PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 126, 23 November 1935, Page 30

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

THE MODERN NOVEL

The Chief Librarian of the "Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "Tendencies of the Modern Novel," by Hugh Walpole and others, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:— A book recently placed on the shelves of the Central Public Library is "Tendencies of the Modern Novel," a collection of essays reprinted from the Fortnightly Review. The book is probably one of the most important contributions towards the critical appreciation ■of contemporary fiction which has. appeared for a considerable time. Eight internationally famous writers discuss the main trends of the novel in the chief countries of Europe and in. America, analysing some of the most significant works-of modern times to illustrate their points. Mr. Hugh Walpole, dealing with the novel in England, remarks on the extraordinary fact that Conrad's influence was so slight. "Before the 1870's the English novel received scarcely any general critical attention at all, and it was not until the early 1900's that people began to talk, about it in solemn whispers as an art that only artists should be allowed to practice. This attitude of specialist cerebrality has grown and grown, and today the whole quarrel about the novel centres round this question—is the novel only a special lovely exotic rare fruit produced in Cambridge greenhouses for a small group of intellectual horticulturists, or is it still a rather common wayside flower which almost plants itself so prolific is it, and sometimes plants itself with quite splendid and magnificent results?" Mr. Walpole calls evidence to prove that it sometimes is a common friendly flower: Richardson, Fielding, Scott Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Stevenson, and Hardy. Mr. Walpole deals gently but effectively with Mrs. Leavis who limits possible living English novelists to five alone, and those all high-brows, and he pays a tribute to Mr. Priestley's "Good Companions" with Jess Oakroy'd who appeals as a plain man to plain men, withdrawing for the time being the novel from the rarefied atmosphere of fine writing and precious opinions in which it had grown or stagnated. Mr. Walpole, after dealing with the appearance of long family histories and the romantic influence, mentions the work of Charles Morgan whose care-fully-written and very beautiful contemplative novels "Portrait in a Mirror" and "The Fountain" have brought back things of the spirit to English fiction. In the section on France Mr. Hamish Miles treats of the influence of Proust who, like Conrad, died without literary progeny; and goes through the various schools into which French letters divided themselves up to the work of Celine and Romains. Celine's "Voyage to the End of the Night" is given a prominent place as a purely human and forceful document by a man who had hardly any knowledge of literary practice. Nonetheless the book contains passages of virulent satire on the most specious materialism of our time and shows how a young man thrown into the machinery of existence finds nothing but. misery wherever in' our civilisation he may go. Romains, on the other hand, adopts Voltaire's trick oftaking a cross-section of society and portraying the characters in rapidly-changing succession. His experiment is a convincing one, but it is too early yet to judge his work as a whole. Mr. Milton. Waldman deals with the novel in America, and it is surprising how exactly and convincingly he narrows down the commencement of American fiction as such. Following on Mr. Theodore Dreiser, Mr. Sinclair Lewis with "Main Street" embarked on the 'critical analysis of American fiction. The work of Joseph Hergesheimer, Louis Bromfield, Mr. William Faulkner, and Mr. James Cozzens* is bound up into a school of writers whose place is aptly defined by the phrase "the Proust substance cum Joyce or Stein method." FOREIGN NOVELS. Herr Jacob Wassermann has rather unfairly been called upon to write of Germany.and to summarise the movement in which he himself is one-of the leaders. He points out how up till very recently there was no German fiction of any kind and how Thomas Mann made for himself the form of the novel using a century-old social background. Herr Wassermann places books like Ludwig Renn's "War" or Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" into their true place with the remark that their artistic and literary importance . certainly fail to come up to their importance as polemical writings. Herr s Wassermann concludes with a word about Herr Josef Roth, for whom he predicts a great future. Spain is dealt with most attractively by Mr. V. S. Pritchett who choses as his leaders Miro and Valleinclan. Baroja's importance in the development of the novel is carefully analysed and the work of Ayala concludes the sketch. Most Spanish novelists are unfortunately now absorbed in politics. The Russian novel-is dealt with by D. S. Mirsky who treats the three stages of the Soviet novel. In the first stage Soviet literature was largely dominated by writers who did not belong to the proletarian or to the Communist period. The work of Pilynak, Ivanov, Babel, and Vesely is interesting as examples. The second stage is the early proletarian novel and for examples "The Iron Stream" by Serafimovitch is taken and compared with Vesely's "Russia Washed in Blood." The masterpiece of the proletarian novel was "The Nineteen" by Alexander Fadeyev. The work of Mikhail Sholokhov and other modern Russian writers is analysed carefully for the purpose of showing the purposefulness, co-ordination with the social whole, and the approach to imaginative work as the forms of knowledge, which are claimed as the characteristics of the new Soviet novel. Signor Luigi Pirandello in a most attractive essay traces the history of the Italian novel from Manzoni's "I Promessi Sposi" down to the more recent Papini, Borgese, and Bontempelli. Signor Pirandello is most hopeful for the future of Italian literature and looks to Alberto Moravia as one of the most promising younger writers. •Erik Mesterton traces the great names of Scandinavian literature showing the importance of the proletarian novel which he says is probably as important there as outside Russia, the chief exponents in Sweden being Martin Kach and Dan Andersson. The work of Nordstrom is carefully con-1 sidered and the development down to the psycho-analytic novel which has been a late and recent growth in Sweden. Bergman is taken as the real great man of the period and Mesterton credits him with the "terrifying honesty of the pure creator." Altogether this1 is a most illuminating and well-reasoned set of opinions on the modern novel without the incoherences of 'the modern symposium. RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. I Other titles selected from recent accession lists are as follows:—General: "The Royal Air Force," by T. H. Sprigg; "Blue Coast Caravan," by F. ID. Davison; "Abyssinia on the Eve," by L. Farago. Fiction: "The Inquisi- : tor," by H. Walpole: "Secret Heart," ■ by O. Wadsley; "The Falconer's Voice," by E. Mannin. ,