The Bookman

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 152, 29 June 1935, Page 24

The Bookman

NOTES ON THE NOVEL .READER AND AUTHOR A MUTUAL OBLIGATION (By "Quivis.") If in dealing somewhat discursively with a few among the many aspects of the novel one finds at times a difficulty in exact expression, there is this to be said by way of extenuation thai one finds oneself in good company Mr. Percy Lubbock, Whose little boob "The Craft of Fiction" is a real guide to the reader as well as to the writer says at the outset:—"We know ol novels which everybody admits to be badly constructed, but which are sc full of life that it does not appear tc matter. May we not conclude thai form, design/ composition, have' a rather, different bearing upon the ari fof fiction than any they may have else where?" And he goes on to say:— And moreover, these expressions, as appllec to the viewless art of literature, must lit ii Insecurely at best—(loos it not seem so'/ 'l'hej are words usurped from other arts, words thai suppose a visible and measurable object, painted or carved. For criticising the craft ol fiction ,wo haVp no other language than thai which has been devised for the luaterlal arts: and though wo may feel that to talk or tin colours and value and perspective of a novel is natural and legitimate, yet these are oulj metaphors, after all, that cannot bo closelj pressed. A book starts a train of ideas in the head of the reader, ideas .which are massed and arranged on some kind of system; bin It 1b only by t.ho help of fanciful analogies tint We can treat the mass as a. detinue object. -Such phrases may give hints and stipeestions concerning the method ot the novelist; the whole affair is too nebulous for more. . . The literary critic, with nothing tc point to but the mere volume in his hand, must recognise that his wish to be precise, to be definite, to be clear and exact in his statements, Is hopelessly vain. WORDS ABOUT WORDS. Is criticism then merely the spinning of words about words? Is it simply telling the public how one reader likes or dislikes a bdbk, with a vanity of effort to say why? Well, in particular instances, it is not much more than that, and, as I said last week, there will always be some difference of opinion, because no two readers are alike in their receptiveness to the particular things the author has to tell and the way he tells them. Even of acknowledged classics, if one could get the real truth, one would find that some people cannot stand Dickens and prefer Meredith, while others will hold just the opposite view. But a critical reader—critical in the sense of being prepared to act as judge will be fair. He will feel that, if the author has the obligation to the reader of putting his case as clearly and as ably as possible, he, the reader, must in turn do his duty by keeping his mind in a suitable condition to receive the impressions the author intends to convey. This Mr. Lubbock expresses very finely:— The reader of a uovel —by which I mean the critical reader—is himself a novelist; he is the maker of a book wheh may oc may not please his tasto when it is finished, but of a book for which ho must take, his -own share of tho responsibility. Tho author does hla part, but ho cannot transfer his look like a bubble Into the brain of the i-i-itlo; lip cannot make sure that the. critic will possess his work. The roader must theroforo become, lor Ills part, a novelist, never permitting himself to suppose that the creation ol tbu book is solely the affair of tho author. ■ . Both of them make the novel. Now this is more than a mere .academic matter of no importance in practical life; it strikes at the very origins of literary work. If readers generally could learn- to take their reading in this way and try to find what the author is doing, there would be created thereby a body of critical opinion that would condemn at once the greater part of the mass of rubbish that still continues to find its way into print and disfigure the shelves of bookshops arid libraries. \ FOB BETTER JUDGMENT. Is such a transformation of public taste possible? Well, a great deal might be done, if a start were made early enough in the life of those who will be the readers of the future. This means the schools. They could do far more' than- they do, if only they had the time and could rid themselves of the curse—of New Zealand education, at any rate—of that Old Man of the Sea, Matric. Some years ago there was, a master at one of our chief secondary schools who achieved astonishing results in his teaching of English in the lower forms, laying the foundations of such good taste in literature that, if his work could have been continued, we might'have had the nucleus of the judgment that distinguishes ai a quick survey the difference between the good and the bad. Unfortunately lie left this city, apparently without a successor, to carry on the good work elsewhere. A score of teachers like him and we might get somewhere in New Zealand literature. la England there has been a remarkable improvement in recent years in the average quality of craftsmanship that goes into ■writing of all kinds and this is no doubt partly due to the better teaching of English in the schools, while the educational work of the wireless broadcast will add the extra touches. A proper understanding of this mutual obligation between reader and author would lead to an earlier appreciation of originality and greatness in ■writers and help them,to live in reasonable comfort and do their life-work as it .should be done. The George Meredith quoted last week was for sheer brain-stuff probably the greatest ol English writers after Shakespeare, but he was never able to make a decent living out of his writing; he had to live by reading, that is as a publisher's reader, criticising the manuscripts submitted for publication. Nc wonder he was sometimes bitter. In his plea to perusers to rally to the philosophic standard for fiction quoted last week he said so much that was wise that he may be quoted again:— Gallant pens are alive, one can speak ol them In tho plural. I venture to, say that they would bo satisfied with ji dozen for audience, for a commencement. '-They would perish of Inanition, unfod, unapplauded, amenable to tho iaws perchance for au assaull on thnir last remaining pair of curs or heels to hold them faat. But Iho example is the thing; .sacrifices must bo expected. Tho example might, ono hopes, create a taste. A great modem writer, of clearest eye and head now departed; capable Vln activity of prcso.ii tins thoughtful women, thinking men, groaned ovei his puppetry, that he dared not> animate thorn flesh though they were, with tho tires of positive bralnstuff. Ho could have done it am he is of tho departed! Had ho dared, .hi would (for be was Titan enough) have raisoc tho Art In dignity on a level with Uistory, tc an interest surpassing the narrative of publii deeds as vividly as man's heart and brain it tholr uuion excel his plain lines of action tc eruption. The everlastuitr pantomime Is dorlded, not unrighteously, by our graver seniors They name this Art the pasture of idiots, > method of idiotising the entire population whicl has taken to reading; and which soon discover that It can write, likewise, that sort of Btur at least ... ' Then follows the passage quoted las ■week. IS THE AJIT DOOMED? There are some who hold with Mere dith "that if we do not speedily em brace philosophy in fiction, the art i doomed to extinction, under the shin ing multitude of its professors" wh< are "fast capping the candle."' T£ sc it would be a tragedy. Writing at thi beginning of, -the century, Mr. Bnsi

Worsfold, in his "Judgment in Literature," says:— Fiction, us thus developed, has become a literary vehicle or extreme importance. To sumo extent it lias usurped tlio function of the stat'O as the medium for the exhibition of pictures of life by the display of-imagined characters in action. This aspect of fiction is well indicated by the picturesque phrase which has been used to describe the uovol — a "pocket theatre." At the same time novels are so widely read that it is impossible not to reeiiKUlse in them one of the Greatest— perhaps the Breutest —educational force In lltcrsi- ' tun-. ... As 11 form of literature the = ■ novel unites the facts of history and philosophy, and the reflections of the essas", with - the element of creation essential to all poetic , literature, on a. basis of plot or lnterwovon 3 action; and while it lacks the music-mid the t structural perfection of compositions in verse, It. has the Increased precision of prose and • complete freedom from the rigid limitations in- ; cldental to such structural perfection. ' There is nothing of the impish man- , ncr of Meredith about that; it reminds [ one rather of a passage from the weighty speeches of Lord Bledisloe, 2 but this was one of the few subjects > our late Governor-General had not the ) opportunity of discussing in the course t of hi's sojourn in these isles. Nil tetigit nisi ornavit. It is New Zeaf land's loss. We can take it, however, that he would have had something to say about it, and, as an author himself, enjoined on the reader a proper 1 sense of his duties. And this is what I we have done, to the best of our abilt ity. It is for the reader to do the rest.