Ernie Pyle Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Charles Angoff

Critical Essay by Charles Angoff

SOURCE: A review of "Brave Men," in The American Mercury, Vol. LX, No. 254, 1945, pp. 244-46.

In the following essay, Angoff reviews Brave Men, distinguishing Pyle from the "political philosophers" whose less emotional understanding of war distances them from its true tragedy.

Among the hopeful things about contemporary American journalism are the wide popularity of Ernie Pyle and the recognition of his excellence, at long last, by the "serious" arbiters of literary taste. Some of these arbiters still speak of him with a bit of condescension, claiming that his pieces are merely "reporting of a special kind," very good, of course, but rather deficient in the understanding of "underlying forces." There is, indeed, much truth in this claim. Ernie Pyle does not understand "underlying forces," as the more intellectual journalists think they do.

He is a more modest man. His reporting is really "of a special kind." He does...
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