During the past year I have had occasion to think often and seriously
of disintegration in American literature as a force which can no
longer be ignored. There are times in the history of a people when
disintegration is a form of creation, and when the cry goes up on all
sides: “Écrasez l’Infame,” it is not generally recognized that this
cry is a passionate prayer. Such a cry is heard in all countries of
Europe today, though it is not yet general, and the question arises
whether it is historically the moment for that cry or prayer to be
uttered by American writers. Well, I do not think so at all, and yet
the cry is usually synchronous with disintegration.
I do not think so because the disintegration which I see in American
life and literature is the effect of weakness rather than of strong
relentless force. It takes two forms in the work of our story
writers. First of all, we have the disintegration of laziness and
spiritual compromise which is manifest in the commercial short
story’s surrender to the machine and to business. That is a present
fact which can never be sufficiently taken into account. It follows
the line of least resistance, and utters no cry of passionate
conviction.
The second form of disintegration is often thought to be more subtle,
but it is really equally obvious and weak. Those who manifest it are
sitting home quietly observing the spiritual disintegration of Europe
as a fascinating spectacle, and finding in it only æsthetic values
which they long to imitate. They do not see, or perhaps they do not
choose to see, that the pattern which they admire is the result of
a conflict which they have shirked, and that any attempt to copy it
without undergoing the experience which justifies it as expression
will result only in pastiche, and in bad pastiche at that. Joyce and
Lawrence and other Europeans are not accidents, but their American
imitators may prove to be serious accidents. Joyce, who will serve
very well to illustrate my point, is subduing the show of things to
the desires of the mind, because he is a possessive European male
who has suffered. Any one of many American writers whom I refrain
from naming perceives the patterned result of this suffering, but is
unable or unwilling to pay the price.
We are told in the Old Testament that Dada followed Babel as a
penalty, and the European Dadaists have only sought, as critics of
a civilization which has become a spiritual failure, to make this
clear by symbols. The American Dadaists, who seem likely to spring
up like mushrooms from now on, say “Dada” for its own sake, and so
revert to infancy at the moment when men are most needed to interpret
our obscure desires. I find their assumed superiority to other
mortals snobbish, and their æsthetic attitude is only one present
manifestation of the intellectualist sterility and anæmia from which
we have begun to escape at last. They are taking “Art” entirely too
seriously, and forgetting that every great artist is only great in so
far as he can laugh at his own pretensions a little sadly.
We are also in some danger of seeking romantic escape from the
machine by creating a mysticism of the machine, and by regarding the
machine as something transcendental. This is sincere enough, because
it is the result of action on the part of those who have suffered
from the machine. We know how deeply rooted is the instinct to lay
propitiatory offerings before something powerful of which we are
afraid. But the artist should not imitate Caliban, even if he does so
beautifully, and so while I recognize the truth underlying the work
of Stieglitz, for example, I cannot accept this new transcendentalism
in American art and literature as a liberating force. It is clear to
me that it is really an ostrichlike way of accepting slavery.
These remarks are perhaps less irrelevant to the general reader than
he is likely to believe. If our more promising artists are driven
into a cul-de-sac, it is because they perceive the banality of Main
Street, and are seeking a way out into the country. It is perhaps
necessary to continue trying cul-de-sacs until the right road has
been found, and it may even be probable that when that road is
found, many artists will not be disinterested enough to bring back
the news. The romantic escape of many is perhaps necessary for the
realistic return of one, and all I am seeking to do is to point out
if I can what ways appear to me to be cul-de-sacs, and what artists
seem to have stumbled on the way out. If these artists run away,
something is lost, but more is lost if they are all driven into
narrow cul-de-sacs. Meanwhile, Sherwood Anderson seems to me the man
who is nearest to finding freedom, and I believe he is also the man
who is most anxious to return to Main Street and report what he has
found.
To repeat what I have said in these pages in previous years, for
the benefit of the reader as yet unacquainted with my standards and
principles of selection, I shall point out that I have set myself the
task of disengaging the essential human qualities in our contemporary
fiction which, when chronicled conscientiously by our literary
artists, may fairly be called a criticism of life. I am not at all
interested in formulæ, and organized criticism at its best would be
nothing more than dead criticism, as all dogmatic interpretation of
life is always dead. What has interested me, to the exclusion of
other things, is the fresh, living current which flows through the
best American work, and the psychological and imaginative reality
which American writers have conferred upon it.
No substance is of importance in fiction, unless it is organic
substance, that is to say, substance in which the pulse of life
is beating. Inorganic fiction has been our curse in the past, and
bids fair to remain so, unless we exercise much greater artistic
discrimination than we display at present.
The present record covers the period from October, 1921, to
September, 1922, inclusive. During this period I have sought to
select from the stories published in American magazines those which
have rendered life imaginatively in organic substance and artistic
form. Substance is something achieved by the artist in every act of
creation, rather than something already present, and accordingly a
fact or group of facts in a story only attain substantial embodiment
when the artist’s power of compelling imaginative persuasion
transforms them into a living truth. The first test of a short
story, therefore, in any qualitative analysis is to report upon how
vitally compelling the writer makes his selected facts or incidents.
This test may be conveniently called the test of substance.
But a second test is necessary if the story is to take rank above
other stories. The true artist will seek to shape this living
substance into the most beautiful and satisfying form, by skillful
selection and arrangement of his materials, and by the most direct
and appealing presentation of it in portrayal and characterization.
The short stories which I have examined in this study, as in previous
years, have fallen naturally into four groups. The first consists of
those stories which fail, in my opinion, to survive either the test
of substance or the test of form. These stories are listed in the
yearbook without comment or qualifying asterisk. The second group
consists of those stories which may fairly claim that they survive
either the test of substance or the test of form. Each of these
stories may claim to possess either distinction of technique alone,
or more frequently, I am glad to say, a persuasive sense of life in
them to which a reader responds with some part of his own experience.
Stories included in this group are indicated in the yearbook index by
a single asterisk prefixed to the title.
The third group, which is composed of stories of still greater
distinction, includes such narratives as may lay convincing claim
to a second reading, because each of them has survived both tests,
the test of substance and the test of form. Stories included in this
group are indicated in the yearbook index by two asterisks prefixed
to the title.
Finally, I have recorded the names of a small group of stories
which possess, I believe, the even finer distinction of uniting
genuine substance and artistic form in a closely woven pattern with
such sincerity that these stories may fairly claim a position in
American literature. If all of these stories by American authors
were republished, they would not occupy more space than six or seven
novels of average length. My selection of them does not imply the
critical belief that they are great stories. A year which produced
one great story would be an exceptional one. It is simply to be
taken as meaning that I have found the equivalent of six or seven
volumes worthy of republication among all the stories published
during the period under consideration. These stories are indicated
in the yearbook index by three asterisks prefixed to the title, and
are listed in the special “Roll of Honor.” In compiling these lists
I have permitted no personal preference or prejudice consciously to
influence my judgment. It has been a point of honor with me not to
republish a story by an English author or by any foreign author. I
have also made it a rule not to include more than one story by an
individual author in the volume. The general and particular results
of my study will be found explained and carefully detailed in the
supplementary part of the volume.