Literary Notes.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13397, 21 September 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

Literary Notes.

PUBLIC LIBRARY FICTION. When the fiction " bogey" is brought, out to frighten the public librarian, lie does not, whisper " Hush ! liush! hush !" in l:he word's of the one time popular song, but points the finger and says, " Uninformed criticism!"

And really tha criticism is usually uninformed, for" the numerical test of issue... as applied to novels in public libraries-, is valueless. There are only two tests of a reliable nature —one, the. time spent by borrowers, I will nob say in reading, but in consuming a modem novel, compared with that spent in digesting the contents of a book of another class; and, second, the cost of novels compared with technical works, books of travel, and others of a •similar character. The cost of the upkeep and the administrative charges in connection with the fiction stock of a pub'ie library, so far as it is possible to make any estimate, aw much less than in tha cass of other works.

It is a question never yet satisfactorily answered, why a "fiction debauch" should be worse than, say, a " poetical drunk " ? Not only is there, in many quarters, an odium attached to novel reading, as though it were a form, of secret tippling,, but the public library is reproached—chiefly by those who are the worst offenders in this so-called intemperance—for promoting what hao been called the "fiction habit." Afterall, novels are only the " special cheap line," which the publia librarian displays to attract his customers. And this "cheap line" is not the shoddy article too often displayed in other quarter*?. Statistics were recently obtained from a number of municipal libraries respecting their fiction stocky, and while ihuie showed! many " diluted spirits," they also showed' how" high the fiction i standard really is in public libraries. Moreovtr, the proportion of fiction in their stocks is, as a whole, steadily decreasing, of course along with a f,all in the circulation of novels, while the public which has acquired the "reading habit "—a much-maligned term for which I take the responsibility, although I do not claim the credit—steadily and rapidly increases. Who is "tha novel reader of the public library? What does he—or she—read? And how does he select bis books ? In America, where public libraries are behind our own, except in their incomes, a lady has set the fashion of selecting novels by .smelling them. Sho has a good reason for choosing books by their odour, because those with a tobacco scent had, presumably, been read by men, and! were, inso facto",, good. But women borrowers from the public libraries of this country have long gone beyond that stage, for they select their novels by the colour of the covers. I am not sufficiently reused in feminine fashions and fancies to know if the point is to have a book to match a -dress, only it is certain that the fanwearer will frequently let her eyes travel rapidly over a row of novels without reading the titles, and thsn suddenly select one. . . . Really there must be more in this natural intuition than the mere matching of a dress, as a lady was overheard to remark, not in a public library by the way, that ""'The Man from America' is such a nice green book!" . ' Blue, red, and dark green are favourite colours for books. The information is of exceeding valua when one is making up binding orders, and is invariably acted upon as may be seen in any public library out of the East End of London, and apart from! Ihe mining districts of the country, where the covers are usually black. Mere man chooses his hovel in a. variety of' w*ays. : Generalh'- he' knows, what he. wants, and, unlike "the lady whose dress harmonises" with any binding, and who therefore takes what Mrs. Over-the-Way. has recommended, he has very definite reasons for his choice. It is strange how a borrower systematically reads'through-all the works "of an author after having "discovered" him by reading one book. And such a borrower's way of saying "So-and-so' is good, you know!" is charming. Manv of our novel readers just want " something "—they are not particular what it mav be; and that is why the stock of fiction in public libraries ie composed of the best and' the worst of our imaginative literature, with very little re: presentation of tho middle quality. the wfrst fiction is bought for those borrowers who would not read at. all if they could not g?t "something light," and also because it is cheap—as new remainders. The best.. fiction is bought because it is the best. , .. .. The 'amusing -little stories of borrowers belong to the assistant stage of a librarian's career, but they always linger in the memory. Probably every librarian knows the person who comes in day by day asking for this'" something " already mentioned, a phrase sometimes varied by "something good." And every assistant has eventually given that' person a dictionary, or one of the Greek classics in the original, in the fervent—if forlornhope that it would lead to his making some personal effort at selection from the. catalogue. Occasionally there is a tragic note behind the request for " something good " —which is actually intended to mean anything in the form of a novel—and it is this knowledge that makes an assistant anxiove to be " guide, philosopher, and friend" even to the most degraded leader of novels. A lady ukkl to visit a certain London library with the montonous phrase " Give me something . good." Not until long afterward-:© was it discovered that, the books were for her husband', a manufacturer whos- business was passing through a time of strew*. He was working into the small hour* of every night, but the habit of a. lifetime was not easily broken, and Saturday rmuined sacred to the God of holidays." It wa.s only the " library book*" which oi that day prevented him brooding over his tioub'es to what, his wife feared, would have been a disastrous extent. We were glad to remember that we did our b nt for her—and him.

AH hough 11 method of selection is not synonymo-s with its result, the two are so dependent one upon the other that the question. "What does the fiction reader read*" naturally follows what- has been said. Tho answer may he given iu a nutshe!)—ha reads whatever the library contains. The .borrower who in sometimes called (lie. "serious n'lidfer" iini.?t necessarily have Ihti latest editions of tli-a best authors. The novel reader, on the other hand, who might be culled the humorous, reader, is a comfortable soif- of person. He does not mind particularly what his boolc may be so long as it is (something to read. But. perhaps in vindication of (he t<rm iuvt used, tha novel-reader delights in works of genuine humour. Mr Jerome might right when he raid the novelist's mission is to make his reader laugh, if it were not that a reader, particularly when young and of the gmtler sex, delights to crv.

One would' not think of differentiating between the good authors and the bad until they are all dead, and even then it would be safe, only to name th.- good. But T will give the issues of some typical works of fiction from one library, having to the reader their classilicaiion into th.varying degrees of- excellence. The following figures show how often the most, used' book of each of the authors named was iss"ed within a. year:—Dickens, 40; XV. LeQunix. 36; R. March. 36; Hall Oaine, 52: Marie Corelli. 31; Victor Hugo, 50; W. W. Jacobs, 28; Balzac,

26; Scott, 24; Meniman, 18; Thackeray, 17; Gertrude Alherton, 12. Wo now r;turn to the question, " AVJio is the novel reader of 111:- public library?" Everybody. The most devoted' student sometimes takes sips of the cup at which others take deep, unsatisfying draughts. The public library deserves iiu name as tha most democratic institution in existence. Its boriowers range from the humblest labourer who doss his reading by deputy, in the person of his lirtla daughter just learning to read, to what many yeaiu ago were known as " carriage folk." Contrary to the general belief, these realise that the public library is- a co-opeiative book-club, and they do incalculable good ' by using it. If you will imagine readers generally to bo divided into .seven classes, beginning with the so-called " lower class " as numbjr one, and if you will draw a rough chart fromxa supposed , low-water mark of fiction reading to a supposed high water mark and -down again, why, vou will arrive at two gene la l results. "Your chart' will gradually rig's until you touch highwater mark between classes three and four, and when you come to class five you will rapidly begin to descend . In other words, the three middle classes, according to our imaginary figures—-and more or loss they represent the best working-clans people, the middle classes of all grades and " car-riage-folk "—are the great readers of fiction. Its vogue is slightest at the two extremes, namely, the lowest class, who probably read few books of any kind, and the very highest class-that is, the cultured and the serious, the cream of readers.

Of course such a chait is not mathemetically correct; it is impossible to say to which class every man belongs, and" ths low-water mark of literary production is a matter of opinion, but the chart may be accepted as a broad and general guidi. Every person in each of our classes is liable to an«ke mistakes when asking for book?, although I do not think I ever heard a funnier one than a request for "'The First Violin,' by Father Gruel." If there is humour, there is pathos ateo in the renewal application given below just as it was written, or rather drawn, with a pen in large letters : " Please allow me to renew this same book for another fortnight home-reacting. I will thank you very much unless you can renew it. This book, which I read with extremely great interest. At home the reading took me two weeks & I long to go on with it till it will ba done at last."

If it were possible to say why a reader likes a particular book, it would be easy to define what there is in the book to pleas? that reader, and the secret of fiction writing for the popular marketf would 1 be common property. ; As it i", one must agree with Dr. Emil Reich that it is impossible to give any specific cause for the popularity of certain authors and books. Theie is no doubt, however, book full of incident is most in favour'with the best class of reader. American novels are not so well known in England as tlrey will be, but whenever they ane discovered by a library reader, ho, like Oliver Twist, asks for more. That is one thing ; another is the stupendous popularity of some of our own novelists—a popularity which can ba accounted for only by the fact that tlw feminine reader is unaccountable. —Alex. J. Philip, in tire "Book Monthly.")