SUBTLETY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18457, 21 July 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUBTLETY.

CHARWJ OF MODERN, FICTJOTMi

I* '■'.;■;■ BY MONA GOIIBON'.

There' is! an elusive somethingfcbout the best modern novels which has crept into them unawares, and -which y the -public cannot now do without. It is hard, to find u name for it; hard to put one's finger oil the'exact places where it exists, yet a novel entirely lacking in it seems to have lost the spice of life, the spring of vitality. For want of a name we might almost call it subtlety— subtlety so sure, '• so unerring that it has the knack of seizing fche vilal truth out of a thing and expressing it in just the right way. It is the gift of felicity of expression. . Listen to John Galswprthy-an author well skilled in the art of subtle charm. After describing. the beauty of an English wood, he -.-"The Squire dismounted and sat under one of those birch trees . . . . The spaniel, John, also sat and loved him with his eyes. , And sitting there they thought their thoughts, tout A heir thoughts were different. In another place— men were standing together looking at a tree— spaniel. .John, was seated on his tail, and he, too, was looking at the tree." ;■• ~. , There is something here of which you may read hundreds of books : without finding a. vestige; devour reams .of printed matter without so much as a gleam of its delicate humour. But once found you will not easily be satisfied with the other kind, the prosy, the stiff, the obvious. How many people would have said the spaniel eat and watched him? Wot Galsworthy's : spaniel— didn merely watch, he " loved him with his .eyes. How many would have written ' the dog sat down? "—hut Galsworthy's dog is "seated on his tail." The spaniel John seems to have called forth many bright rays of wit, for in another place We read •—". Takings two and a-half .brace of his master's shoes and slippers '■'■ and placing them in unaccustomed Bpots, he lay on them one by one till they were .warm, »;. ?s . vJ* : them, f*?r &'"<'. or other to hatch out." '

Studies From' Life.

Then there is A. S. M. Hutchinson. How far his immense popularity is due to subtlety of expression is hard to say. It was not till "If .Winter Comes" appeared that he suddenly sprang into fame. What did the reading public find in that which they had not discovered in his previous books? There must have, been something. The public will not pay for. what they have been fed up with lor, years. "The public is. over on the eternal ' quest 'Hex '■'.■' something now, ; something original. If ; once originality is discovered there is no end to the demand for it. .Originality is priceless ;'i and; if the plot be age-old, the oft repeated story..of,love and bMo» it must be; unfolded in fin original T* inner or the public will b«vte.' Nothing ■'- .dr.- with it. That is wbsro the Hubtiety and the uharm-cbme in, rrhew : thfc:'aa*hor i expresses his original tur:a ft?: -ninr* -£-■ v he does it, hew ! he i'y tells:: it , That is"; everything !• nowadays. • Not what : j he says so much bw how he says it. ■;,,.); Take the plot of one or mot'* of the best modierii novels will find it but a {slender one. '; Nothing very : exciting happens. Life just goes jogging on much as real life has a habit of doing nine times out of ten. ; You are always waiting for ; something to turn ... some clash of emotion, soma crisis, and perhaps it never comes at •' all. s Yet the author has led yon to expect it; ihe keeps yon for ever on the qui vive, and when it; does .; happen it is not so very exciting after ! all, or at any. rate not as your- . imagination has pictured'it." -That Is life. That• | is what aovelistft are giving us i 'Hf©i .sot shack* ■' 2M<*;& ; >- 'drami*. # . :'/ ' The chief interest then is, not in action but in -. method 'of presentation, we are becoming ik&.'iiHsd ■■-•In Vtii icu&ijfiih ' always ana means iter more than - in eventß themselves. When you put down 7a: book for the time being it is not so much "what will happen next,", which is ;: going}.; to; pique your curiosity; till you take it ;, up again, but " why and how is it going to happen." Yon really care little what becomes o? your story book friends or whether they remain in much the ■ same : position as that in which you- first, made their acquaintance, but the author's treatment of them, his handling,'.,-;' his sympathy, his humour has become the vital point. . ; ',':-:.'■■■■--':/■ ;;; V:: v'- v •■■;,;'. ; Restful and Humorous. The reader is tired to death of' being dragged up hill and down dale endlessly, action piled on acCion, ; crisis * on crisis. I The mind tires of it. The mind is not such a fast walker as sensational writers seem to imagine.. It , wants a restit wants to sit down now and then on soma graßs« fjerik and think. It can't go on for ever grasping new situations or it will finally lose grasp of everything. This is what Hutchinson has realised eminently. He lets you} sit down ; and think, or lie down; in sweet scented fields and not think at alii. Then gradually he leads you; by easy ■ gradations i■•': into the heart of some problem whose; outermost circle you; have 'barely fringed 5; before; then in deeper to the heart of things, then gently out again and .off :. to some, ordinary happeninga call, a bird's song, a dinner "gong, breaks ":} the chain . 'of thoughts he has drawn you into. And it comes; just at i the; right time: easily, naturally yon were .drawn;,; in, \ easily, naturally you were drawn out again, with little threads of humour, little strands of floating ; thought clinging to yon as yon sit down to tea ii or something '% equally trivial.

Finally there is the sense; of; r humour, which In probably the strongest element in the chain of subtlety, ; the mainsail which the novelist rigs to , his little craft to speed it through the uncharted seas of the world. It is a venture, this sending forth a' new book, more ; precarious Y than ; the launching of a ; new if boat, : C wherein have bean stored bread and water for the voyage, and meat for the } strong man ; but humour; if it \be delicate i-. and 'fc true enough,, is; after all ? Che .guiding; force which will •, bring it to: the haven; where it would be. -Launched; without humour it : will probably strike a;} rock and iouKder ii,' a few years, perh&ps, months; with -feiimour} no one can tell how long it will continue to sail the wide seas. : Dickens' dream boats are still tfoSag; - it;;: probably they will iiail onwardt; ,to; infinity/ Such a %.:v.T.<>xp?j'!.oi'.i *(>'■'. s*'hi ' (}it v of'<};c'<.' : ; ,ooveis|; SyVich.-" ■>'■'*' cr a ■■*& that tin charm "'& subuety ; a-.id ■'■ hUmoni" is no liew thing but merely a : revival -by ; modern writers of what the great novelist ; was doing In the middle of last century. Humour may not be apparent alwayß, it : ,1b often veiled, but it must be there -ready to glance opt in scintillating .' point* of light It is " the main j element out ,not the charm itself.. A. merely humorous book will make: you Jangh but may never thrill} you with the strange fMentation -of i aabtlo choriHa