The Press. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1910. NOVELS LONG AND SHORT.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13876, 29 October 1910, Page 8

The Press. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1910. NOVELS LONG AND SHORT.

What is the right length for a novel? This apparently unanswerable question has been exercising the minds of many people in the literary world at Home. A contributor to tho "British Weekly" started the ball rolling by saying that " a hundred thousand words, or *_50 " pages, remains the comfortable length "of a story," and many of the leading lights of nresent-day fiction have join.d iv the game. Mr William de Morgan, one of the writers who havo proved that this busy ago is not too busy .o read long novels, claims that it is unfair to test novols of action and novels of character "by the samo standard. Novels of action, ■'which contain no " characterisation whatever," should be bright, quick things, capable of being read in an hour or so, while novels of character should continue just so long as the characters go on developing. The qualification " no characterisation whatever" narrows the field of illustration, but , "Monte Cristo " suggests itself n__ an < example of a long novel of action that j could not be shortened. Miss Will- ; cocks, thinking of jaded reviewers, j suggests that a novel should bear on its ( title-page some such notice as "Novel < " of character; must be borne with," or . "Novel of action; may be rushed." It i is impossible, however, to obtain from i 1 the voluminous correspondence on the . subject any definite consensus of , c opinion as to the actual number of < words that ought to be put into a novel, _ or the limits beyond wliich the novelist £ in all his variety of work should not go. < Chat to and Windus give their blessing ■ to the book of 100,000 to 120,000 £ words, and think that the latter length < is enough for any novel. Yet two of 1 this firm's most successful books were i "The Cloister and the Hearth" __u« 1 "It's Never too Late to Mend," both t of which contained over 250,000 words, t Perhaps the only definite conclusion to t be derived from the discussion is that | 1

tho British public likes its novels fairly lnnpc, but not too long. It objecte. and with good reason, to payins ( 5- for a 50,000-word book : it likes "fat volumes. On tho other hand, Mr de Morgan's ''It Never can Happen Again." a hook of 300,000 words, was too much for the average nmdor. Tlio chief editor of Cassei! and Co. admit-, that hi_ firm uoui_. politely decline the manuscript of "Don Quixote," which would make about three modern novels, and that it "Richardson called in now with "Clarissa Harlowe" ho would sink through tho floor. Tlio question is really one to which thero cm bo no finality. A discussion such as this is interestinc. because it gives us tlio views of interesting people, but it loads nowhere. Ono cannot set rules for genius. "A good " book cannot bo too !o;*2*. nor a bad ' ; one too short," says Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and really thero is little more to be s.-iid. Mr Benson points out the obvious when ho remarks that the comfortable limit of a story depends on the story. •■Cranfurd" is a masterpiece, and we would not havo it lengthened or shortened by a word. "Vanity Fair" is another on which one would suffer no literary carpenter to lay a hand.- One is short and tho other long. No lover of literature v ants 'Silas Marnor" lf-iigthen_d or 'Middlemarch" cut down. Between "Dr. Jokyl! and Mr Hyde " and "Don Quixote" lie many masterpieces of varying size and style. -i A good book, like any ' other work of man's creation," says Mr Hilairo Belloc, " should bo " fitted to its end, and bo within " a framework that gives it utility." Mr H. G. "Wells and Mr E. F. Benson think it would bp just as reasonable to fix a "comfortable limit" for a picture as for a book. An artist suits tho size of his picture to his subject and the inclination of his talent or genius, and the novelist must be given tho same latitude. That latitude is very wide, for Romain Rolland's "Jean " Christophe," which Mr Edmund Gosse considers " the noblest work of fiction of tho twentieth century," is now in its tenth volume! Tho English novelist, however, is often handicapped by commercial considerations. There seems to be little or no demand for the "short long story," wliich has been developed with such artistic and financial success in France. The British public as a rulo does not care to read tho 20,000 or 30,000-word tale, and tho experiment of printing two such stories in one volume has not been successful. This is a pity, for there are many themes that can bo developed artistically in 20,000 words, but not in 80,000. To soil his work, tho novelist often spins out to tho greater number of words a story that should be told in the lesser number, and tho result is verbiage and tediousness^—in short, bad art.