Why is the modern American novel inferior to the modern English novel?
Of course, there are some patriotic critics who believe that it is not
inferior. But most readers of fiction speak of H. G. Wells and Compton
Mackenzie, for example, with a respect and admiration which they do not
extend to living American novelists.
Why is this? Is it because of snobbishness or literary colonialism on
the part of the American public? George Barr McCutcheon does not think
so. The author of _Beverly of Graustark_ and many another popular
romance believes that there is in America a force definitely harmful to
the novel. And that force is the magazine.
"The development of the magazine," he said to me, "has affected fiction
in two ways. It has made it cheap and yet expensive, if you know what I
mean.
"Novels written solely with the view to sensationalism are more than
likely to bring discredit, not upon the magazine, but upon the writer.
He gets his price, however, and the public gets its fiction.
"In my humble opinion, a writer should develop and complete his novel
without a thought of its value or suitability to serial purposes. He
should complete it to his own satisfaction--if that is possible--before
submitting it to either editor or publisher. They should not be
permitted to see it until it is in its complete form."
"But you yourself write serial stories, do you not?" I asked.
"I have never written a serial," answered Mr. McCutcheon. "Some of my
stories have been published serially, but they were not written as
serials.
"I am quite convinced in my own mind that if we undertake to analyze the
distinction between the first-class English writers of to-day and many
of our Americans, we will find that their superiority resolves itself
quite simply into the fact that they do not write their novels as
serials. In other words, they write a novel and not a series of
chapters, parts, and instalments."
"Do you think that the American novel will always be inferior to the
English novel?" I asked. "Is it not probable that the American novel
will so develop as to escape the effects of serialization?"
"There is no reason," Mr. McCutcheon replied, "why Americans should not
produce novels equal to those of the English, provided the same care is
exercised in the handling of their material, and that they make haste as
slowly as possible. Just so long, however, as we are menaced by the
perils of the serial our general output will remain inferior to that of
England.
"I do not mean to say that we have no writers in this country who are
the equals in every respect of the best of the English novelists. We
have some great men and women here, sincere, earnest workers who will
not be spoiled."
Mr. McCutcheon has no respect for the type of novel, increasingly
popular of late, in which the author devotes page after page to glowing
accounts of immorality with the avowed intention of teaching a high
moral lesson. He has little faith in the honesty of purpose of the
authors of works of this sort.
"The so-called sex novel," he said, "is one of our gravest fatalities. I
may be wrong, but I am inclined to think that most novels of that
character are written, not from an aesthetic point of view, but for the
somewhat laudable purpose of keeping the wolf from the door and at the
same time allowing the head of the family to ride in an automobile of
his own.
"The typical serial writer is animated by the desire, or perhaps it is
an obligation, to make the 'suspended interest' paramount to all else.
This interest must not be allowed to flag between instalments.
"The keen desire for thrills must be gratified at all costs. It is
commanded by the editor--and I do not say that the editor errs. His
public expects it in a serial. It must not be disappointed."
I asked Mr. McCutcheon if he believed that a writer could produce
sensational and poorly constructed fiction in order to make a living and
yet keep his talent unimpaired; if a writer was justified in writing
trash in order to gain leisure for serious work. He replied:
"There are writers to-day who persist in turning out what they
vaingloriously describe as 'stuff to meet the popular demand.' They
invariably or inevitably declare that some day they will 'be in a
position to write the sort of stuff they want to write.'
"These writers say, in defense of their position, that they are not even
trying to do their best work, that they are merely biding their time,
and that--some day! I very much doubt their sincerity, or, at any rate,
their capacity for self-analysis. I believe that when an author sets
himself down to write a book (I refer to any author of recognized
ability), he puts into that book the best that is in him at the time.
"It is impossible for a good, conscientious writer to work on a plane
lower than his best. Only hack writers can do such things.
"There is not one of us who does not do his best when he undertakes to
write his book. We only confess that we have not done our best when a
critic accuses us of pot-boiling, and so forth. Then we rise in our
pride and say, 'Oh, well, I can do better work than this, and they know
it.'
"It is true that we may not be doing the thing that we really want to
do, but I am convinced that we are unconsciously doing our best, just
the same. It all resolves itself into this statement--a good workman
cannot deliberately do a poor piece of work.
"I am free to confess that I have done my very best in everything I have
undertaken. It may fall short of excellence as viewed from even my own
viewpoint, but it is the best I know how to do.
"So you may take it from me that the writer who declares that he is
going to do something really worth while, just as soon as he gets
through doing the thing that the public expects him to do, is deceiving
himself and no one else. An author cannot stand still in his work. He
either progresses or retrogrades, and no man progresses except by means
of steady improvement. He cannot say, 'I will write a poor book this
year and a great book next year.'"
Mr. McCutcheon is so unashamedly a romanticist that I expected to find
him an enthusiastic partisan of the first and greatest master of the
romantic novel in English. But, to my surprise, he said:
"I suppose the world has outgrown Sir Walter Scott's novels. It is quite
natural that it should. The world is older and conditions have changed.
The fairest simile I can offer in explanation is that as man himself
grows older he loses, except in a too frequently elastic memory, his
interest in the things that moved him when he was a boy."
But while Mr. McCutcheon believes (in defiance of the opinion of the
publishers who continue to bring out, year by year, their countless new
editions of the Waverley Novels in all the languages of the civilized
world) that the spell of the Wizard of the North has waned, he
nevertheless believes that the romantic novel has lost none of its
ancient appeal.
"I do not believe," he said, "that the vogue of the romantic novel, or
tale (which is a better word for describing the sort of fiction covered
by this generic term), will ever die. The present war undoubtedly will
alter the trend of the modern romantic fiction, but it will not in
effect destroy it."
"How will it alter it?" I asked.
"Years most certainly will go by," he replied, "before the novelist may
even hope to contend with the realities of this great and most
unromantic conflict. Kings and courtiers are very ordinary, and, in some
cases, ignoble creatures in these days, and none of them appears to be
romantic.
"We find a good many villains among our erstwhile heroes, and a good
many heroes among our principal villains. People will not care to read
war novels for a good many years to come, but it is inevitable that
future generations will read even the lightest kind of fiction dealing
with this war, horrible though it is. Just so long as the world exists
there will be people who read nothing else but the red-blood, stirring
romantic stories.
"There exists, of course, a class of readers who will not be tempted by
the romantic, who will not even tolerate it, because they cannot
understand it. That class may increase, but so will its antithesis.
"I know a man who has read the Bible through five or six times, not
because he is of a religious turn of mind or even mildly devout, but
because there is a lot of good, sound, exciting romance in it! A man who
is without romance in his soul has no right to beget children, for he
cannot love them as they ought to be loved. They represent romance at
its best. He is, therefore, purely selfish in his possession of them."
Mr. McCutcheon had spoken of the probable effect of the war on the
popular taste for romantic fiction. I reminded him of William Dean
Howells's much-quoted statement, "War stops literature."
"War stops everything else," said Mr. McCutcheon, "so why not
literature? It stops everything, I amend, except bloodshed, horror, and
heartache.
"And when the war itself is stopped, you will find that literature will
be revived with farming and other innocent and productive industries. I
venture to say that some of the greatest literature the world has ever
known is being written to-day. Out of the history of this titanic
struggle will come the most profound literary expressions of all time,
and from men who to-day are unknown and unconsidered."
I asked Mr. McCutcheon if he did not believe that the youthful energy of
the United States was likely to make its citizens impatient of romance,
that quality being generally considered the exclusive property of
nations ancient in civilization. He did not think so.
"America," he said, "is essentially a romantic country, our great and
profound commercialism to the contrary notwithstanding. America was born
of adventure; its infancy was cradled in romance; it has grown up in
thrills. And while to-day it may not reflect romance as we are prone to
consider it, there still rests in America a wonderful treasure in the
shape of undeveloped possibilities.
"We are, first of all, an eager, zestful, imaginative people. We are
creatures of romance. We do two things exceedingly well--we dream and
we perform.
"Our dreams are of adventure, of risk, of chance, of impossibilities,
and of deeds that only the bold may conceive. And we find on waking from
these dreams that we have performed the deeds we dreamed of.
"The Old World looks upon us as braggarts. Perhaps we are, but we are
kindly, genial, smiling braggarts--and the braggart is, after all, our
truest romanticist.
"I like to hear a grown man admit that he still believes in fairies.
That sort of man thinks of the things that are beautiful, even though
they are invisible. And--if you stop to think about it--the most
beautiful things in the world are invisible."
_BUSINESS INCOMPATIBLE WITH ART_