The Wanganui Chronicle. MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1941. ON CENSORSHIP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 283, 1 December 1941, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1941. ON CENSORSHIP

STli.\l.l.\.\S an neve r dull: that is their chief charm. 11 there is nothing for them to strive lor they will dig up something to kick against. They pull their politicians upstairs with such speed that they are likely to be hanged quickly, and in order to avoid this catastrophe they kick downstairs their white hopes and their dark despairs. When they have exhausted the stock of public men they take up a fight concerning the appointment of a couple of university professors with such celerity that the impression is gathered that higher education is their new religion—which incidentally it is. Just as the dust was settling down in the arena recently James Joyce’s book “llysses” was banned. Why it should be banned by the o'nsor nobody seems to know, which for the purposes of destroying oncoming ennui, is all to the good. When nobody is to blame the Government must shoulder the responsibility. and when the Government becomes the target there is alwa.es a reasonable cham-e of being able to throttle a before the day is out. Nobody in Australia cared two straws for James Joyce and all his works. “I'lyss.-s” included. Why should they? James Joyce died presumably, and consequently, as is the way of the public, it was thought that he must have done something with his life and so his works received some little attention.

Born in Dublin on February 2. ISS2. his first published work was a small volume of lyrics ‘’Chamber Music ’ (]9l)7>. ‘’Dublin, rs” a set of tales and studies of Dublin pirsonalities (1914). a novel. “A Portrait of an Artist" (191li). a play. “ Lxiles 191 S . Meanwhile. Joyce had leu Dublin and. like all sensible Irishmen, probably never went back. H< lived in Rome. Zurich. Tri-ste. and Paris, ami in 1922 appeared his famous or infamous book *’l lv.'ses.’’ published in Paris. ‘'This book.” says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “conceived and executed on a very ambitious scale, attracted much attention among critics and men of letters, in France, as well as in England and America, as a portent of certain modern tcndineies in the development of the novel.” The hook attracted much attention among critics ami men of leltei-. so it is safe to assume that the public didn't trouble its head about it. When the average man takes up a novel hi doesn’t care two straws about any modern tendencies in the development of the nov, I. action and a happy ending arc the iieeessarv ingredients to make a now 1 paltable. the clitics and men of letters weren't injured by this particular stew, principally bccails- their diet is so extensive, and most of the critics .suffer from literary indigestion in any case, which accounts for their evil tempers. For th.se gentlemen to be put on a starvation diet would be the b<st thing that could happen to them. If fewer novels were published those that did ,ome to hand might be reviewed belter. As it is, most of them are only viewed in passing, as the man in the train sees the telegraph poles. The critics never ask. d that the train should be stopped in ord. r to gel a review of or another look at James .lover s ”l'lvssis.” The train went on its way and the literary telegraph poles kept on llashilig past until someone said that Australians were too innocent, their minds were too sensitive, ami their consciousness so unsullied that it would be positivtl.v dang, rotis to allow the Arcadian simplicity of Sydney to be dispelled by ’’l'lysses from Paris. In making such a fuss about this sort of thing it appears, from the Stygian darkness of New Zealand, that Sydney’s Arcadians are proclaiming thein>elves to be but two decades behind the turns— which of course mav be true, but again it may be merely ait unusual Jorm ol bragging, an iltdulgenci which they have on previous rare occasions p.rmitl.d themselves But then the Australians do unusual things, such as refusing to buy good potatoes and painstakiuglv growing the world's best oranges and then throwing away a market for them. Among those who have built up Australia's reputation for san, thinking was the late A. G. Slepl’.etis. the man who put the Bull, tin's Red Page on the literary map of the world. The Red Page, by the way, had ami has nothing to do with the Red Lamp. It was so well conducted that it would have disappointed any old maid. Stephens has been resurrected by \ atiee Palmer in a very interesting volume published in Melbourne (Robertson ami .Mullen', and many who Rm w him onlv as "’The Bookman,” will enjoy this revelation of their literary mentor of thirty years ago. “ludecencv, or even obscenity, simply cannot enter into the artistic <|U<stioti, ' declared Stephens. "Art has nothing to do with decency; it is a Peter’s sheet in which there is nothing common or unclean. A picture of a saint has no more artistic merit, becaust it is a picture of a saint, than a vile Pompeiian freseo; and it may have less. . . ■ This is a modern doctrine, but the proof has roots in antiquity. In art, as in Nature, the littest .survives; and we cannot deny the reason lor survival, however vic dislikt some of the subjects that survive. . . . Nature is not bound by our notions of what is befitting. Neither is art. What is, is right; whatever continues to he is right as long as it continues. Existence justifies existence. The centuries weed our garden of Lite and decorate our palaee of Art. We may question their taste, but we cannot question their integrity. This is not. to say that art should be devoted to what the general mind deems unworthy subjects; that is beside the question. The best art choosis the worthiest subjects, and the maintenance of a moral idea in art is quite compatible with the highest artistic treatment. Velasquiz, illustrating Bible maxims, would still have been Velasquez. . . . There are many works of art which are proper in their own place, yet of which it is undesirable finely to circulate or expose copies. An exhibition is a bookseller’s window of some of Gilray’s engrav-' iugs. for example, or some of Boucher’s paintings, or some of the statuettes in the British Museum, would be tantamount Io legal ‘ind< ceticy' and would be unjustifiable in this community. To exhibit Gilray or Boucher to a customer inside the shop would not be held rightly a ground of offence.'’ t’ensoiship to limit publication from becoming general may be reasonably employed against the man in tin street, and usually lie won’t know anything about it until someone tells him. He mv< r wanted to read ‘’l lysses'’ until it was banned. Where the artistic or lili rary interest is so strong that it becomes a case of all things being pure to the pule, in which category all Sydney's Arcadians will claim to lie included by reason of their ingenuousness and the raptures which are inspired by The Bridge, nothing can harm them. If an author wants a good advertisement he should get his book placed on the Index Expurgatorius or banned by the censor. By the way, is James Joyce dead?