A CLOSE SEASON FOR NOVELS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 562, 17 July 1909, Page 9

A CLOSE SEASON FOR NOVELS.

In an entertaining letter in a London I newspaper-Mr. ~E. F. Cooper the other day . recommended that novelists should cease to write for a year. On this the "Daily News comments:-— ' "We have forgotten the exact figures, though we try carefully to'record them every year.' But-we know for ft'fact, that every born Briton in these islands Tias the opportunity of reading large .number of new novels every'day of the,yoar,,v'Was it sixoofr f sixty in the last' year of grace? r .Anyhow/ ' it was enough jto superinduce acute dementia' if thb practice Vere persisted in for two" days running. Novels are sWod over, by novels, and, what is'woreey the readers are snowed over too, and the literary'.world'of-Gction presents a smooth, and indistinguishable os 7 panse. In large and'silent flakes day after day the novels fall, one 1 on'the , top of-tho othen They fall, ! -they 'are covered in turn, and where aTe the snows of yesteryear? , "Mr. Cooper makes a. bold proposal. Let the novels, he* cries, cease to fall, at all events for one year's space. For one< year lot there be peace and a blessed interval of silence. • Too long, he says,;has the novel been human nature's daily food. We are eated with it like children fed on cake. After a year's rest* wo might all go bagk to fiction with-a certain gusto, just as soldiers at the end of war's privations revel in y bread and butter. Think how many people would be involved in that blessed rest I Writers, pubilishers' advisers, publishers themselves, prin- \ ters, proof-readors, reviewers and finally the ' reading public' itself—for a whole year all tof them would enjoy such a resUure as Mr. Balfour never dreamed of. AH these months they might * slowly gather wisdom in tho peace that comes'dropping slow, and at tHo end they would confront the imaginary world on which they live with new zest, new cour-

age. » ' i "Being a practical man, Mr. Coopor has already consulted some of the leading novcl- ' ists of the day upon l his scheme. All without exception give the idoa a hearty welcome. Like the sailor in the iEgean storm, all long for'rest. After one year's pause we should very soon get back to our average of six or sixty "novels a day, and wo cannoiJdAubt the survivors would write,for us with all the keener force and intensity." Among other s comments which, have reached Mf. .Cooper is one from a writer whom man'y'peoplo would describe as tho greatest living European novelist, and who deprecates an author 'igiving any thought to transformations of the book-trade of which it is difficult to foresee Abe exact issue, i There can be no rule but to write when one feels inclined, and take the rough .with the smooth!" . , , i \ f Mr. Mostyn Pigott "drops into poetry" :— If this provision we might see In Statue-form distinctly stated,' , i That fiction-fakers all should be ' In Pen-tonville mk-arcorated, This twelvemonth would in such a case ' Bβ justly called a year of grace. ■ Mr. E. F. Benson desires obvious exceptions to Mr. Cooper's edict: "I think it would be an admirable thing," be says, "if nobody but oneself was ' allowed to write stones, not only fop .the year, but for every ' succeeding year. "■ I may also stato_ that this I Utopian state of things would furnish an adjnirable, opportunity of raising the price of these volumes, to some far higher figure. But I should abolish tho 7d. first." v - Mr. Gerald Duckworth,,.. the.,,.well-known publisher, emphasises the last point: "Novclwritors will find it much hardor to get thoir ' ' books published if the' *7d. novel 'succeeds; but that I do not believe possible. 'Of course there are mnny too many books pub- ' hshed, -and there should be a close time, so that booksellers and' publjshers could sell their old stuff. But would tho public buy?"