BIOGRAPHICAL METHODS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 142, 12 March 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

BIOGRAPHICAL METHODS

It is by his expert appreciations of musical compositions and performances that Mr. Ernest Newman, the English critic, has won his reputation, but one cannot help wishing at times that he had made literature his main concern instead, writes Mr. Herbert W. Horwill. Occasionally his function of music critic requires him to deal witli histories of music and biographies of musicians, and then we realise what an exceptionally competent literary critic we have lost by his choice of a profession. For sanity of judgment and pungency of style he has few equals. In ills weekly article in "The Sunday Times” it recently fell to his lot to discuss one of tlie worst of tlie many egregious volumes published nowadays about Wagner. His scorching review of it contains a good deal that might profitably be taken to heart by many writers outside the musical realm. This book, he says, belongs to a genre which he finds detestable —a confidential way of treating history and biography as if the writer had been present in Hie flesh at all the events he describes. Authors of this type can tell us exactly where So-and-so was standing or silting when he said this or that, what was tlie expression on his face, what gestures lie made, whether tlie sun or tlie moon was doing its stuff properly just then or not. and all the rest of it. This. Mr. Newman understands, is called re-creating tlie scene of tlie character

It is the easiest of all ways of writing history, lie comments, and die worst. For its perfect accomplishment all you need to do is to extract from a few standard works as many facts as you imagine you require to compose your picture, and then let your fancy loose. The nearer you approach to turning history into a novel the more praise you can count on getting for having “made the subject live.” For himself, however. Mr. Newman confesses that lie is old-fashioned enough to believe that life is never quite like a novel, that the facts even of standard works cannot always be relied on : and that, unless your facts are right, your interpretation of them is pretty sure to lie wrong. When this superficial acquaintance with the facts of the subject is eked out by fantastic theorising, the results cannot fail to »,-t appalling.