NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 50, 20 December 1923, Page 30

NOTES

American Novels Among the American novels that load the shelves in our book stores, it is seldom that one finds a book worth reading. Even the best-sellers, the best advertised, the most spoken of, are disappointing. Any old-fashioned story by writers like Wilkie Collins, or Walter Besant, or Charles Reade —or even by Miss Braddon —were better in every way than the “masterpieces” of modern literature. Now and then, to be sure, one comes on a rare book such as The Butterfly Man, or Flam stead Quarries, which is worth while reading, but the sordid materialism of Brass, or Salt, or Babbitt, or Main Street makes one sorry for a generation of readers whose support makes the vogue of these novels possible. They are on a plane far beneath that of the average English novel of a couple of decades ago. No literary flavor, no charm of style, no spirit of poetry and idealism uplifts them from the ruck of modern materialism, and of them, in truth, one can but say that their best is poor indeed. To us it seems that American literature has fallen on evil days, and that the pioneers, like Hawthorne and Washington Irving, were immeasurably superior in culture and importance to their successors of our day. The same thing is true of American poets; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lowell, Longfellow, Whittier, and Bryant were poets, which is more than can be said of the host of vers librists and futurists now in popular favor. The Standard in England We refuse to be persuaded that the long-winded, loosely-constructed, and slipshod stories of Hutchinson are great in anything but their bulk. We prefer his mother’s mediocre novels to those of the effeminate Gilbert Frankau. Maxwell lacks taste and constructive power. McKenna has degenerated into a writer of tawdry melodrama. Compton McKenzie has fallen far short of his early promise. And, with the exception of two or three men who uphold the best traditions of style, English novelists have, like their American cousins, fallen on bad times. The other day we took up a story by Marjorie Bowen. It was called The Cheats on the cover one could read glowing praises from half a dozen of our most reputable reviews, telling us with what a magic pen this author could portray the past, what historical accuracy was hers, and what matchless skill went to the making of her many books. As a sample of her erudition and of her knowledge of present and past, we noticed before reading far that she manages to have her hero, a young layman, commanded to become a Jesuit by King Charles (who thought he would like to have the youth for a private confessor!). Although he has no vocation, the youth obeys the royal command, goes to Rome, and returns as a Jesuit in three yars. What sort of Jesuit priest he is may be gathered from her describing him as “taking the Sacrament” before going on a journey, but considering the three years in which he got through his novitiate and his studies, we must not expect much either from him or from Marjorie. Ignorance of history, ignorance of what any ordinary person might be supposed to know, leads us to expect ignorance of the common rules of grammar, and we are not disappointed. Miss (or Mrs.) Bowen has a magnificent contempt for such conventions as the rules of syntax, and there are passages in her book for. which a Fourth Standard schoolgirl would be sternly called to order by any self-respecting teacher. But the reviews tell us that Miss Bowen is a marvel of historical knowledge and one of the greatest living novelists. Honestly, people who offer for sale trash of this kind ought to be made Members of the New Zealand Parliament.

The Woes of an Editor It is not recorded that Job learned patience in an editorial chair, but provided that he survives the trials which beset him, an average editor ought to get . medals and 0.8.E.’s and V.C.’s ijo leov for heroic and. almost superhuman longsuffering. If one could not see the humor of the thing, it would be hard to maintain the well-known sweetness and imperturbability for which we are -famous, in view of the contradictory and thoughtless and' badlyspelled and ungrammatical and perverse and unreasonable communications that pour into the office during the year. On Monday a man from Rahotu will write to tell us. that he is disgusted to find that the Editor of the Tablet has deserted Ireland and gone British. On Tuesday a letter will arrive from an irate Imperialist of Ohura who complains that we are anti-British. On Wednesday a “Mother of Twelve” will write to ask why we do not make the Children’s Page much larger. On Thursday a disgusted clergyman wants to know why we do not cut out that page and put in its place one devoted to Sanskrit or Egyptology. On Friday a man who forgets the risks we ran and the money we raised for the Old Land will denounce us as traitors because we do not agree with Father O’Flannigan and Mr. O’Kelly in regarding Irish bishops as men devoid of love of country and as amateur theologians compared with Prionnsais O’Gallagher or Madame Marciewicz. On Saturday an indignant lady will rage from the West Coast because her name was omitted from the list of guests at Lannigan’s ball. And, when we are hoping for a peaceful Sunday, a collect wire will come from a reader who wants to know the reason why we did not publish the long account of a speech he made on basic slag at a meeting of the Tinker’s Gully Agricultural Society. Now this seems an exaggeration, but the only reason why it is. not the whole truth and nothing but the truth is because it is not half the truth. We might say a lot more about the gentle critics who turn up their cultured probosces at that Irish serial or about these others whose little minds will not permit them to be interested in articles written by men whose finger is on the pulse of the decadent world, around us; or of those who want no Irish news in the paper; or of those who want nothing else in it; or of those who do not know what they want, either in a paper or out of it; or of those who find fault because they have the sort of minds which take delight in giving trouble to other people. And there would remain about nineteen other classes of growlers when these were accounted for. Of course the humor of the thing saves the situation to a great extent. One remembers the contrary criticisms that exterminate one another; one remembers the awful spelling and grammar that indicate how much the writer’s judgment is worth; one recalls the qualifications of the person who wants to be allowed to dictate the whole policy of the paper for a pound per annum; and one smiles when failing to remember seeing the name of some fierce Irishman in the lists we published what time money and not talk was wanted to help the men who followed Collins or the women and children who were burned out of house and home By the Orange ruffians of Belfast. Is it not always the way? A tight purse and a plethora of advice ! If our critics had brains we might offer them a few suggestions. But it would probably be useless to remind them that people well qualified to judge have borne witness that there is no better Catholic paper anywhere than the Tablet. It would also be useless to ask them to put themselves in the Editor’s place, and to remember, as he must, that he has to try to please hundreds of cranks as well as reasonable people.

<x*> Nothing can atone for the want of truth, not the most brilliant imagination, the most playful fancy, the most pure feeling (supposing that feeling could be pure and false at the same time); not the most exalted conception, nor the most comprehensive grasp of intellect, can make amends for the want of —Ruskin.