IS THE NOVEL PLAYED OUT?

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17419, 1 April 1922, Page 9

IS THE NOVEL PLAYED OUT?

A "LITERARY DEBATE. Miss Cicely Hamilton held, in a recent debate with Mr Hugh "Walpole, that tho novel was played out as a work Oi art. "The novel," she said, "was nowadays little more than a tract, and too easy as ji means of expression ; any form of art declined when it became too easy." Miss Sheila Kaye Smith has expressed a similar view. Various eminent writers have given their views to the> "Westminster Gazette,'' as follows: Mr John Galsworthy Writes: Talk of the novel being an outworn form comes liko the intluenza at irregular intervals. There are two points of approach to this question, but at either point the refutation is equally uncompromising. If you approach from the point of reader, tho novel (and in novel I'include long-short stories) fulfils a demand which cannot as well be satisfied by poem, play, or short story —that love, old as human nature, of listening to a long intimate tale. Roughly speaking, the play and the poem do not and cannot supply the intimacy which human nature demands. Outside the novel, Joiin Maseficid, in his long narrative poems, gets nearest to satisfying this particular craving; hence the popular success of those poems. But, <;ood and popular though they are, they are still handicapped in tuis matter of intimacy by a form which is not so fiuid and supple as that of prose narrative. Until life has completely deprived us of leisure and the power to sit still (which, of course, is quite on tho cards) the novel will remain from the reader's point of view the most popular and ciierishecl form of imaginative expression. If you approach from the point of the literary workman strictures on the novel 1 as a form really amount to a complaint that there are too many bad, slipshod, stupid novels written. To say that the novel has become ''too easy a means of expression" is simply the criticism of a person disgusted with bad novels, or of one who doesn't know how difficult it is to write a good one. And tc write a good novel now is more difficult than it ever was.

Speaking as one who lias worked in several forma of expression—and is far from having satisfied himself in any of them —I am deliberately of the opinion that the writing of a really good novel is more difficult, more important, more enligntening, and more refreshing to human society than the writing of a really good play or poem. And I base my conclusion on a "workman's" considerations : For, first, a novel is tho supplest, subtlest, widest, and leajjfc hampered medium of imaginative expression; and, secondly, just because of this, it demands of tiie workman tho acme of self-discipline, in order to achieve a really fine result.

Miss Olemenco Dane. In your recently received letter you asked me if I agreo with tho views expressed in two recent debates on the novel. With the view thai the novel is played out because it is too 6asy a moans of expression I most certainly do not agree, for the painful reason that I personally find novel-writing excessively difficult; but I must also confess that I cannot quite believe that the experienced writers whom you quote were entirely in earnest. I was not present at the debates, but I suspect that there was a twinkle in the oye of at least one of the coroners I My own belief is -that the novel will never be played out, simply because the true novel is primarily a tale that is told, and men and women are never ti'i of having tales told to them, from t - ys of Homer, on. Chapman's t. ' Lion of the Odyssey is One of tLu ...ost exciting novels, m content if not in form, that have ever been written. What else but a series of novels is the Arabian Nights? When wo are told that at the present day "the novel has become little more than a tract," does it mean more than that this or that particular writer, in. his preoccupation either with form or message, has forgotten to tell us the tale that hangs thereby, and so, ipso facto, has ceaseid to be a novelist at all?

When this particular form of art has produced no masterpiece for a round hundred years it will be time to wonder if it is played out; but—to pick up half a dozen precious stones at random —"Mr Polly," "Kim," "The Captives, "The Real Charlotte,;' "The Tower of Oblivion," "The Man of Property," have all been written in the last twenty years, and how long is it since "The Rescue" appeared P Isn't it a little previous to go into mourning for such a lively corpse? Mr Arnold Bennett. Ever since I began to v-rite novels I have heard that the novel was "played out.'' All such generalisations seem to me to be absurd, and more useful a 8 a vehicle ior facile epigram than us a contribution to the study of evolution in the arts. Mr Compton Mackenzie. It had never struck me that"" the novel was played out; but then, when-I look at the moon, it does not strike me that the moon is played out. ISO perhaps all art is played out, and only shines with the reflected light of criticism. Any form of expression is easy, from shouting through a megaphone to writing a novel. It is only when one tries to

shout as far as the summit of Mount xv> crest or to give life to u novel that expression becomes difficult. Women lm\o always found it easier to express tliemseh es than rnon. AVhen ono remembers that until comparatively recent times women were able to "faint at will, one apprehends how easy it must bo for a woman to write a novel, unfortunately, with the exception of Jane Austen, no woman has written n novel of tho first rank. t/'WutherinHeights" is not a novel.) Tho reason may bo that no woman can create masculine character.

However, I have really no business to be taking part in thi3 symposium, for I scarcely ever read a novel. I find most modern novels of repute so difficult to understand '.hat they bore mo. Miss Hamilton has suggested n cause. Evidently the modern novelist was beginning to find his novels so easy write that he has had to make them difficult to read. Yet deep water is usually tho clearest, whilst the shallowest puddles are Mime times turbid. The most difficult write are likely to be tho easiest tb read; and unlike Partridge when ho went to tho plav, I think less of an art that doo<not conceal itself. I nm not impressed bv nn actor's perspiration, nor does it, please mo to hear h fiddler screech demisemiquavers in tho hi?h treble. To-day tho intellectual novel and tho intellectual drama "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought .... their currents turn awry, and lose the namo of action."

But these discussions, if I may be forgiven tho discourtesy, strike mo as self-conscious and neurasthenic, I hnve only to spend a week in London to convince myself that it is folly to write another word on any subject in any form. Art suffers from facility of communications. That is really why it seems so easy. Novelists in London will read each other's books, and if possible write about them. That is really why the novel seems played out. Mr W. J. Locko. From primitive ages the story-teller has satisfied an inherent craving of humanity. He has done it in tho form of wild songs, sagas, drama, chansons do gestes —what you will—and novels. If his novel tells a story he can go 011 writing with public appreciation for all eternity; for the elemental instincts of the race are unchanging. But don't let it be forgotten tnat tho tolling of a good story is the most difficult thing in the world.

If the modern so-called novelist is such a ,vastly superior person as to despise story, he is—tvell—just a superior person, and wins his meed of praise from the lips or pens of persons even more superior than he. I have no doubt ho finds his work as easy as lying. Ho will also find it about ns profitable to mankind. I cannot believe that greet story* tellers like Mr Hugh Walpole and Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith find their work easy. For theirs is what Elizabeth Barrett drowning called "The sorrowful Great Gift." Professor George Saintsbury. "Greek" is nowadays almost as much a term of contempt as "Victorian." But perhaps the Greeks were not quite foolish when they said "To be good, is hard." Of course it is easy enough to write a bad or indifferent novel, anu not bo very hard to write one that will be tolerable for reading once. Something similar may be saia of every form of art. But no form of art, 'once in being, is ever "played out" ; though> for a time, it may bo only played by participially bad players. If Miss Hamilton means only that ours is such a time, I take no further hand in this game. General criticisms of contemporary art are always rash, generally wrong, and to nay taste rather ill-man-nered. But the novel has been, and therefore necessarily may.be again tho form of good and great art. If it attempts "a tract" it cannot possibly be good, for nothing can he fio when it attempts to be something other than itself. Miss May Sinclair. I see no grounds for supposing that the novel is "played out"—no grounds either in the stato of modern society or in the actual development of the novel at tho present moment. On the contrary, I lielievo that, so far from heing at an end, it is only just at its beginning (calculating by centuries). The novelist, if ho is not the creature of pure fantasy, must find his material m the life lived round about him. Social conditions, the conditions of the individual life, are more complex and varied now than they ever ■wetre: and the< more complex, tho more varied they are, the greater tho novelist's range and opportunity. Within the last docade we haire known what it is to live dangerously. Bloodcurdling adventure has been open even to women. The pacifio conditions, too, of women's lives have changed. There are more things they can. do. They have found new occupations, new interests, new ambitions. This might not be so important in itself, but every woman's case involves a possible man's case, a child's ease. This means that the human dossier is enormously extended. The number of problems, of situations, of motives for human con- . duct has multiplied to correspond with this increase in the, variety of living. And all this is clear gain to tho novelist. But it is very far from making the novel "to 0 easy a means of expression." Rather, it provides precisely that challenging difficulty which should prevent its decline: To say that the novel "is nowadays little more than a tract" is to ignore the whole tendency of the modern novel, which is steadily towards a ' deeper psychology, a more direct and closer contact with reality. The selfrespecting novelist no longer moralises his tale, no longer obtrudes his comments • he avoids explanation cr analysis. He does not dissect; he allows the living organism to explain itself, to pour out its own content. Do the novels of Mr Arnold Bennett, Mr Joseph Conrad, Mr Ford Madox Hueffer, and Mr B. H. Lawrence resemble tracts? To come to younger writers, do the novels of Mr Hugh Walpole, Mr Stacey Aumonier, Mr Frank Swinnorton, Mr W. L. George, Miss Rebecca West, Miss Sheila KaveSmith, Miss Rose Maeaulav, Mrs Virginia Woolf? Of the most modern of the moderns, Mis 3 Dorothy Richardson, Miss Katherine Mansfield, Mr Wyndham Lewis, Mr James Joyce—does anything they have ever written resemble a tract? Can you point to more than three or four novels in the front rank that do jesemble tracts, that aro not distinct! ished by their strict adherenco to feality ? Misw Bosa Macaulay. I am not quite clear as to whether the question at issue ib, will people stop writing novels, or will novels income worse, li it is trie former, 1 an? sui'o that there i 3 on lear (or hope) of this. As Miss Cicely Hamilton remarked, novel writing is an easy moans ol expression, anu, as such, will probably always be attractive to the simpleminded expiessor. It is more likoly that, before long, everyone will be writing novels. u signs aro at present evinced of any decline in the public demand for these curious wares, so that trade seems likely to remain brisk. If on the other hand, the question ii, will novels become much worse, I think that one might, without exaggeration, reply that this is impossible. ' „ , . Miss Ethel M. Dell desires to say, through her secretary, that she aover writes for symposiums.