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Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 185, 6 August 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

MEANNESS AND GREATNESS. THE NOVELIST'S CHOICE. (By CYRANO.)' There are several things that puzzle me (perhaps I ought to say "intrigue" —it is so fashionable) about a class of the modern novel —the sort of novel that has no plot worth talking about, is strong in what is called "psychological insight," deals in an unpleasant way with unpleasant people, and* contrives to give one an impression of complete futility and disillusionment. One is that the characters are nearly always rich and idle. That life is a bore to them is, one suspects, largely because they have nothing particular to do. "Satan finds some mischief still —." I believe most of us would be worse than we are if we' did not have to work from nine to five (and sometimes later) for our daily bread, or (in the case of our wives) to keep house day in and day out with little or no hope. Now, even in England the number of idle rich is relatively very small. Why is it that the novelist is so fond of restricting himself not .only to this class, but to the worst members in it? Glamour partly, I suppose. The public are literary snobs and they like to read about butlers and late dinners, and trips to the Riviera. Partly, too, no doubt, because this sort of world suits the new aims and technique of novel writing, including the worship of cleverness at all costs, the dislike of earnestness and morality, the determination not to create heroes, the desire to revel in expensively set adulteries. The Novelist's Characters. Another thing that interests me are the friends and wives (or husbands) of some of these writers. Do they go to real life for their characters ? If so, do they take anything from their friends and their wives (or husbands) and if so, in heaven's name what are their friends and wives (or husbands) like? I have been blessed with a number of friends. No doubt these novelists would thii'k them whited sepulchres, to be analysed to death. I find them, not saints, but decent, straight-going, hardworking, unselfish, laughter-loving men and women. Perhaps, as I have just said, their work is their salvation; they simply haven't time or money for what is ironically called the gay life. I believe all these people to be better than I am, and I find reinforcement in their good qualities. If I were to write a novel I should certainly make use of these qualities and emphasise them. But the novelists I ha.\ e in mind do not seem to think such qualities worth while. They never fall

in love with, any of their characters. They rather regard their creations as a swarm of insects you uncover when you turn over a stone in an untidy patch in the garden. I wonder, therefore, if they have friends and what these friends are like. I am moved to say this, which has long been on my mind, by two protests that arrived in the same week. One is an article by that very robust novelist-dramatist-critic, Mr. St. John Ervine, on "The Common Hero," and the other "A Letter to a Modern Novelist," by that fine novelist in the old tradition, Mr. Hugh Walpole. Mi 4 . Ervine's attack is more direct. Stung by a reference to "ordinary people" in a recent play—and a very good play—Mr. Ervine swings iris sword for real heroes in plays and novels, for something that will stir the young to emulation, for somebody better, not worse, than we are ourselves. No doubt there was much nonsense about the old-fashioned hero, but It was decent nonsense. There is as much nonsenee about the new-fashioned victim of liis environment, the dull, common little men, and most of it is nauseating. For my part I have little desire to associate with "dull, common little men" either In fiction or in life. I see no reason why I should be expected to pay 12/6 to spend three hours in a theatre in the society of people with whom I would not spenO three seconds, if I could help it, in real life. As to giving up an evening to read about them —no, thank you ! Falsifying Life. Mr. Ervine has to meet the objection that to romanticise life is to falsify it, and he replies that to show only superb people is not to falsify it eo much as to show only mean people. The poet must write as he sees, but the poet's readers are entitled to inquire about his eyes. "If we meet no gods," he quotes, "it is because we harbour none." He chastises the habit of pitying to the verge of admiration men deficient in divinity. In another recent play, says Mr. Ervine, admiration is asked for "a neurotic youth who sits about the house all day playing the piano and snarling at his friends and relations," and when this "hero" is drowned everybody weeps. "My single regret was that he was not drowned earlier." The lack of a job of work again, you see. Mr. Ervine thinks the community in danger of moulding itself to the measures of mean little men "Would we not do better to praise famous men in the hope that we may some day become like them, or cultivate the habit of thinking of ourselves as men like gods rather than as men like toads ?" Mr. Walpole's attack is more oblique and subtle.* He writes from shipboard in the Mediterranean a letter of thirty pages to an imaginary young novelist— perhaps not entirely imaginary though who has just published "Camel With Four Humps." The young man had said, in reply to a mention of Trollope, that "you see what makes all these old boy 6 impossible is that they leave off where Proust and Joyce and Lawrence begin," and Mr. Walpole's treatment of "Camel With Four Humps" takes the

form of a comparison with "Barchester Towers." It is an interesting and penetrating piece of criticism, in which we can imagine Mr. Walpole getting a good deal of his own back from the critics of his work. That Mr. Walpole should admire Trollope is sufficient to damn him; but in addition he writes novels that are real tales about real people and exhibit an old-fashioned regard for the decencies. The contrast between "Camel With Four Humps" and "Barchester Towers" is piquant. "Barchester Towers" begins with a paragraph which I hope you remember. In the later days of July In the year 185— a most Important question was for ten days hourly asked in the cathedral city of Barchester, and answered every hour In various ways. Who was to be the new bishop? On the other hand, "Camel" begins as follows: The bell whose echoes broke the symmetry of the quartet round the bridge table closed its sharp querulous anger only just in time, for Lady Clancarty's maid had the colic —indestructably fugitive and the result of a country passion for sheep's head. # Conflict Old-fashioned. We all know—or we all should know • —what happened in "Barchester Towers." There is a series of exciting clashes between characters whom we remember. Three of these characters, says Mr. Walpole, would be recognised as great in any age. But nothing happens in "Camel"—nothing, that is, of any importance. Mr. Walpole takes a chapter and what does he get —"a description of a lady's dress, the scent of flowers, nostalgia on the part of your hero for the black rocks of Assouan, a reflection of Francois Mauriac, a sniff of Paris, the maid-servant's colic, a brilliant jade necklace, two cocktails, and a burst of ill-temper on the part of Miss Winchester." You recognise the sort of thing Mr. Walpole describes, gentle reader? Of course you do. Clever, exotic, brilliantly written, but really only the froth and foam of an unsatisfying world. The "hero" and "heroine" of "Camel," by the way, are sexual perverts. At the end Mr. Walpole arrives by the side of Mr. Ervine. Trollope's characters, he says, are engaged in a battle, which seems, to themselves at any rate, of first importance. There is no conflict in "Camel"; conflict is oldfashioned. "The hero has been banished from the novel and, you are well assured, will never return. I am not so certain. I believe that there is a moral world and that novelists of your generation are losing a great deal by disregarding it." One must thank Mr. Walpole for his vindication of tradition, but one statement here must not be taken literally. The hero has not been banished from the novel —except by a small minority of writers. The public still demands him and will on doing so. *"A Letter to n Modern Novelist." by Hugh Walpole. The Hogarth Letters, No. 9 (Hogarth Press). '