a shell" (Cowley 15).

The quote above, taken from Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return describes the sincere longing a person or people feel for a place entitled home- and when that feeling of home is gone, or rendered unattainable, that feeling of home is only able to survive in memories. The quote above, part of a poem details the earnest memories contrived from such simplicity as soil, or a shell that beholds the whole of life for a singe person, or groups of people.
The first chapter of Exile's Return: The Blue Juniata conveys magnificently the in depth description of a home or place where one belongs, and then the nostalgia sets in, for the description was a memory. Cowley's childhood narrative differs from his adolescent narrative-for the tone changes- the initial thoughts of home are infiltrated with images of war.
The book traces Cowley's experiences as a child coming of age would-as a child one does not realize the effects of the outside world until adolescence. At that point the readers are aware of the changes to that place called home, and these changes produced exile. After the war, never again will life and home return to that initial state of contentment that Cowley spoke of.

What's with Writers & Nature?

After reading Prologue 1 I noticed a heavy emphasis on Nature, the narrator used many rich descriptions of Nature to identify with his childhood. In the beginning Cowley was at the peak of youth where he provided us with a vivid imagery of the lush trees, mountains, flowing rivers, cornfields, millwheels and so on, but as time went by the description also intensified, it became more rugged or aged. From this observation, I can make the assumption that Nature, Childhood, and Innocence are connected somehow or the other. But more importantanly, Nature and the internal mood of the reading seemed to be connected on some level. Cowley describes his childhood filled with insightful images of Nature, childhood is uauslly filled with Innocence and simplicity. As the reading transended from childhood to his college life, the shift began, for example, "We are like so many tumbleweeds sprouting in the rich summer soil, our leaves spreading while our roots slowly dried and became brittle".(p.36) Here we see that Nature is no longer prestine, but rugged. Moving right along into the last section of Prologue 1, when the war took place, the ultimate downfall of Nature, dead bodies, helemts, trenches, the entire mood changed. These are just a few examples that show how Nature and the internal mood were inter connected one way or the other. Maybe it was a writing style Cowley used to connect the two aspects, but whatever he meant by incorporating the two, it made perfect sense to me. What can I say, it is writers and their fascination with Nature; as the plot progresses, so too with time Nature also progresses.

by: Cindy Gobin

SIGNIFICANCE OF PLACE

What struck me the most in the story was the fact that there had been many writers, not only Americans, but European writers as well, that sought out refuge and went to Paris, which was considered the "Lost Generation". A sense of alienation is noticed all through the story, as most the writers flee to Europe. Also many people besides these selected few writers, were affected by the war financially as the Great Depression approached in the late 1920s.
One interesting thing in the story was the significance of Greenwich Village. The fact that it was a considered a doctrine ( Cowley 59). In my opinion it was looked at as a place of salvation, and also word of mouth, because people at that time were not thinking correctly probably because of the affects the war had.


Keldy Ortiz

A Strong Justification for a Nomadic Behavior

When one first encounters the characters in the The Sun Also Rises one immediately wonders about their mental and emotional state. The characters all have extremely self-destructive and irradical behaviors, they all engage in extreme drinking and emotional and physcical dissatachement as well; they all travel together with absolutely no aspirations or goals, and they easily get bored. However, once the book is read with the background and historical information provided by Malcom Cowley in his book Exile's Return, Hemingway's book reads as extremely logic, and his characters read as realistic and expected of the time. One becomes more sympathetic and understanding of their culture ("The Lost Generation").
Cowley makes a great point when he points out that most of the culture that was to be created was an immediate result of what one may call a war culture. "We were fed, lodged, clothed by strangers[...]we had learned that problems could be left behind by us merely moving elsewhere" (Cowley 46). This quote is particularly striking because it explains much of the bohemian behavior that was to arrive as soon as the war would be over, many of the people that went through this process would come home and not find what they had for so long illusioned or pictured, or what they remember to be home. They found responsabilities and worries and a home that was not their "ideal" home. So they went out and looked for it, and Europe was the talked about "ideal", but as Cowley points out they could not find it there either. Spite their findings they still had something that drove them elsewhere to move from place to place, to find the "ideal" home, one can not clearly assume that it was hope that drove them, because it seems as if hope is lost until this point.
Also, Cowley justifies much of the irradical behavior to what may have been the constant looking for following the right path, or the desired behavior, Cowley clearly states that they needed "guidance" and happened to look in the wrong place, or found the unforeseen (Cowley 107-108).