RE-READABLENESS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19622, 18 May 1929, Page 15

RE-READABLENESS.

BOOKS I SHALL READ AGAIN. [By J. B. Priestley in the '■Bookman."] What is the quality in a book that makes it worth reading more than once! That is the question my friend, the editor of the "Bookman," has put to me. At first it looks easy, but after five minutes' consideration I saw that it was really very difficult. Unfortunately. I know only too well that I will not be allowed to reply: "The quality in a book that makes it worth reading more than once is the quality of re-remlableness." For that is what I want to reply. It is no use my producing one of those solemn lists of the best hundred 'looks, and then declaring that those are the books I read over and over again. Such lists always contain works like Josephus or Bede's Ecclesiastical History, books that I have never Itcen abie to read throuph once. On the other hand, you will not find in such lists any mention of the glorious "Diary of a Nobody" or the works of Mr \V. "W. Jacobs, things I really have read over and over again. This quality of re-readablenes« has nothing to do with the stature and importance of a work of literature. I admit that a work of the very highest class —on the Homer-Shakespeare level —can be read and enjoyed over again times without number. But once you drop below that level —well, it all depends, as people say. Thus "Jane Eyre" and "Barchester Towers" are two outstanding Victorian novels. In any history of the Victorian novel more space would have to be given to the former than the latter. "Jane Eyre" is the more original and Startling production, and had more important consequences in fiction than Trollope's novel. It has, if you like, more of that flashing, incalculable thing in it that we call genius. Nevertheless, the fact remains that I shall very soon be reading "Barchester Towers" again, and not for the second or third time, whereas I have not the slightest desire to read "Jane Eyre" again. I tried to read the latter again a short time ago, and found myself sticking all over the place in it. Similarly I know I shall read Jane Austen's "Emma" again very soon, and am equally certain that I shall not read Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heightß," a work of astonishing genius.

Now it is a mistake to assume that these two Bronte novels have failed in some way with me. On the contrary, both of them succeeded only too well—the very fifst time I read them. Some novels are like that. I remember how, years ago, when I was still in my middle teens, I performed the feat of reading Dostoievsky's great novel, "The Idiot," at a sitting. It was a terrific experience. For one whole day I lived, and lived intensely, in the Russia of Dostoievsky's imagination. I was completely, as we say, carried away. I have looked at the story since, of course, but I have never really read it again, and do not want to. It is the same with the two Bronte novels. The first reading of all these books brought me at once the maximum experience. A further reading was bound to be an anti-climax.

I hope that you have noticed that those three novels have a great deal in common. They are intensely dramatic; and indeed belong to the kind of fiction that is frequently labelled "Drama." Everything in them is compelled to contribute to one central theme. They press on towards an inevitable conclusion. There are no halts by the wayside, no random episodes, no high jinks. Time plays an important part in this kind of fiction. Its characters are not static; they change and develop in the course of the story. Now it is my experience that this type of novel is so tremendously effective at a first reading that it never re-reads well afterwards. We know what happened, after we have read it once, and with these stories that makes an enormous difference. A great deal of first-class fiction must be included in this category of books-that-do-it-the-first-time; some novels by Henry James and Conrad for example, and—to come to moro recent work— j such an excellent thing as Mr I OVFlaherty's "The Informer." There are certain qualities of course that prevent a book from being taken down from our shelves time after time. One of them is stupidity, and we need not dwell upon that. But another, equally fatal, in my opinion, is ness. We have been suffering recently from a surfeit of cleverness in literature. Book after book has compelled us to say: "Well this is very clever. It's astonishing how he (or she) does it. Very smart, indeed!" And when we have said that, we hare promptly put the book away, the author out of our minds, and never bothered our heads again about the pair of them. Cleverness never lasts; it has no roots. The book that startles smart luncheon parties'this year is usually as dead as the mutton on luncheon tables in about two or three years' time. Cry "How brilliant!" and as a rule you have signed a book's death warrant. I have a genuine admiration for Mr Lytton Strachey as a biographer, but nevertheless I believe that his criticism will last longer than his "Eminent Victorians," which I looked at again the other day, only to discover that a great deal Of sparkle had gone out of it. TJris does not mean that "Eminent Victorians" is a failure; on the contrary, it has been a colossal success; but it belongs to the opened-bottle-of-champagne kind of literature; it made its effect quickly, and is now rapidly losing significance for us. It almost seems as if something of the same kind is happening to the brilliant short stories of Katherine Mansfield, for J which again I have always had an adj miration. I tried to read them again the other day, but found that I eonld not enjoy them as I once did, and, curiously enough, two other admirers of hers, both writers themselves, told me that the same thing had happened to them. Again we were told, when last year's books were estimated, that Mrs Woolf's "Orlando" was the year's best piece of fiction. It was indeed a brilliant performance, but I venture to prophesy that Mrs Woolf's previous story, "To the Lighthouse," will be read and enjoyed when "Orlando" is regarded as t little more than a literary curiosity. Our attitude towards books, in the last resort, is not very different from our attitude towards people. Most of Us like to make the acquaintance of all kinds of people. However terrifying or horrible a person might be. we should probably like to meet him or her just once. Given a safe-conduct, it would be great fun to meet Attila, or Nero, or the Borgias. But all these people are not our friends. Now the j difference between readable books and re-readable books is the difference between a host of acquaintances and a f™ old friends. When we read we are -implv going out to parties and the, like "for the purpose of staring at and having a chat with anybody and eveiy- , i H.,f trlif>n we re-read —and by that* I mean read over and over —we are seeing our old friends, the kind of people we are glad to see any time, no matter how tired or depressed . , ve mav feel. Indeed, we ask them to -.lin frfiouently, because we are tired depSLV These books have the qualities of people you can go on and on happily knowing. Admiration may be there, bnt it is accompanied by something else, namely affection. That ia the trouble about mart, clever j

people—they do not inspire affection. We soon weary of their performances. We do not want performances. Shakespeare, the smiling Colons; | Cervantes, with layer after layer of irony beneath hi. fantastic tale, Chaucer, with hisbustHng sudden spurts of poetry t Boswella Johnson, that massive Jump of English character: Wordsworth, with his steady glow; Lamb of the Letters, so rich m friendship, absurdity and wisdom; Jane Austen, with her trim little world, perfectly ordered; Dickens, piling up mountains of fun: these are some of the old friends who will be calling here fairly frequently the moment I have some leisure. There are others, cf course—scores of them; and not all of them are English; some have been dead for centuries; lome are alive now; Mine are this and some Tare that—you conld go on pointing out the differences between them for year*. They are only alike in this: that though I know what they will say and how they will say it, yet I have to listen again and always discover that I am hearing something new and true.