[_12 Jan. '11_]
The practice of reviewing the literature of the year at the end thereof is
now decaying. Newspapers still give a masterly survey of the motor-cars of
the year. I remember the time when it was part of my duty as a serious
journalist to finish at Christmas a two-thousand word article, full of
discrimination as fine as Irish lace, about the fiction of the year; and
other terrifying specialists were engaged to deal amply with the remaining
branches of literature. To-day, one man in one column and one day will
polish off what five of us scarcely exhausted in seven columns and seven
days. I am referring to the distant past of a dozen years ago, before
William de Morgan was born, and before America and Elinor Glyn had
discovered each other. Last week many newspapers dismissed the entire
fiction of 1910 in a single paragraph. The consequence is that there has
been no "book of the year." A critic without space to spread himself
hesitates to pronounce downright for a particular book. A critic engaged
in the dangerous art of creating the "book of the year" wants room to
hedge, and in the newest journalism there is no room to hedge. So the
critic refrains from the act of creation. He imitates the discretion of
the sporting tipster, who names several horses as being likely to win one
race. "Among the books of the year are Blank, Blank, and Blank," he says.
(But what he means is, "The book of the year is to be found among Blank,
Blank, and Blank.") Naturally he selects among the books whose titles come
into his head with the least difficulty; that is to say, the books which
he has most recently reviewed; that is to say, the books published during
the autumn season. No doubt during the spring season he has distinguished
several books as being "great," "masterly," "unforgettable," "genius"; but
ere the fall of the leaf these works have completely escaped from his
memory. No author, and particularly no novelist who wishes to go down to
posterity, should publish during the spring season; it is fatal.
* * * * *
The celebrated "Dop Doctor" (published by Heinemann) and Mr. Temple
Thurston's "City of Beautiful Nonsense" (published by Chapman and Hall)
have both sold very well indeed throughout the entire year. In fact, they
were selling better in December than many successful novels published in
the autumn. Yet neither of them, assuming that there had been a book of
the year, would have had much chance of being that book. The reason is
that they have not been sufficiently "talked about." I mean "talked about"
by "the right people." And by "right people" I mean the people who make a
practice of dining out at least three times a week in the West End of
London to the accompaniment of cultured conversation. I mean the people
who are "in the know," politically, socially, and intellectually--who
know what Mr. F.E. Smith says to Mr. Winston Churchill in private, why
Mrs. Humphry Ward made such an enormous pother at the last council meeting
of the Authors' Society, what is really the matter with Mr. Bernard Shaw's
later work, whether Mr. Balfour does indeed help Mr. Garvin to write the
_Daily Telegraph_ leaders, and whether the Savoy Restaurant is as good
under the new management as under the old. I reckon there are about 12,055
of these people. They constitute the élite. Without their aid, without
their refined and judicial twittering, no book can hope to be a book of
the year.
Now I am in a position to state that no novel for very many years has
been so discussed by the élite as Mr. Forster's "Howard's End" (published
by Edward Arnold). The ordinary library reader knows that it has been a
very considerable popular success; persons of genuine taste know that it
is a very considerable literary achievement; but its triumph is that it
has been mightily argued about during the repasts of the élite. I need
scarcely say that it is not Mr. Forster's best book; no author's best book
is ever the best received--this is a rule practically without exception. A
more curious point about it is that it contains a lot of very straight
criticism of the élite. And yet this point is not very curious either. For
the élite have no objection whatever to being criticized. They rather like
it, as the alligator likes being tickled with peas out of a pea-shooter.
Their hides are superbly impenetrable. And I know not which to admire the
more, the American's sensitiveness to pea-shooting, or the truly correct
Englishman's indestructible indifference to it. Mr. Forster is a young
man. I believe he is still under thirty, if not under twenty-nine. If he
continues to write one book a year regularly, to be discreet and
mysterious, to refrain absolutely from certain themes, and to avoid a too
marked tendency to humour, he will be the most fashionable novelist in
England in ten years' time. His worldly prospects are very brilliant
indeed. If, on the other hand, he writes solely to please himself,
forgetting utterly the existence of the élite, he may produce some
first-class literature. The responsibilities lying upon him at this crisis
of his career are terrific. And he so young too!
"THE NEW MACHIAVELLI"
[_2 Feb. '11_]
A pretty general realization of the extremely high quality of "The New
Machiavelli" has reduced almost to silence the ignoble tittle-tattle that
accompanied its serial publication in the _English Review_. It is years
since a novel gave rise to so much offensive and ridiculous chatter before
being issued as a book. When the chatter began, dozens of people who would
no more dream of paying four-and-sixpence for a new novel that happened to
be literature than they would dream of paying four-and-sixpence for a
cigar, sent down to the offices of the _English Review_ for complete sets
of back numbers at half a crown a number, so that they could rummage
without a moment's delay among the earlier chapters in search of tit-bits
according to their singular appetite. Such was the London which calls
itself literary and political! A spectacle to encourage cynicism! Rumour
had a wonderful time. It was stated that not only the libraries but the
booksellers also would decline to handle "The New Machiavelli." The
reasons for this prophesied ostracism were perhaps vague, but they were
understood to be broad-based upon the unprecedented audacity of the
novel. And really in this exciting year, with Sir Percy Bunting in charge
of the national sense of decency, and Mr. W.T. Stead still gloating after
twenty-five years over his success in keeping Sir Charles Dilke out of
office--you never can tell what may happen!
* * * * *
However, it is all over now. "The New Machiavelli" has been received with
the respect and with the enthusiasm which its tremendous qualities
deserve. It is a great success. And the reviews have on the whole been
generous. It was perhaps not to be expected that certain Radical dailies
should swallow the entire violent dose of the book without kicking up a
fuss; but, indeed, Mr. Scott-James, in the _Daily News_, ought to know
better than to go running about after autobiography in fiction. The human
nose was not designed by an all-merciful providence for this purpose. Mr.
Scott-James has undoubted gifts as a critic, and his temperament is
sympathetic; and the men most capable of appreciating him, and whose
appreciation he would probably like to retain, would esteem him even more
highly if he could get into his head the simple fact that a novel is a
novel. I have suffered myself from this very provincial mania for
chemically testing novels for traces of autobiography. There are some
critics of fiction who talk about autobiography in fiction in the tone of
a doctor who has found arsenic in the stomach at a post-mortem inquiry.
The truth is that whenever a scene in a novel is _really_ convincing, a
certain type of critical and uncreative mind will infallibly mutter in
accents of pain, "Autobiography!" When I was discussing this topic the
other day a novelist not inferior to Mr. Wells suddenly exclaimed: "I say!
Supposing we _did_ write autobiography!"... Yes, if we did, what a
celestial rumpus there would be!
* * * * *
The carping at "The New Machiavelli" is naught. For myself I anticipated
for it a vast deal more carping than it has in fact occasioned. And I am
very content to observe a marked increase of generosity in the reception
of Mr. Wells's work. To me the welcome accorded to his best books has
always seemed to lack spontaneity, to be characterized by a mean
reluctance. And yet if there is a novelist writing to-day who by
generosity has deserved generosity, that novelist is H.G. Wells.
Astounding width of observation; a marvellously true perspective; an
extraordinary grasp of the real significance of innumerable phenomena
utterly diverse; profound emotional power; dazzling verbal skill: these
are qualities which Mr. Wells indubitably has. But the qualities which
consecrate these other qualities are his priceless and total sincerity,
and the splendid human generosity which colours that sincerity. What above
all else we want in this island of intellectual dishonesty is some one who
will tell us the truth "and chance it." H.G. Wells is pre-eminently that
man. He might have told us the truth with cynicism; he might have told it
meanly; he might have told it tediously--and he would still have been
invaluable. But it does just happen that he has combined a disconcerting
and entrancing candour with a warmth of generosity towards mankind and an
inspiring faith in mankind such as no other living writer, not even the
most sentimental, has surpassed. And yet in the immediate past we have
heard journalists pronouncing coldly: "This thing is not so bad." And we
have heard journalists asserting in tones of shocked reprehension: "This
thing is not free from faults!" Who the deuce said it was free from
faults? But where in fiction, ancient or modern, will you find another
philosophical picture of a whole epoch and society as brilliant and as
honest as "The New Machiavelli"? Well, I will tell you where you will find
it. You will find it in "Tono-Bungay." H.G. Wells is a bit of sheer luck
for England. Some countries don't know their luck. And as I do not believe
that England is worse than another, I will say that no country knows its
luck. However, as regards this particular bit, there are now some clear
signs of a growing perception.
* * * * *
The social and political questions raised in "The New Machiavelli" might
be discussed at length with great advantage. But this province is not
mine. Nor could the rightness or the wrongness of the hero's views and
acts affect the artistic value of the novel. On purely artistic grounds
the novel might be criticized in several ways unfavourably. But in my
opinion it has only one fault that to any appreciable extent impairs its
artistic worth. The politically-creative part, as distinguished from the
politically-shattering part, is not convincing. The hero's change of
party, and his popular success with the policy of the endowment of
motherhood are indeed strangely unconvincing--inconceivable to common
sense. Here the author's hand has trembled, and his persuasive power
forsaken him. Happily he recaptured it for the final catastrophe, which is
absolutely magnificent, a masterpiece of unforced poignant tragedy and
unsentimental tenderness.