BLOT ON MODERN NOVELS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1985, 16 February 1914, Page 2

BLOT ON MODERN NOVELS.

OLD LOVE STONY GOXK A note of seriousness, and, in some cases, of almost painful ovcr-scriousuvss distinguishes much oi' the best fiction of the winter (states a writor'iii "Current Opinion ,, ). It would seem that the jiovci is ceasing to be a Jove-story and is becoming daminantlv "a message." Of course there is tire sexual novel, fuit this, as Dorothea Gerard points out in an article in "The .Nineteenth Century," should not be confused with the love-story. "If anyone still doubts tluit love is going out of fashion," she writes, "a bird's-eye view of the book inarkot may help to convince him. Oneo mor& it is literally crowded with hooks which call themselves novels, but each of which is so burdened by ite 'message' and in such a hurry to deliver- it that' jnern human affections have got to take a second, and third—and sometimes ho place at all." The same writer continues: ' ' : •'Here we.have the enthusiastically national, the speculatiyely philosophical, the- sociatpoliticfli, the psycho-pathological, the 6omiscientiik novel; while the love-story, pure.-and'simple,' survives only m isolated specimens, and wil! at this rate soon bo as detinitely extind. as any pre-historic monster. In turns we are implored or admonished to change cither our politics or our creed, to "-fifdse obedience- to'our husbands,' while exacting none from oar children, to live the simple life, • or hobnob with our housemaids and coachmen, generally to rid ourselves of prejudices and turn our principles inside <>irt, being promised the-agreeable discovery thst—much as a turned petticoat—they will wear quite as well on the other side. But r,s for Komet' and JviSiet, Paul and Virginia, and all those other' men and women who were lovers first and everything else a long way aftevivar r ls*-scarcoly the men* tioh of their existence.' . Miss Gerard's remarks are in the- isature of a prelude to.a survey of Ger* man fiction, but they apply with equal force to the novels now being-Us-uecHn. England and America,