“I need another indulgence. In almost all these studies I have found the author himself more interesting than any character in his books, and his career more instructive than the imaginary world by which he revealed or cloaked himself. I varied an old motto, and told myself, Cherchez l’homme – search for the man.” – Will Durant, Interpretations of Life

In 1967, Will Durant published Rousseau and Revolution, his tenth and – so he thought at the time – final entry to his monumental Story of Civilization, a series of books published over nearly four decades, each aiming to capture and convey the essence of a significant era in human history. Eight years later he would give the world his eleventh and truly final volume, The Age of Napoleon. Between these books and before this realization that he had another Story to tell, Durant pivoted to biographize, analyze and reflect on twentieth century literature and its authors; the result is Interpretations of Life.

First published in 1970, the book is titled in appreciation of the widely varied works these authors produced while reckoning the nature of existence. It features seventeen chapters and a several authors more than that. Most authors are given their own chapters. Some are grouped together, such as Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and others in ‘The Philosophers’, and Sholokhov, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn and Yevtushenko in ‘Literature Under the Soviets.’ There are three pairings of writers. John Steinbeck with Upton Sinclair had both passed in 1968 while Durant was writing Interpretations, and so the chapter is framed as a dual obituary: “Each of them fought throughout life against the cruelty of man to man or beast; each struck a lusty blow for justice by writing a book that stirred the nation…” Robinson Jeffers and Ezra Pound are two of the 20^th century’s most controversial poets and so are matched here. Sartre is paired de Beauvoir, being the most necessary dual-biography, as Durant argues that to “divorce” their lives and works is to not fully understand them.

Durant, formerly writing mostly on centuries past, here focuses on the era in which he was living. Several authors selected were still alive at the time of publication. Sartre would live one decade more, and he notes that Solzhenitsyn was working on, but had not finished The Gulag Archipelago. This shift proved to be a non-issue; from his lengthy historical works Durant had developed perspective enough to, as he would put it, “see the part in the whole” even as history was unfolding.The selections are, however, colored by an admission Durant emphasizes in the conclusion, wherein he acknowledges the nature of writing about his own era and the inherent, inescapable bias this comes with. These writers lived and breathed alongside him, and the great and terrible moments of the twentieth century that formed the perspectives of these authors formed Durant as well. It is this sentiment of a shared era that he emphasizes in his final, reflective chapter, and he goes on to thus conclude the book: “The twentieth century is the age of Nietzsche, as he predicted it would be: the age of dictators unmoved by any moral tradition, of wars made more deadly and devastating by the progress of science; the age of the “death of God” for those who lead the parade in thought and power…”

The book excels because it does not confine these great and influential minds to vacuums. Their lives, words and deeds are contextualized and their appearance in the world is framed as the events that they were. Here he repeats the style and format he used in his previous The Story of Philosophy (1926). The writers are provided historical background with thorough commentary on the time and place they inhabited. The major events of their lives are chronicled. Similar space is given to their significant works, wherein the nature of the work itself is discussed, significant themes and purposes are identified, and often retrospectives on the influence they later would enjoy. From The Story of Philosophy he also developed the skill of communicating philosophical ideas, works and arguments with clarity, and this quality is reflected throughout Interpretations.  

Durant is a fair critic. He does not fawn too deeply or dismiss too harshly, seeing both the parts and the wholes of a man’s life and career. The chapter on Hemingway provides an excellent example of this. When focusing on biography, he describes the man himself as “totally alive, and had vitality enough for a dozen matadors. His courage was all the deeper for having to fight fear…” He chronicles Hemingway’s remarkable life, experience and heroisms with such appreciation that the pivot to his writing is almost surprising, wherein he asks if any of Hemingway’s books were “…as rich in incident and character as his life? Excepting The Old Man and the Sea his novels were too timely to be timeless…” And yet, in the chapter’s conclusion, Durant provides the perfect synthesis of these themes and observations: “He left behind him a frothy wake of imitators who used his tricks of tough talk and staccato dialogue, of flashbacks and symbolism and stream of consciousness, but who never rivaled the simplicity, clarity, and verve of his style, or the stimulating challenges of his thought. The imitators fade away, but the figure of Ernest Hemingway remains… Voila un homme!”

He is harshest on Ezra Pound, the target most deserving of criticism out of the authors featured, both for his compensated contributions to Mussolini’s propaganda machines and for his undisciplined literary style – the former clearly the more grievous sin than the latter. Preparing to outline Cantos, Pound’s most controversial poem that was published gradually throughout his life, Durant produces one of the sharpest criticisms to be made on some schools of 20th century literature: “Art ceases to be a communication in significant form, and becomes a crossword puzzle for the leisure class.” He characterizes the lengthy poem as reading “like Socialist pamphlets, and become poetry only through typography.” Nevertheless, Durant still sees Pound as a complicated man, and despite his transgressions in life and literature, he is granted a dignified sendoff: “He was often absurd, even as you and I; but we forget our blunders and hide our sins, while Pound spread his follies over the mercuries of the air…”

He handles a century of diverse literature well. There are many genres, ideas, themes, styles and schools of writing discussed and, while he treats them with fairness, it is impossible to read the many works these wildly differing authors produced without adopting clear preferences. Durant is open about his prejudices and how his responses were formed. He occasionally adopts a confessional style – he wants his biases known and understood. He opens the chapter on Jeffers and Pound: “I have given up the attempt to understand contemporary poetry. I am too old, too bound to prose, to puzzle over the built-in obscurity of twentieth-century verse.” Yet in other chapters he does display a great appreciation for recent poetry, and such statements largely seem intended to not wholly cut down the literary contributions of a man like Pound. He makes a similar admission when he praises Camus in the beginning of his respective chapter: “I confess to a personal prejudice in preferring, for these studies, those authors who have dressed in fiction, drama, or poetry the problems of philosophy, rather than those who sought, by sensitivity, imagination, and artistry, to give some passing beauty a form that could be caressed by generations yet unborn.” These statements do not read like deflections from criticism that seek to turn ignorance or humility into an advantage; rather, Durant is inescapably authentic. He is open about his literary inclinations and how these may have formed his estimations. His honesty is refreshing.

As is his wit. The book could not be called “dry” by any means. Durant’s style is consistently charming and often funny. When writing about William Faulkner’s Sanctuary (1931) being adapted into the Hollywood Film The Story of Temple Drake (1933), Durant states: “The film makers responded, the picture prospered, and a critic called the book ‘one of the finest novels in modern literature.’ It is terrible.” And, concerning Joyce: “In July, 1920, Joyce and his family went to Paris for a week’s stay; they remained there twenty years.” So too is he gifted at finding wit in others, again concerning Joyce, specifically the United States censorship boards deliberation of Ulysses – “The ban against it in America was removed by U.S. District Court Judge John Munro Woolsey on December 6, 1933, on the ground that “whilst in many places the effect of ‘Ulysses’ on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.”’

Interpretations of Life is, perhaps, not as interesting or memorable as his other works – but that is through no inherent mistake; titans of literature though they are, the subjects here largely cannot match the depth or importance of those captured in his various Stories. It is easier to reflect on a few leaders, minds or events that time has concluded held the most influence on an era, and move on, than it is to focus on one type of thinker in an era that time is still deliberating. But the book’s theme was chosen, treated with intelligence and care, and succeeded exceptionally well in fulfilling its purpose. There is some lapse of consistency of form and length, and some may find an injustice here, finding that their preferred authors were allotted a few brief pages where others were given nearly fifty; but this quality too makes the work more honest. There are far more books from interesting people than there is time to read them, and even one as well-read as Durant is no exception.  

There is now some distance between us and the twentieth century. Looking back, it is easy to agree with Durant’s conviction, quoted earlier from the final paragraph of Interpretations, that it was “the age of the “death of God” for those who lead the parade in thought and power…” Yet Durant was not a pessimist, for the quote continues, and the book ultimately concludes: “…But the poets and artists and dreamers are not dead; they will tell new stories, paint new pictures, of our heroes, our achievements, and our possibilities; we shall be inspired and strengthened again; and we shall go on to add to our heritage.”