For three or four years, Drury was the necessary reference to anyone needing a picture of what mattered in American politics, and for at least a generation beyond that, Advise and Consent remained the only novel that easily came to mind when one needed a fictional authority to describe what Washington was.
Drury understood that good, or better, men are formed on the anvil of moral ambiguity — rather than in the certitudes (selfish or ideological) of demagogy.
Drury’s treatment of the racial issue had nothing of the depth of Faulkner or Ellison, that is true; but he understood the issue, in political terms, in policy terms, and even — though he did not have the art to render it as they did — in psychological terms.
Given the period it covered, it is natural that Drury’s diary devoted considerable attention to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his contentious relations with the Senate.
With the subsequent publication of Drury’s diary, readers could look for clues about the identity of the fictional Senators Drury depicted in his novel (which was made as a film in 1962).
Feeds |
Contact