The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1932. The Echo and The Sun.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 72, 26 March 1932, Page 8

The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1932. The Echo and The Sun.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Many readers will think that when Prince George says there are novels that "should have been operated upon for gangrene at a point approximately two-thirds through," he is a little too kind. Certainly there are books that develop sex gangrene long before that stage. This London discussion that was reported a few days ago—Prince George spokt, at the Book Society and Mr. Max Pemberto:* and the "News-Chronicle" carried on hi? protest —draws attention to a stato of things that for a discreditably long time has been a scandal. And it is a .scandal that grows worse. There are books published to-day, and some of them praised in reputable journals, that ten, or even five years ago, leaving out of consideration generations, probably would not have found a publisher. They are sodden with sex, their characters arc often uninteresting as well as vicious, and they contain situations that recall that penetrating remark of James Russell Lowell about such garbage, that on it might be inscribed the old inn announcement: "Entertainment for Man and Beast," The willingness of the ago to accept as literary currency discussion of subjects generally barred in'polite society has probably never been illustrated better than in the popularity of a small book recently issued in America by a leading house. It is concerned with domestic sanitation, and is supposed to be humorous. It is openly displayed in respectable shops and its sales amount to nearly a million.

The license of to-day is partly a reaction from the nineteenth century prudery that sometimes went to such absurd lengths as to deny or ignore facts of sex. Scott, yielding to his publisher's opinion that the public would not stand it, omitted from "St. Ronan's Well" the fact that would have made his heroine's agony of mind intelligible. To-day such a fact would hardly cause a tremor. Later the persecution for her reforming zeal of Josephine Butler, one of the noblest of women, was an indication of the strength of popular taboos. But freedom is not the same as license, and the freedom that has.been won is being sadly abused. The talk of the right of the artist to depict life in all its phases, and in any way he likes, is often sheer humbug and hypocrisy. There are fundamental decencies, and there is no more justification for flouting them between the pages of a book than for violating them, in a breach of the law, in the street. Some writers and artists are obsessed with sex, and give it an importance greater than it has in life. Some are indecent out of bravado and a love for "shocking the bourgeoisie." Some are victims to types of perversion that, shown in other directions, land people in gaol. And some—perhaps a good many—exploit sex because it pays. There is a fashion in sex just as there is in detective stories, or as there was in historical romances, and there are always plenty of writers to supply such demands.

For the present state of affairs the timidity of critics is in a measure responsible. The complacency of the English Press in the presence of this flood of filth has been astonishing and disturbing, and the distinguished Englishman who recently ascribed this to fear of being thought reactionary or straight-laced drew attention to an important factor. The critic used to be afraid of Mrs. Grundy. Now he is afraid of the young person who, in "Punch's" phrase, was born with a latch-key in her mouth—to say nothing of his professional colleagues. »

Ho will go to any length to evade such an imputation, and a good example of this timidity can be found in reviews of books by an author recently deceased who has been ruthlessly commercialised. In this as in other cases a conventional jargon has been devised, and it may be argued that we should be able to detect the nature of the book by the type of phraseology employed by critics. Thus we gather that this class of novel is for a special public—is issued partly from a sense of duty by the publisher. Then we are told the book is arresting, fearless, direct, provocative, stimulating, audacious. It is not for children; it is challenging, outspoken, courageous, disturbing. It is stark. Of all the fatuous words used in this ridiculous catalogue of synonyms for "indecent," assuredly "stark" must take the palm, though by now we should know exactly what it is meant to convey or conceal. And if the books in question have had a collision with a, Metropolitan police magistrate, even if the Paris traders promptly reprint at flattering prices whatever is banned in London —well, somebody is turning an honest penny, and the English critic has at least shown himself to be free from restraint and to be no friend of Victorian prudery.

This writer pleads for a revival of vigour in criticism, and justification for such a plea is not confi'ned to this particular aspect of literature. Ear too many geniuses are discovered in these days; praise is much too easily won. "The importance of the critic is as great as ever, his constructive duties more than ever required, and yet, in spite of reluctances which occasionally peep through his reviews, one is impressed by an amiability which is becoming almost universal. It is a bad habit—sometimes just an indulgent pose, more often the result of the good-nature of an author-critic towards a critic-author, who in turn will one day review the reviewer; for the Press critic of to-day is the publisher's hero of to-morrow." If a book is indecent, this writer goes on to say, let the critic say so, "and not talk round and round it in queer evasive language." The trouble is that such criticism often gives a book an undesirable advertisement, and silence is sometimes better. Every reviewer at times is troubled by the question whether he should condemn or ignore. Only, however, by a combination of both methods, coupled with more courage on the part of publishers, will tbe flood of obscenity be lessened. In the background is the possible weapon of a book censorship, but it is recognised that this would be a very last .resort. .•••■—'" , ,