Yet, though in each land, in this world
of marts and exchanges, this age of trade and traffic, passionate
figures rise up and demand of life what its fever is, in "Foma
Gordyeeff" it is a Russian who so rises up and demands. For Gorky,
the Bitter One, is essentially a Russian in his grasp on the facts of
life and in his treatment. All the Russian self-analysis and
insistent introspection are his. And, like all his brother Russians,
ardent, passionate protest impregnates his work. There is a purpose
to it. He writes because he has something to say which the world
should hear. From that clenched fist of his, light and airy
romances, pretty and sweet and beguiling, do not flow, but realities-
-yes, big and brutal and repulsive, but real.
He raises the cry of the miserable and the despised, and in a
masterly arraignment of commercialism, protests against social
conditions, against the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak,
and the self-pollution of the rich and strong, in their mad lust for
place and power.
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