[_20 April '11_]
I opened Mr. John Masefield's novel of modern London, "The Street of
To-day" (Dent and Co.), with much interest. But I found it very difficult
to read. This is a damning criticism; but what would you have? I found it
very difficult to read. It is very earnest, very sincere, very carefully
and generously done. But these qualities will not save it. Even its
intelligence, and its alert critical attitude towards life, will not save
it. I could say a great deal of good about it, and yet all that I could
say in its favour would not avail. It would certainly be better if it were
considerably shorter. I estimate that between fifty and a hundred pages of
small talk and miscellaneous observation could be safely removed from it
without impairing the coherence of the story. The amount of small talk
recorded is simply terrific. Not bad small talk! Heard in real life, it
would be reckoned rather good small talk! But artistically futile! Small
talk, and cleverer small talk than this, smothered and ruined a novel more
dramatic than this--I mean Mr. Zangwill's "The Master." I am convinced
that a novel ought to be dramatic--intellectually, spiritually, or
physically--and "The Street of To-day" is not dramatic. It is always about
to be dramatic and it never is. Chapter III, for instance, contains very
important material, essential to the tale, fundamental. But it is not
presented dramatically. It is presented in the form of a psychological
essay. Now Mr. Masefield's business as a novelist was to have invented
happenings for the presentment of the information contained in this essay.
He has saved himself a lot of trouble, but to my mind he has not yet come
to understand what a novel is.
* * * * *
His creative power is not yet mature. That is to say, he does not convince
the reader in the measure which one would expect from a writer of his
undoubted emotional faculty. And yet he is often guilty of carelessness in
corroborative detail--such carelessness as only a mighty tyrant over the
reader could afford. The story deals largely with journalism. And one of
the papers most frequently mentioned is "The Backwash." Now no paper could
possibly be called "The Backwash." It is conceivable that a paper might be
called "The Tip Top." It is just conceivable that a paper might be called
"Snip Snap." But "The Backwash," never! Mr. Masefield knows this as well
as anybody. The aim of his nomenclature was obviously satiric--an old
dodge which did very well in the loose Victorian days, but which is
excruciatingly out of place in a modern strictly realistic novel. A
trifle, you say! Not at all! Every time "The Backwash" is mentioned, the
reader thinks: "No paper called 'The Backwash' ever existed." And a fresh
break is made in Mr. Masefield's convincingness. A modern novelist may not
permit himself these freakish negligences. Another instance of the same
fault is the Christian name of Mrs. Bailey in "The New Machiavelli." It
was immensely clever of Mr. Wells to christen her "Altiora." But in so
doing he marred the extraordinary brilliance of his picture of her. If you
insist that I am talking about trifles, I can only insist that a work of
art is a series of trifles.
* * * * *
Mr. Masefield's style suffers in a singular manner. It is elaborate in
workmanship--perhaps to the point of an excessive self-consciousness. But
its virtue is constantly being undermined by inexactitudes which irritate
and produce doubt. For example:
"They entered the tube station. In the train they could not talk much.
Lionel kept his brain alert with surmise as to the character of the
passengers. Like Blake, a century before, he found 'marks of weakness,
marks of woe,' on each face there." Blake in the tube! Mr. Masefield will
produce a much better novel than "The Street of To-day."