Tale of a tale …

… On a Story by Delmore Schwartz - Jewish Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The intense subjectivity of “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” signaled the Partisan Review’s defiance of communism’s collectivist assumptions, political priorities, and narrative style. Its pessimism reflects the Marxist analysis of American doom, albeit without attribution to socio-economic causes. The culprit here is not failed capitalism but the “American dream” and a father who “has always felt that actualities somehow fall short.” On that fateful day, he isn’t ready for marriage, yet he thinks of “big men he admires who are married: William Randolph Hearst, and William Howard Taft, who has just become President of the United States.” Caught up in possibility, he ignores probability—he does not take realistic measure of himself.