новия

The present notes on the latest English novel are by no means exhaustive and are intended rather to outline some common and interesting features in the literary life of contemporary England. They are limited to four or five works by younger novelists: "Happy Jim" by Kingsley Amis, "A Place at the Top" by John Brain, and "This Is Love, After All" by Stan Barstow, "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" by Alan Sillitoe. All these authors belong in spirit to one trend - they are more or less among the so-called "sirdites" or "angry young people" - and they are connected by a certain community in concepts, and even in their means of expression. Whatever shortcomings the "angry ones" may have, however justly they may suffer attacks on many points, they have nevertheless managed to assert themselves in English literary life and even, in a certain sense, to occupy a commanding position, to set its tone. With all reservations, they remain, both as a whole line and as separate achievements, the largest, central phenomenon in English literature of the last few years. On the one hand, they are very indicative of the moods and psychological reactions of the young English intelligentsia, they expressed a certain stage in the development of its thinking; on the other hand, both criticism and the large circulations of the above-mentioned novels point to them as the best among all the rest of the production. That is why it would not be entirely arbitrary to limit an analysis mainly to them - it would indeed not illuminate the whole problem, but it would cover the core of the problem. Of course, it should be immediately reminded once again that this is not a comprehensive review of the English novel and that a number of novelists known to our reader, such as Graham Greene, James Aldridge, Jack Lindsay, are beyond their scope.

I wouldn't call Kamen Kalchev's new novel a "coup" in the writer's development, but it is undoubtedly a pleasant surprise. An author who has been visibly gaining momentum lately has reached a higher point of creative self-realization. It is hardly correct to say that he has surpassed himself. Rather, he has surpassed certain ideas of criticism about his creative possibilities. Because even in his most contemporary books in terms of subject matter, in his most noble responsiveness to the conflicts of the current day, Kalchev satisfied critical demands halfway, kept critical approvals at a very moderate level.

In the sharp disputes that are being waged today about socialist realism and its relationship with modernism and critical realism, the problem of the formation of the new hero acquires special significance in those authors who come to socialist realism from modernism through critical realism. The correct solution of this question makes it possible to give a more complete and true picture of the contemporary literary process - on the one hand, and on the other - to overcome as dogmatic a number of concepts and opinions that objectively diminish the role of the writer as a creative personality, detach the problem of the formation of the new hero from the ability to assimilate the great example of the classics, from questions of innovation, artistic form, etc.

With "Two in the New Town" Kamen Kalchev enters the spiritual world of the ordinary person, reaches psychological generalizations, subordinated to a broad ideological concept. K. Kalchev proves that he is a writer with a wide range of creative interests, that he discovers something more in the thoughts and feelings of people of our time, presents the drama of the person from our society. His hero is placed in a contemporary setting, and this already determines his behavior, revealed in the aspect of social development. There is nothing tragic if the hero experiences his drama, the main thing is in the name of what he does this, what he is guided by. And Marin Maslarski is guided by humane feelings, by the thought of being useful, of being a person above all.