The Writer and the Place

There are other enlightening discussions, of Aztec society (a civilization “so excessively sane that it was almost mad”), mining, and the art of Frida Kahlo, for example. There is even a tour of the Anthropological Museum. For the reader drawn to the book less as a fragmentary account of a place than as a guide to the twilight years of West-world, however, the disappointment is acute. All the more so given that one can pick up the unmistakable tone of infinite impatience, lofty compassion and magisterial intimacy — but only as a faint and erratic signal on an old wireless whose batteries are running low. Schweizer’s claim that the book “sums up West’s mature views on politics, philosophy, religion, psychology and culture” is both alluring and slightly misleading. Yes, the book ranges over these big themes, but I don’t read West (or any other writer for that matter) for her views. What keeps readers in a state of rapt expectation throughout the long haul of Black Lamb is the way that the glimpse of fleeting details triggers flights of sustained intellectual investigation. Any conclusions she draws are inseparable from the process (a key word for West, as Schweizer points out) by which they are teased out.

In 1941, West declined an invitation to do a book about the British Empire on the grounds that a certain Lady Rhondda had already devoted a thorough volume to the subject. All this book lacked, West said, were “the fancy bits on religion and metaphysics that I would throw in in my demented way.” All it lacked, in other words, were the things that make West a writer of genius. Her insistence on throwing in these “fancy bits” is as crucial to her achievement as Ackerman’s demented claim that places do not exist is to his. At this early stage of its composition — or, to make the same point the opposite way, at this late stage in West’s life — Survivors in Mexico is insufficiently demented. The fact that one is grateful to Schweizer for bringing it to light should not oblige one to exaggerate the value of the gift he has so diligently prepared.

SURVIVORS IN MEXICO | By REBECCA WEST | Yale University Press 264 pages | $27 hardcover