THE PRESENT-DAY NOVEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19418, 28 August 1926, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE PRESENT-DAY NOVEL.

COMPARISON WITH THE PAST. " FINER AND GREATER THING." BY PROFESSOR ARNOLD WALL. No. IV. The modem English novel, v/hen compared with the masterpieces of Richardson and Fielding, or even of tho great Victorians, Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot, is seen to be in every respect a finer and greater thing; in pure art, in the variety and freshness of its construction, in its style, in psychological acumen and originality, in the breadth and tolerance of its ethical teaching, in the essential truth of its poetic und philosophic doctrine, in its closer relation to real life (yet also in the boldness and fire of its creative imagination), in geographical, social and political range, in t;ie depth of knowledge —specialised knowledge—which its creators exhibit, and in tho great mass or volume of genius which is being projected into this form in these fortunate days. We have now. in a word, ,moro art and less artifice in tho novel. We see it as the product of a new age, reflecting not only a great number of sides of lifo and sections of lifo and views of life arid innumerable characters, but, also, as a whole, embodying or shadowing forth some intangible new thing that is born among us, something which portends vast changes, new modes of thought, of expression, of scientific and philosophic speculation, and even a new conception of life itself. Construction. All that part of the art of prose fiction which concerns the framework of construction has improved out of all knowledge. The old novels were all constructed according to certain well-known and generally accepted conventions, of which there were only a few groups. The novel of our day follows the laws of Nature, not of tho theatre, and often appears to have no constructive principle at all. We find books, readable and even compelling, books assuming no recognisable form, but preserving true unity, and theso we see in a great variety. A few days or months in tho life of a small boy and a dog (Jeremy and Hamlet); the whole biography of a generation of London lawyers and businessmen (The Forsyte Saga); a few passages in the life of one servant-maid (Lot TBarrow); the story of a country parson's failure in a Cornish parish (Mark Lidderdale); a few weeks in tho lives of three old women (Tho Old Ladies) ; the downfall of a domineering churchman (The Cathedral); the man falling in lovo with the girl and then with her daughter and then with her errand-daughter fllie Pursuit of the WellBeloved) —these and hundreds like them make excellent novels on the modern plan. The novelist, in fact, now knows how to begin his story in the middle, stop before the end, yet produce an effect of unity and complete achievement. " The Poor Man." or " The Return," may serve as examples. Prose Style. At no moment of time before 1900 were there more than two, or at most three, novelists who cor id be fairly called "prose stylists." Since that time we have had at least seven of the very first rank as masters of English prose. This title cannot be denied to Hardy, Conrad, Hudson, Galsworthy, James, Compton MacKenzie, if Arnold Bennett: many critics would not withhold it from Barrie, Walpole, Kipling, McKenna. Belloc, Chesterton, Sheila* KayeSmith, May Sinclair, Rose Macaulay, H. G. Wells, Eden Phillpofcts or A. 'C. Benson; and no doubt the claim could be admitted by some on behalf of W. R. Maxwell, Masefieid, Ds La Mare, Brett, Young, Aldous Huxley and nlenty of, others. The droning, undistinguished manner of Besant and Trollope, and the shrill theatricalities of and Miss Braddon have gone for ever. We have, in fact, at present, a round dozen of writers who are stylists and artists ir. the highest sense of the term, and a constellation of lesser stylists who have, at any rate, distinction, taste, power and a fine sensibility to the beauty of the individual word and of the choice poetic phrase. Characterisation.

The Elizabethan dramatists first discovered the art of presenting character. Prose fiction took over the task from the theatre, and from Fielding onwards, characterisation —the presentation of clear, living, consistent persons—has been the main aim of all novelists. In this, as in the secondary gifts—mastery of style, analytic power, philosophic doctrine and so 'nrth—the moderns have excelled, and even such creators as Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, have been left behind. Our age has greater wealth of character; we have on the whole, less grotesqueness, less melodrama, more " character" as distinct from mere "type," more truth to life, more humour, more sympathy, and a subtler intuitive insight into motive and mood. Psychology and Analysis. The novelists of to-day, as a body, are incomparably finer psychologists than their predecessors; they are not necessarily analysts, but they present the inner life, the soul, of their characters, and if a writer fails to do this in those days ho rank 3 comparatively low as tin artist; we feel that he is not giving us life. But they are not all to the same degree psychological; too much analysis delays action and destroys interest, however cleverly it is done. George Eliot often becomes wearisome. Henry James went too far in this direction ; Conrad sometimes went too far, and some modern? may still be said to err thus. But the main result of the psychological evolution has been good. We ccognise that without it a narrative may be excellent and may movo and grip us fiction may still pursue the course of the ''•elandio Sagas oi' of Defoe —but we have learned to expect true delineation and, humanly speaking, complete portraiture, from our novelists, and are disappointed if it is not forthcoming. Poetic Genius. Genius is commoner now than it has ever been in the history of our race. It is spilling to waste, too often perhaps into the form of novels. Yet such apparently wild and purposeless books as the " Manalive " of Chesterton, the " Re turn " of De la Mare, or the " Poor Man" of Stella Benson are redeemed from triviality by genius, wilful or perverse though it may "seem. Genius is in their flashing sentences, their original and poetic phrasing their light-hearted tossing aside of the dusty conventions and the moralities. We have now more poets among the novelists (or novelists among the poets), than ever before. Among the great nineteenth century novelists, Meredith and Stevenson alone have any claim to consideration as poets. Now we reckon in both classes, Hardy, Masefield, De la Mare, Chesterton, Belloc, Brett Young, Stella Benson, Sheila Kaye-Smith, Kipling and many others. Relation to Life. In defining prose fiction as " the art of life " Fielding spoke more truly than he could know; the term is as good as ever and has acquired now a far profounder meaning. The modern novelist does not only' depict life as he sees it; he is, in the* i*est sense, a critic of life, and often a philosopher as well. He aims at no mere photographic accuracy but presents a " rendering" of life just as a great pianist renders a famous piece, or a great actor, his conception of a Hamlet or a Shylock. In artists like Galsworthy, Wells and Bennett, this critical attitude becomes crystal clear; in others, such as Sheila Kaye-Smith, Hugh Walpole, or Cornpton MacKenzie, it is only implicit, but we feei it, and our views of life are

influenced by it. The social scheme the general constitution and evolution of society are here only in question, but many novelists fnrfV>oor adumbrate a philosophy of humanity, oi* of the universe, not so much analysing or prophesying upon the British world as upon such vast issues and ultimate problems of humanity as are touched foi the first time in Hamlet and Lear. Such a philosopher is Hardy, and it may well be said that the fiction whose materia is the very stuff of life itself —individual character —is the only literary f° rra ir } which such a philosophy can be fully set forth. Official philosophy is apt to lose itself and its aims in generalities, and the academic discussion of law, whereas in such books as the Wessex novels, we see the laws themselves at work, in human souls and human fates. Romance. Fielding's definition also holds good in another sense, for the novel now gives in general a much truer delineation of life than ever before. The two worlds—that of books and that of men—have been steadily drawing nearer for generations. Drama, the novel, and poetry, have all now come into closer relation to the realities of life than seemed possible even a generation ago. The term " stagey" no longer applies to the stage as it is. This docs not mean at all that our novelists are -'lll stark realists, oi' even such realists .-is Gissing. On the contrary, they aro as romantic as ever, but they have learned the secret of true romance, " while detaching us from_ real life it Restores us to reality on a higher plane." As we read we do net say, "This is life," nor do we say ; as wo did of Dickens or Ouida, " This is not life," but we think, " This is life as it might be." We fee! that the work is true to the underlying basic laws and principles of human nature and life, while it sets us free from the bonds and chains of circumstance and time, and lifts us to a higher sphere where life is more intensely and freoly lived than is possible for us here and now. And the term, " Art of Life" may be interpreted and applied to modern fiction in yet another way, more like Fielding's own, for the modern novelists know " the world" both in the social and .in the geographical sense. No old novelist could compete (not even Thackeray because of the handicap of public prudery), with e.g., Compton Mackenzie or Galsworthy in this knowledge of the seamy side of life and of human nature of all grades. Liberty. The success of the modern novel in its refiectioD of and comment upon life is in part due, no doubt, to the liberty of thought which has been accorded to the novelist, and for this ho ought to be grateful. This freedom has been hardly won and it cannot be denied that it has bean and is being grossly abused by certain writers, some even among the great. Yet on the whole it has made for good, and no reasonable person would now seek to re-impose the old Victorian handcuffs upon the modern artist. Tho modern novel has been set above the old upon the grounds hitherto set forth, and it only remains to comment upon its excellence in certain less vital aspects. In brief, it has been set free from insularity in its geographical, and From snobbery and narrowness, in its social outlook; and has interpreted with subtlety, and often with great poetic power, the infinitely varying character >oth of nature and of humanity, in every province of Britain and every quarter of the world. And finally, it is equally successful in the great, tragic stories of ; 4ardy, and in the delicate light forms of vhich the tales of Jacobs, Hitchens and Merrick are models.