Chapter 54: The Post Editorial Office

Time flew by, and ten days later.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Independence Square - Curtis Center, editorial office of The Saturday Evening Post.

The air in the editor-in-chief's office seemed frozen. Wesley Winster sat in his spacious executive chair, his center-parted hair meticulously combed. Spread out on the polished mahogany desk in front of him was a newly released issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

On the open pages lay the response article from "Ernie Rieser"—[To The Saturday Evening Post: Testimony from the Dust].

He had already finished reading the piece, and now, puffing on his cigar, he felt somewhat surprised by the article's incisive tone.

"Jones!" Wesley Winster called out.

A moment later, an assistant editor walked in. He sported a mustache, wore metal-rimmed glasses, and carried a serious, focused, and slightly pedantic demeanor.

"Mr. Winster, what can I do for you?"

As he walked over, Assistant Editor Jones straightened the hem of his suit jacket to ensure he always maintained a proper, gentlemanly appearance.

As the lead review writer for The Post, he looked much more like an efficient manager than a passionate intellectual or a member of the artistic circle.

"Take a look at this—The Atlantic Monthly's special interim edition," Wesley Winster said, pushing the opened magazine across the mahogany desk. "That author has published a sharp article in response to us."

"Hmm? So soon?" Jones asked in surprise. "It's only been ten days, and The Atlantic Monthly isn't a weekly like ours; how did they manage another issue already?"

"If a magazine has already prepared enough material in advance, and then steps up its editorial and typesetting efficiency, nothing is impossible," Wesley Winster said with a chuckle. The ash at the tip of his cigar burned with a red ember as he murmured to himself, "Still... Edward Weeks is determined to engage us in a debate. This interim issue was probably put together with a lot of overtime work."

At this, Wesley Winster looked up at Jones, urging, "Anyway, take a look at this article. Judging by its quality... no wonder Edward Weeks was willing to publish an interim issue!"

"Mr. Winster, how can you praise the enemy?" Jones muttered, his curiosity nevertheless piqued.

Yet, as a critic who had roamed the literary world for many years, Jones fancied himself well-versed in all types of writing. He felt capable of finding a flaw even in a seamless egg.

With a slight sneer of contempt on his lips, Jones picked up the article and began to read.

...As he read on, his confidence and disdain gradually transformed into anger.

"Sophistry! Classic sophistry!"

He slammed the magazine fiercely into a nearby sofa with such force that it fluttered through the air like a beating butterfly, making a sharp rustling sound. "Using things that have already happened to counter present-day realities holds no persuasive power at all! As a great nation, America is progressing and will never repeat past mistakes or commit past errors!"

The more Jones spoke, the angrier he became. "Besides, this arrogant kid dares to use The Jungle for his argument? Does he think he is Mr. Upton Sinclair? No, he has never conducted any field research, nor is he exposing the truth for the public in dangerous places!

He is merely playing the white man sympathizing with immigrants and Black people, trying to exploit fictional stories for attention and money! Yet he has the nerve to paste the word 'expose' onto his clumsy little story. It's pure hypocrisy, spreading hatred!"

Wesley Winster handed him a cigar. As an old veteran of the editorial world, he wasn't as easily excitable as the young men. "Jones, you must acknowledge the merits of this article if you want to mount a better counterattack. Only a calm soldier can survive the battlefield.

As you said, although the arguments Ernie Rieser used in his rebuttal only represent America's unseemly past, the truths conveyed by those golden sentences are universal. And for a rebuttal article, achieving that much is enough to resonate with the public, don't you think?"

Wesley Winster recalled the sentences from the article:

[...The hostility and fear in my story were not my invention. I merely picked up a few overlooked editorial pages covered in anger.]

[...For literature to remain polite and gentle toward such a world is in itself the most profound hypocrisy.]

[...My novel offers no easy answers. It simply holds up a mirror, reflecting the deep-street shadows of this nation and the grittiest underbelly of this era.]

Indeed, it was quite good.

Regardless of whether these sentences were merely pretty words... didn'#39;t the Führer's frantic speeches in the beer hall also mix in plenty of distorted facts? Yet as long as they were pretty enough and inflammatory enough, they could win a multitude of followers.

Hearing what Wesley Winster said, Jones calmed down as well.

He accepted the cigar cutter Wesley Winster subsequently handed him, snipped the cap, toasted it, and lit it. However, because he puffed too quickly, he burst into coughing.

This left Wesley Winster speechless. While Jones was undoubtedly a fierce warrior in the editorial department, his temper was simply too impatient, charging headfirst into everything!

True to form, after taking only a few puffs of the cigar, Jones could no longer sit still. "I'm going to write a piece right now! The American literary world cannot tolerate this hypocritical, fame-seeking scoundrel!"

Jones strode angrily out of the office.

Not long after, Wesley Winster, who had gone out for lunch, brought back the newly released issue of The New Yorker for that week.

And then... Wesley Winster was so angry he laughed.

—Edward Weeks meant business; he had even brought out the "short-tempered brawler" who guarded The New Yorker's review column!

Wesley Winster looked at the title of the article on the review page: [The Saturday Evening Post: Fear of Reality—On a Certain American Style of Spiritual Evasion, by Edmund Wilson]

[Recently, a minor yet highly illuminating clash has taken place in the literary world. The Saturday Evening Post—that massive-circulation weekly dedicated to portraying a nonexistent America—has launched an attack on a novel titled A Bronx Story, accusing it of moral ambiguity, inciting hatred, and lacking constructiveness.

In this controversy, the critics of The Post have displayed an aesthetic pathology that might be called "programmatic optimism." This attitude demands that novels act as social sedatives rather than diagnostic tools. Their accusation that the young author chose "the easy path" is utterly absurd. In this land, the easiest path is precisely to repeat those comforting clichés.

...

The true courage of this novelist lies in his refusal to simplify American life into a set of predictable inspirational fables. His work continues the naturalistic tradition pioneered by Dreiser and Frank Norris—the endeavor to record, with scientific detachment, how social forces squeeze individual destinies.

Had the editors of The Post read Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, they would know that realistic depictions of tenement life are by no means "incitement," but rather a solemn literary tradition dating back to the nineteenth century.

...

However, The Post's judgment reveals a profound reality: the divergence between them and this author is far from a mere dispute over literary taste; it is a class divide. On one side are those accustomed to observing the world through gilded-rim glasses; on the other are those born and raised here, intimately familiar with the temperature of every brick.

The former demands that literature provide an escape, while the latter insists that literature must bear witness.

A Bronx Story may not be a flawless work, but it at least attempts to tell the story of a real America—an America that is not always bright, but whose honesty makes it worthy of being written about. And the criticism from The Saturday Evening Post represents a spiritual retreat that will ultimately be left behind, much like the age of horse-drawn carriages fearing the railroad, ending up as nothing more than a pitiful anxiety in a historical footnote.]